'Robbing from the cultural heritage of a nation': Feds return ancient Greek coins seized at O'Hare
In a nondescript Lombard office building, pieces of ancient Greek history were returned on Wednesday to their rightful owner.
"These coins are very important to our cultural heritage," a beaming Consul General Emmanuel Koubarakis said of the repatriation of 21 ancient coins turned over by the Chicago office of Homeland Security Investigations.
While the coins were small - some no bigger than a pinkie fingernail - the gesture was huge. Now, rather than sitting in some private collector's home, the coins can be displayed to residents and tourists in Greece, Koubarakis said.
The coins were discovered by Customs and Border Patrol agents when they were checking packages in 2000 at the International Mailing Facility at O'Hare International Airport.
A package marked "antique coins" made them suspicious. It turns out they weren't just antiques - they were antiquities.
They were sent from Austria. The coins had been bought in an auction.
Officials from Homeland Security Investigations and Customs and Border Patrol investigated the case.
It is not illegal to buy antiquities, said R. Sean Fitzgerald, special agent in charge of the Chicago Homeland Security office. But you must have the correct provenance for the items to prove they are not stolen or looted.
The coins may have been stolen from Greece, he said. Antiquities often are looted during times of turmoil, such as World War I and II, he said.
Illegal sales of antiquities is a multibillion-dollar industry, Fitzgerald said. He would not put a price on the 21 coins, other than to say they are worth thousands of dollars. He said prices could reach "astronomical" heights if sold on the black market.
All the coins in the case Wednesday are thousands of years old. At least one dates to around 500 B.C., when Greece was inventing democracy. Each coin has a different person engraved on it.
"They (traffickers) are robbing from the cultural heritage of a nation," Fitzgerald said.
He said the Chicago Homeland Security office has a unit dedicated to hunting down lost and stolen antiquities. It works with the State Department's Cultural Heritage Center and the Smithsonian Institution to train agents, as well as the FBI, Customs officers and prosecutors.
Since the person who shipped the coins is not being prosecuted, a judge ordered them forfeited. With that, the coins could be returned to Greece.
Some other coins from the shipment still are being held, Fitzgerald said.