Chile has returned 117 archaeological pieces to Morocco, which were seized by Customs in San Antonio and Santiago Airport, the National Customs Service reported on Tuesday (14.05.2024).
The first seizure occurred in 2017 When the inspector of the San Antonio Customs, Ximena Cartagena, was inspecting a load that was entering the Port of San Antonio, an agency that realized that what was declared as “decorations” were in fact paleontological pieces of heritage value.
Later, in the years 2018 and 2022, the official Ximena Oyarzún and the official Jorge Mercado, from the Metropolitan Customs, found themselves in a similar situation with objects that they presumed to be valuable, this time in the Travelers and Courier sectors of the Santiago International Airport.
This is the story of 117 archaeological pieces that were returned to Morocco after extensive research carried out by Customs, the National Monuments Council, the National Cultural Heritage Service, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco in Chile.
El Deputy Director of Inspection of the National Customs Service, José Luis Castro, commented that “this is the end of a journey that gives us enormous satisfaction. It was our inspectors from San Antonio and Santiago who had the ability to find out that among the loads they were inspecting there were elements of heritage value, they raised the alarm and allowed the inter-institutional work that today ends with the return of these pieces to the Kingdom of Morocco. Historically, the work of Customs has always been linked to tax collection. Today, it is much more than that: we work hard to secure borders, preventing the entry of illicit substances and products, but also protecting countries from the illicit trafficking of valuable heritage pieces for the countries.”
La Director of the National Cultural Heritage Service, Nélida Pozo Kudo, He said that “we are happy and proud to carry out this restitution of paleontological objects that were confiscated a few years ago from tourists who brought them from the Kingdom of Morocco to Chile. These objects are very important for culture and after a process of analysis we were able to make the return (…) I would like to thank the Illicit Trafficking Board, the officials of the Monuments Council and all the public bodies that have made this important act of justice and restitution of the paleontological objects to the Kingdom of Morocco possible.”
The expert reports and investigations carried out by the National Monuments Council in recent years indicate that some of the fossil pieces date back up to 400 million years. Once this stage was completed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was informed in order to inform the Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco in Chile about this situation.
During the process of expert appraisal and diplomatic consultations, the fossils were safeguarded with the appropriate conservation measures in the Paleontology Repository of the National Monuments Council.
The return of these cultural assets underlines the importance of international cooperation and is part of the shared commitment of Chile and Morocco to the protection of cultural heritage and the prevention of illicit trafficking, the same source stressed.
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