French customs agents seize illegal shipments of artifacts from Africa,government says.

Fresh Water Pearls and Onyx Necklace, originally uploaded by zeba collection.

French customs agents seized two illegal shipments of artifacts from Africa, including statuettes, prehistoric fossils, jewels and pearl necklaces, the Budget Ministry said Wednesday.

The separate busts in recent weeks in the southern cities of Arles and Perpignan netted more than 17,700 archaeological objects in vehicles driven by two Moroccan nationals, the ministry said.

It was not clear if they were detained and the ministry was not immediately available for further comment.

On Nov. 15, agents in Arles seized more than 17,600 objects from Mali and Morocco in a Moroccan-registered vehicle that was headed to Germany, the ministry said in a statement.

They included fossils of crocodile and turtle skulls, and a dinosaur's jaw from about 60 million years ago, and of trilobites _ horseshoe crab-like creatures that became extinct 250 million years ago.

"The fossils from southern Morocco are of a scientific interest of the first order," the ministry said, adding that regional experts had examined the artifacts.

The same vehicle was carrying dozens of bronze statuettes in human and horse forms, jewels and pottery from Mali _ most of which date to around 1,500 B.C.

In Perpignan, agents on Dec. 14 stopped an Italian-registered car containing 124 objects dating to the Neolithic era between 6,000 and 5,500 B.C. including arrowheads, axes and pearl necklaces.

Source Citation
"French customs agents seize illegal shipments of artifacts from Africa, government says." America's Intelligence Wire 28 Dec. 2005. Popular Magazines. Web. 13 Jan. 2010. .

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