Egypt’s Prosecutor Returns Looted Artifacts to Cairo from France, Arrests Three

In a statement released on Sunday, Egypt’s Prosecutor General Hamada El-Sawy and the delegation of the Public Prosecution announced that 114 artifacts have returned to Cairo after they were smuggled to France.

The statement adds that the Prosecutor and his accompanying delegation supervised the completion of the procedures of shipping, before handing them over to a technical committee formed by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities for inspection.

The Public Prosecution’s investigations initially began in 2019 after France informed the Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt in France that a Frenchman had acquired the artifacts at his residence in Paris after illegally smuggling them into the country.

The Egyptian Public Prosecution undertook investigation through the means of international judicial cooperation with the French judicial authorities, and arrested one French individual and two Egyptians for participating in the crime.

Despite successfully returning the smuggled artifacts to Cairo, investigations are still underway to understand further information about the procedures of smuggling and identify other participants in the crime.

Earlier this week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced in a statement that it cooperated with the British Museum to recover three artifacts smuggled into the United Kingdom before they get purchased by a showroom.