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Spain Returns Smuggled Artifacts to Colombia

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

MADRID, SPAIN—Colombia has received nearly 700 artifacts, including pre-Columbian pottery, funeral urns, ocarinas, necklaces, and stamps that were seized by Spanish police 11 years ago and placed in the Museum of America in Madrid, where they were cataloged and identified. The objects had been smuggled out of South America by a man accused of laundering money for the drug cartels. “We have repatriated a museum which was abroad and which returns to Colombia to strengthen the historic identity of the country,” Jorge Fernando Perdomo, Colombia’s deputy attorney general, told Hispanic Business. He also thanked the Spanish government for the police work involved in the case. 

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