A California man has been sentenced to three months in federal prison for illegally importing a Roman Empire-era mosaic looted from Syria in 2015. At 15 feet long by eight feet wide (~4.6 x 2.4 meters) and weighing 2,000 pounds (~907 kilograms), the ancient mosaic was imported from a contact point in Turkey through the Port of Long Beach, concealed in a shipping container full of other goods.
Mohamad Yassin Alcharihi of Palmdale reportedly paid $12,000 for the mosaic in 2015. He declared to a United States Customs broker that he was importing ceramic tiles from Turkey valued at less than $600 as well as dozens of contemporary vases at approximately $2,000 to avoid paying higher customs duties.
In a style consistent with the regional aesthetics of the Byzantine Period, the enormous artifact depicts the Greco-Roman mythological hero Hercules rescuing Prometheus, who was chained to a seaside rock as bait for a giant eagle in an eternal punishment by the gods for stealing fire.
Alcharihi kept the mosaic in his garage and reportedly spent $40,000 to have it restored. According to Annenberg Media, the University of Southern California’s journalism school newspaper, Alcharihi fielded the possibility of selling the piece to the Getty Foundation after an antiquities dealer appraised the mosaic at between $100,000 and $200,000 in value. The original legal complaint also indicates that Alcharihi contacted an auction house in the United Kingdom about potentially selling the mosaic in March 2015, saying he had ownership documents dating back to 2008 when asked if the mosaic was exported from Syria prior to 2010. Since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, there has been an increase in the trafficking of Syrian antiquities through the Turkish border.
Later, a government expert appraised the mosaic at $450,000 in value. Authorities seized the mosaic from Alcharihi’s garage in March 2016, and it’s been held in a secure storage facility in Los Angeles since then. Alcharihi was convicted of one count of entry of falsely classified goods in June 2023, waiting over a year for his sentencing.
The public information officer for the United States Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California could not comment on how the mosaic was uncovered, also noting that there’s no information regarding the repatriation of the artifact at this time as the defendant has yet to go through the appeals process.
