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| A Boston dealer has lots of them, but 'lost the papers' |
France has returned to Nigeria five ancient terracotta sculptures smuggled out of the country in 2010. The artefacts, of Nok origin, were found in the luggage of French citizen at a Paris airport. [...] the terracotta sculptures are believed to have been smuggled out of Nigeria to neighbouring Togo, from where the French buyer flew to Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport. It is a route thought to be used by smugglers to avoid customs checks at Nigerian airports [...] France's ambassador to Nigeria, Jacques Champagne de Labriolle, told the BBC the artefacts' return was part of a global attempt to fight the "illegal trafficking of cultural goods". "It is both a decision by the French government and an obligation by all those countries that have signed the Unesco convention on the matter," he said.Well, except the united States of America which mainly recognizes Article 9 of the Convention and manages to conveniently ignore the rest.
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