New York Man Gets 6 Months in Prison for Smuggling Egyptian Artifacts Into US
A New York man was sentenced Aug. 27 to six months in prison for "smuggling Egyptian antiquities" into the U.S., the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York announced. The defendant, Ashraf Omar Eldarir, pleaded guilty earlier this year to four counts of smuggling goods through John F. Kennedy International Airport.
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From April 2019 to January 2020, Eldarir smuggled the Egyptian artifacts into the U.S. by using "fake provenances to sell those artifacts at U.S.-based auction houses," the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Provenances are "documents reflecting the history of ownership and custody of artifacts, which are used to establish that the artifacts are genuine and that they were not illegally excavated or stolen."
In 2020, Eldarir returned from Egypt and falsely told CBP that he was carrying goods valued at $300, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Instead, he was carrying 590 artifacts, including "gold amulets from a funerary set and wooden tomb model figures with linen garments dating to approximately 1900 BCE."