U.S. Steps Up Efforts to Stem the Flow of Contraband Artifacts

As archeologists announced the discovery last month of a spectacular find--dubbed the Peruvian King Tut--prosecutors in Los Angeles were working to keep artifacts from the same site off the black market.

The find, announced by the National Geographic Society, was the tomb of a warrior priest from a culture long predating the Incas, which was described as perhaps the most significant site in all of American archeology.

Federal authorities had already made a find of their own in raids this year on Southern California dealers and collectors: a huge cache of pre-Columbian artifacts, including some that the Peruvian government now says came from the celebrated site.

The two events--one announced with great fanfare, the other under investigation by a federal grand jury--underscore a development that has challenged U.S. law enforcement authorities, upset the domestic market for Latin American antiquities and added tension to international relations.

Growth of Smuggling

As interest in ancient American cultures has grown, so has the smuggling and illegal trading of artifacts ripped out of the history of Central and South America. The demand has been created by a voracious market in Europe, Japan and the United States, according to experts.

“These are part of our cultural patrimony,” said Horacio Bazoberry, first secretary of the Bolivian Embassy in Washington. “In the United States, the demand is very, very high. If you could see the economic situation in Bolivia, you can understand how smuggling can be a lucrative business.”

Seizures, mainly by agents of the U.S. Customs Service, have been infrequent but often spectacular:

--Agents seized a 14-pound gold monstrance stolen from a nunnery in a remote Columbian highland. Crafted in 1736 by goldsmiths for the king of Spain, the monstrance contains more than 1,500 precious stones and was appraised at $3 million. It was returned to Columbia last year, according to Customs Agent Gaston Wallace in Los Angeles.

--Agents posed as buyers interested in a 17th-Century emerald and gold jewelry set claimed to have been brought up from an uncharted wreck of a Spanish treasure ship off the coast of Panama. The unique jewelry was seized as smuggled contraband, and agents in Los Angeles are attempting to sort out its history.

--More than 800 textiles, many of them ceremonial shawls of continuing religious significance to an Indian people of Bolivia, were seized in February from a San Francisco warehouse. They are of differing ages, some dating from before the Spanish conquest, but all are considered sacred and play a part in religious ritual. The government of Bolivia claims many had been systematically stolen in recent years, with the assistance of native caretakers, and has demanded their return.

“These have a very deep significance for the Aymara culture,” said Bazoberry. Indians believe that without the protection of the textiles, evil comes to their community.

--In the Southern California case, 60 U.S. Customs Service agents searched eight homes and businesses of dealers and collectors in March, seizing more than 1,100 artifacts from 11 Latin American nations. A federal grand jury in Los Angeles has been looking into how the art objects entered the United States.

As in the case of the Bolivian textiles, federal prosecutors have refused to comment, saying the investigation is continuing.

But Peruvian Embassy officials say that some of the artifacts have been determined to be from the Sipan site, where the discovery of an intact tomb of a Moche warrior priest made international headlines last month. Peru will shortly claim the Moche items as part of its cultural patrimony, said Eugene Chang-Rodriguez, a cultural affairs official in the Peruvian Embassy in Washington.

“There is evidence that some of them are from the Sipan site,” Chang-Rodriguez said.

While archeologists called the find priceless, Chang-Rodriguez said that a single item recovered last year from thieves who had plundered a grave near the Sipan site was valued at $80,000.

“We are not as interested in the intrinsic value of the items, but their extrinsic value. These items are throwing light on pre-Inca civilizations,” Chang-Rodriguez said.

The interest is shared by all Latin American nations, a development that has led to more frequent and urgent demands for help in recovering artifacts.

A 1971 U.N. convention banning the transfer of cultural property has been signed by 54 nations. The United States signed it in 1983. While countries such as Italy and Turkey have sought to use its provisions, only Latin American countries have felt the need to negotiate separate bilateral agreements with the United States specifying the mechanics for reclaiming artifacts located here.

“We don’t want to have this country become a thieves’ haven or a pirates’ cove. We don’t want the United States to become a marketplace for stolen artifacts,” said Ely Maurer, a State Department adviser on cultural affairs. “It’s not ethically or morally right.”

Most Latin American countries, recognizing the severity of their losses, have moved to assert ownership over objects deemed part of their cultural heritage. Mexico was the first to negotiate a separate agreement with the United States in 1970.

That agreement began with discussions over updating a much older accord on stolen automobiles. “We complained about cars going to Mexico. They said why don’t you do something for us, in so many words,” said Frances Armstrong, a State Department official who has helped negotiate three bilateral treaties on the topic.

Led by the U.S. Customs Service, law enforcement agencies have also stepped up their efforts. The recent Southern California raids, which have recovered part of the Peruvian Moche treasure, represent the most extensive investigation of allegedly contraband pre-Columbian artifacts in 20 years on the West Coast, officials said.

While museum officials and scholars have generally hailed the trend, art dealers are not so enthusiastic. They have criticized Customs Service raids as overzealous and conducted by agents without the expertise to recognize what they are looking for. And current domestic law, based in large part on Latin American law, is a muddle, dealers complain.

Even artifacts long in the United States, properly imported and legally purchased in Latin America before national declarations of ownership, are today of questionable legal status, according to Douglas C. Ewing, president of the American Assn. of Dealers in Ancient, Oriental and Primitive Art.

“It is very difficult to buy and sell pre-Columbian art now because of the very muddy law and embarrassingly bad enforcement by Customs officials,” said Ewing, a New York dealer. “To maintain a legitimate trade, dealers must go to a place where it is considered honorable (such as Europe).”

U.S. Customs Service officials say that intercepting the illicit traffic is complicated by the specialized nature of the contraband and a close-knit and often secretive group of dealers and collectors. Agents often lack the expertise needed to recognize objects of value, forcing Customs to hire outside art experts.

“When you talk about fraud in a case like (the Southern California raids) it is pretty difficult to develop,” said Dennis Shintani, a Customs supervisor in Los Angeles. “The community is small, and most of them don’t like to talk.”

One simple tactic for smugglers is to declare the artifacts at low value, giving the impression they are cheap and recently manufactured, according to Charles Koczka, a recently retired New York agent and art specialist.

A New York art dealer who tried that approach was caught, accounting for the largest East Coast pre-Columbian seizure in 1981. Based on a tip that drugs were being smuggled, all luggage on the dealer’s flight from Columbia was searched. Instead of drugs, agents discovered three suitcases full of ancient artifacts, and after a search of the dealer’s apartment a total of $1.3 million in art was recovered and returned to the government of Peru.

According to Koczka, an art curator from Peru said the smuggler “had a better cross-section of our history of art than we do in Lima.”