May 22, 2013
News
Largest artifact recovery effort has Laredo link
By KGNS News
A huge collection of pre-Columbian artifacts is on its way back to Mexico.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials from El Paso, the Valley and Laredo assisted other federal authorities across the country in the huge recovery effort.
It includes more that 4,000 artifacts and historical pieces dating back centuries, some of them from the Aztec and Mayan era of Mexico, more than 1500 years ago, among the priceless pieces, statues, arrows, even an Aztec whistle.
It's the largest return of stolen artifacts in Mexico’s history.
ICE agents who are in charge of investigating art, and other artifacts, plundered abroad and smuggled into us, retrieved the antiquities in several US states and Mexico.
The prized artifacts were handed over at a ceremony in the Mexican consulate in El Paso.
The oldest pieces, 26 pre-Columbian pieces of pottery were seized in Montana.
Some dated back 1,500 years or more, according to archeologists.
