Mexican cultural artifacts — some dating back to 900 B.C. — were given back to the Mexican government Wednesday in Memphis.
Seven shipments of artifacts were stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the Port of Memphis between 2016-2021. In all, agents recovered 281 artifacts destined for addresses in California, South Carolina, and Florida.
“Customs and Border Protection will continue to use our border authority to identify, rescue, and return precious antiquities being smuggled by those who profit on the theft of another country’s historical and cultural property,” said Michael Neipert, CBP’s Area Port Director in Memphis.
The nine shipments of artifacts included Olmec statues, Olmec figures, tubular beads, a zoomorphic amulet, body adornments, bowls, earflares, a human head amulet, a temple effigy, prismatic blades, a basalt grinding stone, a tripod glass with lid, a hand grinding stone, flint projectile points, carved obsidian, clay anthropomorphic figurines, clay and stone earmuffs, a metallic ring string, a stone spindle, a clay winch, jars, sea snail shell fragments, a vase, and a copper rattle.
The artifacts were repatriated to Ambassador Carlos Giralt-Cabrales of the Consulate of Mexico in Little Rock. Special agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) participated in the event as they aided in the investigation through the agency’s Cultural Property, Art, Antiquities Program.