THE U.S. RETURNS MORE THAN 4,000 ARCHAEOLOGICAL PIECES TO MEXICO

• Restitution is one of the most recent achievements of the joint program run by the Foreign Ministry, the Attorney General’s Office, the INAH and INBAL to recover Mexico’s protected cultural heritage on an on-going basis.

• U.S. officials confiscate archeological pieces entering the country on a continual basis.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service of the U.S. government returned what might be more than 4,000 unique archaeological pieces to the Mexican people today. The pieces will be studied and individually cataloged by experts from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) in order to incorporate them into the national archaeological heritage.

The recovery of these pieces is a good example of how the United States and Mexico are cooperating to protect Mexico’s cultural property. A significant number of irreplaceable pieces of great value to the Mexican people are back in the country.

Recovery of these pieces is one of the most recent achievements of the program to ensure recovery of Mexico’s cultural property that is being run by the Foreign Ministry, the Attorney General's Office, the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (INBAL) and the INAH.

The recovered pieces were repatriated with the help of the Mexican consulate in El Paso, Texas, the INAH and the Mexican embassy in the United States. Given the importance the Mexican people place in their cultural heritage, it is the government’s firm policy to take all measures in its power to protect it.