US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) returned 277 pre-Columbian objects to the Mexican consulate in Nogales, Arizona, in a repatriation ceremony on Tuesday Photo: courtesy of INAH
Ending two separate investigations of suspected smuggled Mexican artefacts, officials from the US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) returned 277 pre-Columbian objects to the Mexican consulate in Nogales, Arizona, in a repatriation ceremony on Tuesday.
The first, and largest, group of 267 items were first confiscated by Customs and Border Patrol in October 2012, from two Mexican citizens who entered the US at the Mariposa Port of Entry in Nogale. Archaeologists were then asked to examine the collection of arrowheads, tools, and small stone carvings, and they were dated as between 1,000 and 5,000 years old. The Mexican Institute for Anthropology and History estimated that the total value of the artefacts was roughly $124,000.