Hobby Lobby Stores have agreed to pay a $3 million federal fine and forfeit thousands of ancient Iraqi artifacts smuggled from the Middle East that the government alleges were intentionally mis-labled, according to the Federal prosecutors say .
Prosecutors filed a civil complaint in New York last week in which Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby consented to the fine and forfeiture of thousands of tablets and bricks written in cuneiform, one of the earliest systems of writing, as well as other artifacts that prosecutors say were shipped without proper documentation.
Hobby Lobby executed an agreement to purchase over 5,500 artifacts in December 2010 for $1.6 million. Prosecutors say acquisition of the artifacts “was fraught with red flags” and that packages bore shipping labels that described their contents as “ceramic tiles.” […Read More]