News Releases and Statements
News Releases and Statements
Joint efforts by the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, the U.S. Department of State, HSI and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York led to the voluntary return of three statues to Cambodia. All the statues will be on display to the public in the National Museum of Cambodia, reunited with their pedestals.
The painting, entitled "Composition abstraite [Abstract composition]" by Serge Poliakoff, once belonged to Brazilian banker Edemarcid Ferreira. He was the founder and former president of Banco Santos, and was convicted in Brazil of crimes against the national financial system and money laundering. In December 2006, Ferreira was sentenced in Brazil to 21 years in prison.
At a May 7 ceremony in New York, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York were commemorated by the Kingdom of Cambodia Deputy Prime Minister Dr. Sok An and other representative from the Cambodian government for the return of the Duryodhana, a 10th century sandstone sculpture. Cambodian and U.S. officials were joined at the ceremony was by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and L'École Française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO).
More than six decades after being removed during the Korean War, nine royal seals of the Korean Empire and Joseon Dynasty were repatriated Friday to Seoul, South Korea, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), coinciding with U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to that nation.
The 9-by-12 inch oil depicting Jesus ascending into heaven with the apostles kneeling below is painted on a wooden oval board and held in a silver and gold-plated frame.
Special agents with ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Friday seized an ancient Roman marble sarcophagus lid featuring a high-relief sculpture of a sleeping woman from convicted antiquities dealer Gianfranco Becchina.
Shortly before his death in 1768, Seekatz created the painting. In December 1879, the National Museum in Warsaw received the painting from the Warsaw School of Fine Arts. In 1909, the Warsaw museum had the painting erroneously identified and listed as "St. Phillip Baptizes the Ethiopian Eunuch" by Dutch painter J.C. Saft.
Susan McCormick, special agent in charge of HSI Tampa, A. Lee Bentley III, acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida, and Adolfo Barattolo, the consul general for the Italian Consulate in Miami, participated in the repatriation ceremony.
HSI Boston Special Agent in Charge Bruce Foucart and Thomas W. Lentz, director of Harvard Art Museums, concluded a ceremony Tuesday at Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., to mark the return of a $1.5 million jade censer stolen from the university more than 35 years ago.
ICE HSI returned three recovered sculptures, valued at more than $1.5 million, to the government of India Tuesday during a repatriation ceremony at the consulate in New York City. One of the objects -- a 350-pound sandstone sculpture stolen from an Indian temple in 2009 - was listed as one of INTERPOL's top 10 most wanted stolen works of art.
John Richard Rolater, 69, pleaded guilty to the charge and also agreed to surrender any and all contraband vertebrate fossils he has, which include the following fossils from China: a saber-toothed cat skull, a Feilongus fossil, an Anchiornis Huxleyi fossil and a Darwinopterus fossil.
This historical document was seized by ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents in Wilmington, Del., following an extensive investigation.
HSI New York will coordinate the return of this stolen 2nd century B.C. Bharhut Stupa Yaksi pillar sculpture, valued at approximately $15 million, to India.
The cultural artifacts were turned over to HSI special agents by the family of a deceased Marine lieutenant, who had served in the Korean War. The lieutenant had found the seals in 1950 in a ditch near the Deoksugung Palace, which had just been ransacked by Chinese and North Korean soldiers.
A Winter Park art gallery and owner were charged federally with obstruction of justice in connection with the importation of ancient Chinese artifacts that were interdicted at the Port of Miami.
Returning a nation's looted cultural heritage or stolen artwork protects the world's cultural heritage and knowledge of past civilizations. The Smithsonian Institution's Museum Conservation Institute provides HSI special agents with on-site training on how to handle, store, photograph and authenticate cultural property and works of art.
The vase is a 12.75-inch Roman oinochoe, or wine pitcher, from the 5th to 8th century A.D. Also returned were three 4-by-3.25-inch 5th century B.C. gold foil appliques depicting antelopes and two antique coiled gold ornaments from approximately the 17th century, weighing approximately one pound.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) returned a Hojo currency plate, looted from the Deoksu Palace in Seoul during the Korean War, to the government of South Korea during a repatriation ceremony.
A ceremonial sword, looted in 2003 from Saddam Hussein's personal office in Baghdad, was returned to the Republic of Iraq Monday by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
"Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Kabul assisted in the return of a late 19th century historic ""jezail"" rifle ammunition speed loader to the people of Afghanistan during a ceremony held June 2, at the Ministry of Information and Culture Rose Garden. "
The Department of Justice today restrained the 1909 Pablo Picasso painting ""Compotier et tasse"" in response to an official request by the government of Italy for assistance in connection with its ongoing criminal investigation and prosecution of Gabriella Amati.
A letter written by famous Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was one of eight documents returned to the Russian Federation during a repatriation ceremony Thursday by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) at the Spaso House, a neoclassical style mansion and residence of every U.S. ambassador to Russia since 1933, in Moscow, June 13.
Federal officials and representatives from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington announced the seizure of a long-lost diary kept by a close confidant of Adolph Hitler.
At a ceremony today at the Bulgarian Consulate in New York, ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) returned 546 ancient coins to Bulgarian Ambassador Elena Poptodorova.
In addition to a Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton previously forfeited to the United States and successfully repatriated by ICE to the Mongolian government May 6 by ICE Director John Morton, ICE has recovered additional dinosaur fossils the agency plans to return to the Government of Mongolia.
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