ICE Returns Illegally Imported Ancient Artifacts to Nigeria
Immigration and Customs Enforcement returned 11 stolen and looted cultural artifacts, including 10 Nok statues and one carved tusk, to the government of Nigeria. The items were seized by ICE special agents and CBP officers after the importers surrendered them. ICE cooperated with French authorities in the investigation. The artifacts were imported as “personal effects.”
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ICE special agents at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) first learned of the stolen Nok statues in April 2010 after receiving information from French customs officials. French authorities had detained a shipment of what they identified as Nok statues from Nigeria that were destined for the U.S., ICE said. French officials alerted ICE and CBP who met the shipments when they arrived in New York. The Chicago office of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations had also previously seized two Nok statues and a carved ivory tusk at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, ICE said.
After an investigation with assistance from French authorities, the Louvre in Paris, Interpol and the International Council of Museums, ICE special agents determined the Nok statues were in fact antiquities and not just handicrafts and personal effects, as was indicated on the import documents provided to U.S. authorities, ICE said.
Most historians and archaeologists agree that the Nok culture spanned a period of time between 1000 B.C. until its sudden disappearance sometime around 500 A.D.
Nigeria instituted laws to control the export of Nok statues as they posed a significant loss of cultural heritage from the country, ICE said. In 1979, the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments passed Decree N°77, terracottas, which states that only accredited agents in Nigeria may buy or sell antiquities. It also empowers Nigerian customs officials to detain any items that are found during export inspections that they believe to be cultural antiquities.