Thursday, April 20, 2017

ICE Sends Roman Coins From Middle East To Italy Because Roman Means Italian?

While Customs rightly repatriated manuscripts back to Italy in a ceremony today in Boston, as CPO pointed out back in 2015, Roman coins from Middle Eastern mints are an entirely different matter.  Hopefully, someone in the Trump Administration will catch onto this example of ICE overreach. This is yet another situation where the importer appears to have had a viable defense to forfeiture, but the cost of legal services greatly exceeds the value of the subject coins.
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3 comments:

  1. Duncan FinchApril 21, 2017 at 1:19 AM

    Aside from the craziness of sending 4th century Roman bronze coins minted in Antioch or Alexandria to Italy because, "er, um, geez guys deese coins are Roman so dey must be Italian", we now have a situation in which a book that apparently was last proven to be in an Italian library IN 1824 gets sent back from Boston today. Can it be proven that EVERY SINGLE BOOK IN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, THE FOLGER LIBRARY, THE MORGAN LIBRARY, ETC.,LEFT THEIR COUNTRY OF ORIGIN LEGALLY OVER THE LAST TWO HUNDRED YEARS???? I must say this tells us more about ignorance and lack of rationality in the US than it does anything else.

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  2. Voz EarlApril 27, 2017 at 10:47 AM

    Off topic but this may be of interest:

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/04/26/presidential-executive-order-review-designations-under-antiquities-act

    J. Hoffman

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  3. Cultural Property ObserverApril 27, 2017 at 1:02 PM

    I was aware of that, but different issue. Relates to designations as to use of federal land as opposed to confiscations of private property.

    ReplyDelete

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