Alleged Antiquities Smugglers Busted
Homeland Security officials said Thursday they have broken up an antiquities-smuggling ring that illegally shipped Egyptian artifacts to the U.S., including a sarcophagus dating as far back as the 7th century B.C.
A Manhattan Art & Antique Center vendor booth believed to belong to Mousa Khouli, who was charged with smuggling Egyptian antiquities.
It was the first bust of an alleged cultural-property smuggling network inside the U.S., according to U.S. officials.
In an indictment filed in early May and released Thursday, federal prosecutors charged four men with smuggling ancient artifacts between October 2008 and November 2009, as well as with money laundering.
“This is one of the largest and most-significant cases of antiquities smuggling in recent memory,” Egypt’s minister of antiquities, Zahi Hawaas, said in a written statement. Mr. Hawaas provided experts to help U.S. officials authenticate the artifacts.
The indictment alleges that Joseph Lewis, a New York collector of Egyptian antiquities, conspired with three antiquities dealers—two in the U.S. and one in Dubai—to ship to the U.S. various items, including two sarcophagi, Egyptian boats, limestone figures, and thousands of ancient coins. The collection is estimated to be worth about $2.5 million, officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.
“Joe Lewis is innocent and we look forward to his vindication in court,” said one of Mr. Lewis’s lawyers, Peter Chavkin of Mintz Levin. He said Mr. Lewis pleaded not guilty Thursday and was released.
Also indicted were Mousa Khouli, who ran Windsor Antiquities in New York, and Salem Alshdaifat, who operated a Michigan-based ancient-coin dealership. A third dealer, Dubai-based Ayman Ramadan, is a fugitive, according to the indictment.
One of Mr. Khouli’s lawyers, Ross Kramer, said his client pleaded not guilty Thursday and was released. A lawyer for Mr. Alshdaifat declined to comment on the allegations.
“It’s a breakthrough case, eye-opening for us,” said James T. Hayes, special agent in charge of the customs service’s Homeland Security Investigations unit in New York, which handled the investigation. “We had not yet seen a for-profit network” dedicated to smuggling antiquities, he said. Customs agents said they seized the last of the pieces at Mr. Lewis’s house New York on Wednesday.
The provenance of the items is unclear and customs agents are still investigating. Mr. Hayes said trafficked antiquities usually have been looted or stolen from their rightful owners. The indictment calls for forfeiture of the antiquities in the case of conviction, which means the items would go to the U.S. government until the rightful owner is identified.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stumbled onto the alleged smuggling network while investigating a different artifact that had been offered for sale online, according to Mr. Hayes.
According to the indictment, Mr. Khouli purchased antiquities from Messrs. Alshdaifat and Ramadan using funds from Mr. Lewis. Mr. Khouli provided fake provenance for the items, saying that they were part of his father’s collection, according to the indictment.
The men then allegedly arranged to ship the pieces from Dubai to the U.S. through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and the Port of Newark, in New Jersey, falsely describing the goods on customs forms as “wood panels” and “wooden painted box.” At one point, the men allegedly cut a wooden sarcophagus into several pieces so it could be shipped in smaller containers, and hid other Egyptian antiquities inside a container of furniture shipped from Dubai.
The sliced-up wooden sarcophagus dates from roughly the 26th Dynasty of ancient Egypt, the last ruling dynasty before the Persian conquest in 550 B.C., and consists of three smaller nesting sarcophagi bearing the name Shesepamutayesher and the title “Lady of the House.”
That title, equivalent to “married woman,” was never used by royalty, meaning she was “probably the wife of a middle-ranking official or priest,” said Aidan Dodson, a professor of archaeology at the University of Bristol in the U.K. and an expert on Egyptian royal lines. online.wsj.com