By EFE
05 Feb 2024, 20:25 PM EST
The United States Government has returned to Mexico a clay pot created between the years 900 and 1521 in the north of that country, as reported this Monday by the Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
The repatriation took place in a ceremony attended by the Consul General of Mexico in Boston (Massachusetts), Alberto Fierro, and the CBP area director in Boston, Julio Caravia.
“CBP will not stand by while smugglers attempt to profit from the theft of other countries’ historical and cultural property,” Caravia declared, adding that this federal agency “will use its authority at the border to identify, recover and return these valuable antiquities to their home.” correct place”.
Michael Krol, a special agent for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in New England, described the piece as “an object beautifully created by a skilled craftsman more than 600 years ago.”
“Although the 600-year journey of this piece is unclear, what we do know is that the artifact’s future resting place will be at its home in Mexico,” Krol added.
CBP reported that in July 2016 the DHS investigations division received a request from Mexico, under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, in relation to property claimed as part of Mexican cultural heritage and illegally removed from that country.
Among those objects was the now-returned clay pot, which had been sold at a Skinner, Inc. auction in 2011. The pot’s buyer turned the item over to DHS agents, and the Consulate General of Mexico in Boston requested the return.
Krol said the antiquities trade is “a multibillion-dollar industry in which cultural artifacts are often looted or stolen and sold for personal gain.”
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