Customs records show art, antiquities seizures at New York ports in 2025

U.S. Customs and Border Protection records show that federal officers closed multiple art and antiquities enforcement cases at New York ports in 2025, including detentions of Roman- and Islamic-era coins, with several cases later transferred to other authorities, according to a document released to Urgent Matter under the Freedom of Information Act.

The records offer a rare glimpse into how artworks and cultural objects surface at U.S. ports of entry — activity that typically remains out of public view unless it results in criminal charges, civil forfeiture actions or high-profile repatriations.

The FOIA request sought records of closed customs enforcement cases in 2025 involving artworks, antiquities or cultural property. Cases that remain open were not requested to avoid interfering with active investigations.

CBP returned a spreadsheet that showed a total of six closed cases handled by its Office of Field Operations at the New York Field Office. Fields including information on the alleged violators and the recipient agencies for transferred items were redacted under FOIA exemptions protecting personal privacy and law-enforcement methods.

It lists three seizures on June 26, which appear to be the most significant of the six documented.

The first of those seizures was of 405 tetradrachms from the Roman Empire, dated to between 250 A.D. and 300 A.D. in an era of economic instability sometimes called the “Crisis of the Third Century.” The ancient coins were made of potin, a low-value metal alloy, and were recorded as collectively worth about $1,000.

CBP officials also seized 72 silver dirhams from Islamic dynasties, dated between 1200 and 1500 A.D. They were described as collectively worth about $700.

And officials seized three bronze dichalkon coins from the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, dating to roughly 300–100 B.C., valued at $60.