A grave-robbing group of ancient Egypt aficionados have been charged with smuggling 2000-year-old sarcophagus coffins – minus the mummies into the U.S. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
@WiL
Mousa “Morris” Khouli, the owner of Windsor Antiquities on E. 56th St., tried to dupe Customs officials by mislabeling the shipments of coffins and other artifacts as “antiques” and “wood panels,” according to an indictment unsealed in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Also charged are Salem Alshdaifat, who operated Holyland Numismatics in Michigan, and collector Joseph Lewis, of Virginia. Ayman Ramadan, an antiquity dealers from Dubai, UAE, is a fugitive.
A Greco-Roman sarcophagus, Egyptian funerary boats and limestone figures were seized from Lewis’s home in Chesterfield yesterday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
The other ancient coffins were recovered in 2009 at Port of Newark.
Agents recovered a sarcophagus in Khouli’s Brooklyn home, which he falsely claimed was part of his father’s collection and “that he had owned it for a long time,” court papers state.
Federal prosecutors say Khouli purchased that coffin from Ramadan in 2009 and are seeking the forfeiture of all the items so they can be returned to Egypt.
“Antiquities dealers and collectors are on notice that the smuggling of cultural patrimony will not be tolerated,” said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch.
ICE Special-Agent-in Charge James Hayes, Jr., called the investigation “ground-breaking.”
“It is the first time an alleged cultural property network has been dismantled within the United States,” Hayes said.
Khouli, 37, and Lewis, 54, will be arraigned Thursday in Brooklyn Federal Court. Alshdaifat was arraigned Wednesday in Detroit Federal Court.
