A California man was sentenced to three months in federal prison today for illegally importing a 2,000-pound ancient floor mosaic from Syria to the US.
Judge George W. Hu of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California gave the sentence to 57-year-old Mohamad Yassin Alcharihi. Judge Hu also granted the government’s application for a preliminary order of forfeiture for the 15-foot-long, 8-foot-tall Roman mosaic.
The sentence occurs more than a year after a five-day trial in June 2023, in which a jury found Alcharihi guilty of one count of entry of falsely classified goods. The charge carried a statutory maximum sentence of two years in federal prison.
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“It is unusual for smugglers of antiquities from the Middle East to be caught and prosecutions of such smugglers are rare,” United States Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles spokesman Ciaran McEvoy told ARTnews in an email statement. “We hope today’s sentence will show antiquities dealers, smugglers, the museum community, and the general public that there are consequences—including prison time—for these crimes.”
The mosaic, estimated to be 2,000 years old, depicts a story from ancient Greek and Roman mythology. It depicts Hercules rescuing Prometheus after the god of fire had been chained to a rock by his fellow deities for stealing the element for humanity.
According to a press release, Alcharihi illegally imported the Roman mosaic in August 2015 after paying $12,000, but lied to his customs broker about the item. Per the release, he said he was “importing ceramic tiles from Turkey valued at less than $600.”
An X-ray image of the large metal shipping container used to transport the mosaic, taken by US Customs and Border Protection, showed that the large and heavy Roman artifact was carefully hidden at the front of the container, away from the rear access doors, behind a pile of vases.
The mosaic arrived at the Port of Long Beach as part of a shipment from Turkey. After it passed through customs, it was shipped by truck to Alcharihi’s home.
In addition to the purchase cost, Alcharihi paid $40,000 for restoration services, had it valued by an antiquity dealer for $100,000 to $200,000, and then emailed the Getty about a possible sale, according to USC Annenberg Media’s Justice Reporting Project. A government appraisal expert later valued the mosaic at $450,000.
Federal agents searched Alcharihi’s home in March 2016, finding the mosaic in the garage. During the search, Alcharihi admitted to agents about lying about the object’s financial and cultural significance, according to court documents. After the mosaic was seized, it was transferred to a secure facility in Los Angeles, where is has been stored for the past eight years.
One expert told ARTnews the three-month prison sentence wasn’t a surprise due the mosaic’s modest financial value, rather than its size, weight, age or historical value. “Under US sentencing guidelines, the valuations are what determine the amount of time in prison,” said Robert Wittman, the former senior investigator of the FBI’s rapid deployment Art Crime Team. “Whether it’s a 50 year old diamond ring worth half a million dollars or a 2000-year-old antiquity, it doesn’t matter. It’s considered property.”
“It’s all based on a point structure,” Wittman said. “When you break it all down, it was just he lied to the government when he made false declarations to customs.”
The press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California noted that Alcharihi’s false classification of the mosaic “occurred months after the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution condemning the destruction of cultural heritage in Syria, particularly by the terrorist organizations Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Al-Nusrah Front.”
The FBI’s Art Crime Team and Homeland Security Investigations investigated this matter.
The fate of the mosaic post-sentencing is still in the air. The LA Press Office of the FBI acknowledged to ARTnews there are appeals pending in the Alcharihi case, but a spokesperson was unable to comment on the case or what would happen to the Roman artifact.
Another future option for the mosaic is being used in as a piece of diplomacy with Syria for a type of treaty or a negotiation. “That works to the advantage of the United States to be magnanimous and return material that belongs to their country, their antiquities,” Wittman said.
However, even if there were the possibility of a repatriation process, the looting of museums, warehouses, and archaeological sites in Syria has been an ongoing issue.
Update, August 30, 2024: Added comments from Robert Wittman, the former senior investigator of the FBI’s rapid deployment Art Crime Team.
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