Five years ago, an Egyptian doctor was arrested for importing hundreds of artifacts into the United States without declaring customs forms and has been sentenced to six months in prison by a federal court judge.
On August 27, U.S. District Court Judge Rachel P. Kovner ruled Ashraf Omar Eldarir after an investigation reclaimed more than 600 Egyptian artifacts and recovered more than 600 Egyptian artifacts after flying from Cairo to Kennedy International Airport in the United States in 2019 and early 2020.
The artifacts include multi-dyed reliefs; an ancient Roman limestone stele later sold for $1,000 at auction; and a Roman Limstone later sold for $1,300 at auction.
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In early February this year, Eldarir pleaded guilty to four counts of smuggling Egyptian artifacts.
“On every flight in 2019, Mr. Eldarir brought a single flark in his suitcase; in the 2020 flight, he brought about 590 pieces of workpieces in three check-in kits,” said a document filed by Assistant Federal defenders Kannan Sundaram and Jullian Harris-Calvin.
On the January 2020 flight, Eldarir announced that he would carry $300 worth of goods customs and border patrol personnel. U.S. official Joseph Nocella Jr.
“When the package was opened, scattered sand and dirt spilled out of the packaging, indicating that the workpiece was recently excavated,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a press release in the eastern New York area. “Of the items recovered by law enforcement officers are golden amulets and wooden grave models from funeral suits, with linen clothing dating back to about 1900 B.C.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office also called Eldarir a “prolific” trafficker of ancient Egyptian artifacts, noting that Eldarir smuggled to the United States four times, using fake proofs to sell the artifacts at auction houses in the United States.
These false evidence includes “multiple documents, including decades-old Egyptian blank pages with watermarks, decades-old Egyptian loose stamps and multiple photos of black and white older people to depict the defendant’s ancestors, to depict his several defendants showing his office in his office and his own in London photoshopshopped and aging.
“The defendant plundered Egypt’s cultural treasures and lied to us, and as part of the deception network, he spun his religious beliefs and filled with cash in an illegal identity.” “Those who steal cultural treasures from other countries and smuggle them to the United States should know that they will be responsible for their crimes. We praise our HSI and CBP partners for their diligent and important work in this case and look forward to the restoration of the recovered antiquities to Egypt.”
The news of imprisonment was first reported national.
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