'Tomb-raiding' smuggler gets prison for looting ancient relics from Egypt
- - 'Tomb-raiding' smuggler gets prison for looting ancient relics from Egypt
Michael Loria, USA TODAY August 29, 2025 at 12:54 PM
NEW YORK CITY — A man who worked with tomb raiders was sentenced to prison for smuggling hundreds of ancient relics looted from crypts in Egypt, including sculptures from 1900 BCE and the carving of a king taken from a royal temple, federal prosecutors said.
Ashraf Omar Eldarir, 52, got six months in federal prison after pleading guilty to four counts of smuggling. A naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Egypt, Eldarir’s legal saga began when he was caught at JFK Airport in February 2020 with nearly 600 ancient artifacts wrapped in bubble wrap in his three suitcases.
The artifacts were so fresh out of the ground that prosecutors said that they still smelled of soil. Eldarir worked directly with tomb raiders in Egypt to get the artifacts, according to court papers.
Robbers sent him videos of the objects from the grave sites "as if it were K-Mart and here’s your pick to choose from," William Campos, the assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in court.
Judge Rachel P. Kovner did not levy a fine because of Eldarir’s financial circumstances. The Egyptian government seized his assets and froze his bank accounts. But the Eastern District acknowledged the highly orchestrated nature of Eldarir’s scheme.
"This is a serious crime that was going on in a pretty blatant way," said Kovner in handing down Eldarir's sentence over the smuggled antiquities. "Cell phone evidence indicates they were fresh from the ground; he was marking which ones he wanted, which ones not with an 'X'; and making up the provenance."
Eldarir had told U.S. Customs and Border Protection that his luggage was worth about $300. Appraisers valued the goods at about $82,000, court filings show. Law enforcement later connected him with three other instances of smuggling in April, June, and November 2019.
Eldarir consigned antiquities, according to court papers, to the following auction houses in New York City: Palmyra Heritage, Arte Primitivo, and Christie’s.
Prosecutors say Eldarir used photo editing software to create the forged documents and make them appear old. He also provided the auction houses with photocopies of the forged provenance papers in order to avoid close scrutiny of the original sham papers, prosecutors say in court filings.
Not providing the original provenance document is considered unusual in the art world but the objects were accepted regardless, court filings show.
Palmyra did not respond to requests for comment. Arte Primitivo and Christie’s declined to comment.
An ancient Egyptian polychrome artifact that Ashraf Omar Eldarir pleaded guilty to smuggling on April 18, 2019. Eldarir sold it through Palmyra Heritage Gallery for $3,810.'I ask her soul for forgiveness': Defendant speaks in court
In court, the father of three took responsibility and asked forgiveness from his family, including his wife in court and his mother who passed away shortly after hearing about the case against him.
"I ask her soul for forgiveness because she couldn't bear the news," Eldarir said in court.
Eldarir has been posing as the purveyor of a massive antiquities collection belonging to his grandfather for years, prosecutors said.
Between 2011 and 2019, he sold around 500 objects as antiquities on consignment, earning him over $600,000, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The Egypt native dealt them to NYC auction houses using the same sham documents that he used for objects he pleaded guilty to smuggling.
The false provenance papers stated the objects belonged to his grandfather and were taken out of Egypt before 1948, when it was still legal, court papers say.
"This is not some case of Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread," Campos told the judge in asking for a higher sentence. "This is the case of a longtime trafficker."
Prosecutors did not charge him with smuggling the earlier objects. Eldarir’s defense attorney suggested that frauds were among them, another prevalent issue in the trade.
Eldarir’s attorneys declined to comment.
Egyptian authorities did not respond to requests for comment. The objects have not yet been returned to Egypt, attorneys said in court.
An artifact that Ashraf Omar Eldarir sold on consignment as an Egyptian antiquity.How often does this happen?
According to data the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s New York Office shared with USA TODAY, authorities regularly encounter people attempting to bring antiquities into the region.
"Safeguarding cultural heritage is an often-overlooked yet important aspect of border security, as smugglers frequently exploit similar vulnerabilities to transport stolen artifacts alongside other illicit goods," said Francis J. Russo, director of the CBP's New York Field Office. "Every day, our officers work tirelessly to protect both our security and the cultural heritage of nations worldwide, and while doing so, uncover other sophisticated smuggling plots."
Data shared with USA TODAY showed that agents have recovered 558 objects across 16 incidents so far in fiscal year 2025; 50 objects across 15 incidents in fiscal year 2024; and 603 objects across 20 encounters in the preceding year.
The objects, according to CBP, came from the following countries: Cyprus, Denmark, Hong Kong, Morocco, Pakistan, Spain, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.
A terracotta Isis Aphrodite figurine that Ashraf Omar Eldarir sold on consignment for $2,000.What to know about antiquities trafficking
Eldarir’s sentence at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn comes amid a major upheaval in the art world over whether ancient artifacts should be put up for sale at all. Critics say the practice incentivizes tomb raiders to loot ancient archeological sites and that the objects belong in their countries of origin.
Prosecutors have begun aggressively tackling the issue in recent years. On the other side of the East River, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office regularly announces the successes of its Antiquities Trafficking Unit, including returning 11 antiquities to Egypt in May. The objects are part of the seizure of a group of 135 antiquities valued at $58 million, according to the district attorney’s office.
The millions of dollars some objects fetch however pales alongside the destruction wrought by looting them, according to Christos Tsirogiannis, who has plied a doctorate degree in forensic archaeology from Cambridge University into becoming one of the art world’s lead investigators of stolen antiquities.
"It’s about the complete and almost irreversible loss of our history," said Tsirogiannis, who at Ionian University on the Greek island of Corfu heads a group combating illicit antiquities trafficking. "It doesn't matter if the object's made with gold, platinum or filled with diamonds. This fascinating, unique object will have nothing to tell us about who we are and who we came from and what that means for our civilization."
An ancient Roman limestone head that Ashraf Omar Eldarir pleaded guilty to smuggling in through JFK Airport on Nov. 6, 2019. The object sold $1,200 at auction.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Tomb-raiding' smuggler gets prison for looting relics from Egypt
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