Peru Artifacts Seized in Raids Are Going Home

In a show of force and moral resolve, U.S. Customs officers on Friday delivered a load of Peruvian artifacts valued at $1 million to Los Angeles International Airport for return to Peru. Six large crates containing 123 ceramic, stone, fiber and metal objects were to be flown Friday night to Lima and received by Alan Garcia, president of Peru.

All the objects were seized March 30, 1988, in customs raids on eight Southern California dealers and collectors. The raids yielded about 1,300 objects, but fewer than 10% of the artifacts have been designated for repatriation after 18 months of delays, investigations and two trials.

Among the most valuable pieces in the shipment--some of which were unpacked and displayed during a Friday press conference--are a ceremonial pair of Moche Indian ear spools made of gold, with inlaid turquoise and shell, and a unique ceramic sculpture known as “Suicide Man,” which depicts a man slitting his own throat.

These two objects and a few others are thought to have come from Sipan, the site of an important archeological dig in northern Peru that has been compared to King Tut’s tomb in Egypt. Looters discovered a rich tomb in Sipan late in 1986, and archeologists subsequently have located other graves nearby.

Some of the rare pre-Columbian artifacts were inspected at the airport by George C. Roberts, a Los Angeles businessman and representative of Peru who was to travel to Lima with the shipment.

“These are too valuable to be in private collections,” Roberts said excitedly, as he unwrapped a carved stone drinking cup, a cat effigy and some “stirrup cups,” ceramic sculptures of human or animal forms whose curved handles resemble equestrian stirrups.

“We are proud of the part U.S. Customs has been able to play in returning such important artifacts to Peru, where they rightfully belong,” said customs spokesman Joseph Charles, reading from a prepared statement issued by Carol Hallet, U.S. commissioner of customs.

He said the action “should send a strong message to collectors of illegal archeological remnants, wherever they may be, that smuggling of stolen artifacts will not be tolerated in the United States.”

Return of the 123 objects is a symbolic victory for an impoverished country whose cultural patrimony has been plundered for hundreds of years. Repatriation has become a cause celebre since the Sipan looting.

The customs raids were the culmination of extensive detective work focusing on Southern California dealers and collectors suspected of being involved in an international smuggling ring. Customs officers seized about 500 objects from Santa Barbara dealer David Swetnam and about 330 pieces from Benjamin Johnson, a retired conservator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, who lives in Santa Monica and maintains a large art collection.

Smaller numbers of artifacts were seized from Santa Monica dealer Larry Wendt and collectors Orman K. Gaspar of Montecito; George H. Gelsebach, Encino; Ronald T. Stanman, Los Angeles; Charles Craig, Santa Barbara, and Murray Gell-Mann, a Caltech professor who won a Nobel Prize for physics in 1969 and lives in Pasadena.

Most of the objects to be returned to Peru were forfeited after the raids; a few are being repatriated as the result of legal proceedings.

Only Swetnam and Johnson have gone to trial.

Swetnam was convicted of fraudulent customs declarations and is currently serving a six-month sentence at the federal prison camp in Boron, Calif., but he only had to give up nine items.

Johnson was sued civilly by Peru in a U.S. court for the return of objects found in his possession. But U.S. District Judge William P. Gray ruled that Peru failed to prove that the pieces seized from Johnson had actually come from Peru and that they had been exported after 1929, the effective date of a Peruvian law claiming that the government owns all Peruvian pre-Columbian artifacts. All of the objects seized from Johnson were then returned to him.

Peru planned to appeal the Johnson case, but that appeal was denied Thursday, Roberts said. As a result, Peru will initiate extradition procedures for Swetnam, Johnson and others involved in the raids, Roberts said.

Roberts estimated that about $50 million worth of Peruvian artifacts were returned to the U.S. owners from the customs raids and are currently on the market.

“But this repatriation is the beginning of a whole new era,” he said.