NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – A Brooklyn man admitted to smuggling over 500 Egyptian artifacts into New York City in 2020, with some still smelling of earth when officers opened his sandy suitcases, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Ashraf Omar Eldarir, 52, of Brooklyn, pleaded guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court on Monday to smuggling artifacts in four separate incidents between 2019 and 2020.
“These cultural treasures traveled across centuries and millennia, only to end up unceremoniously stuffed in a dirt-caked suitcase at JFK,” Richard P. Donoghue, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said when Eldarir was first indicted.
His smuggling operation came to an end on Jan. 22, 2020, when Eldarir, a naturalized U.S. citizen, arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport with three suitcases, according to court documents.
He had falsely declared that he was carrying goods valued at just $300. When U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers inspected the bags, they discovered 590 Egyptian artifacts wrapped in bubble wrap and foam, prosecutors said. Agents noted that when the wrapping was opened, “loose sand and dirt spilled out,” and some artifacts even smelled of wet earth, indicating they had been recently excavated.
Among the smuggled artifacts were a gold amulet, wooden tomb model figures dating back to nearly 1900 BCE, and two Roman funerary stelae, prosecutors said. Eldarir did not possess the required documentation from Egypt authorizing their export.
According to court documents, this was not Eldarir’s first time. In 2019, he had previously smuggled artifacts into the country and tried to work with art dealers, fabricating stories to sell them.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 12.