Customs agents retrieve Mexican artifact being shipped from Indiana

CHICAGO | Customs agents working at O'Hare Airport recently intercepted a rare, miniature Pre-Columbian artifact being shipped out of the country from Indiana.

On April 12, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers examined a small shipment manifested as containing an artifact. Investigators learned the 4-inch, orange figurine of a woman was found to have sold for $550 at an auction and was en route from Indiana to the buyer in British Columbia, Canada.

Experts at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History found the item to be an authentic Pre-Columbian Nayarit artifact of West Mexico dating to the early first millennium A.D.

According to Customs spokeswoman Cherise Miles, the figurine is thought to originate from a multi-piece burial scene in an elaborate underground mountainous tomb. The figurine was seized as illegally obtained cultural property.

The consulate general of Mexico in Chicago has affirmed the figurine as a cultural artifact that was illicitly exported from Mexico, Miles said. The artifact will be returned to the Mexican government in a repatriation ceremony that has not yet been scheduled.

The case is considered an active investigation, Miles said.