U.S. returns scores of smuggled artifacts to Iraq government

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More than 60 Iraqi cultural artifacts smuggled into the United States, including a limestone statue of an ancient king, were returned to the government of Iraq on Monday, the Department of Homeland Security said. The move follows investigations led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in New York, Baltimore, Austin, Texas, and New Haven, Connecticut, the department said in a statement. Immigration and Customs agents seized the looted artifact in August 2008 after an antiquities dealer based in Dubai shipped it to New York. Other artifacts repatriated to Iraq include gold-plated items, such as a soap dish, looted from the private airport and palace of executed former President Saddam Hussein.

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