A Palmdale man was charged Friday with illegally importing a mosaic believed to be nearly 2,000 years old and taken from war-torn Syria, officials said.
Mohamad Yassin Alcharihi, 53, was named in an indictment that charges him with one count of entry of goods falsely classified, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The indictment also alleges that he misrepresented the quality of the mosaic and what the artwork depicted.
Alcharihi is accused of smuggling the art piece through the Port of Long Beach in 2015 and allegedly claiming he was importing a mosaic and other items, including 81 vases, into the U.S. from Turkey, valued at $2,199. The ancient artwork was worth much more, officials said.
In 2018, federals officials said they were working to determine its true value, but that estimates are much higher than even the $12,000 Alcharihi later admitted to paying for it.
The FBI seized the piece in March 2016 after agents interviewed two men who had done restoration work on it. The government is now pursuing forfeiture of the artwork, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Friday.
The mosaic, which is 18 feet long and weighs one ton, depicts the Roman god Hercules and other figures from Roman mythology and is dated to the 3rd or 4th century, when modern Syria was part of the Roman Empire.
In 2018, prosecutors said the case was part of an investigation into the “smuggling [of] looted items believed to be from a foreign conflict area into the United States.” Syria has been targeted with the pillaging of cultural property since turmoil began in the country in 2011.
Investigators found an email Alcharihi received that claimed the piece was unearthed from a destructed historical building in Idlib, a northern Syrian city where several ancient civilizations thrived. The same message said it depicts Zeus, Hercules and Aphrodite, “telling a story of releasing Zeus from prison after he was captured in a war by his enemies.”
The piece was then evaluated by an expert, who determined it “was an authentic mosaic from the Byzantine Period depicting Roman mythology, and was consistent with the iconography of mosaics found in Syria, in particular in and around the city of Idlib, Syria,” court documents show.
Alcharihi will receive a summons to appear for an arraignment, which will likely take place next month, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
