Hobby Lobby founder David Green speaks at a campaign rally in February 2016. | AP Photo Hobby Lobby agrees to $3 million fine, forfeiture of thousands of Iraqi relics

Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that retail giant Hobby Lobby agreed to pay a $3 million fine and will forfeit thousands of ancient Iraqi relics wrongly labeled as "samples" and smuggled into the United States.

The Department of Justice filed a civil complaint in New York, and announced that Hobby Lobby had agreed to the fine and to forfeit thousands of antiquities including cuneiform tablets and clay bullae that prosecutors said were smuggled through the United Arab Emirates and Israel to the United States using deliberately false labeling practices.


Cuneiform is a system of writing on clay tablets that was used in the region thousands of years ago.

Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Bridget M. Rohde said Hobby Lobby's efforts were deceitful and inappropraite and that when false declarations are made at United States borders, law enforcement will seize the items. She and Angel M. Melendez, Special Agent-in-Charge at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, New York, announced the stipulation of settlement.

“The protection of cultural heritage is a mission that HSI and its partner U.S. Customs and Border Protection take very seriously as we recognize that while some may put a price on these artifacts, the people of Iraq consider them priceless,” Melendez said in a statement.

Hobby Lobby was previously warned in October 2010 by an expert on cultural property law that the artifacts were possibly stolen from Iraqi archaeological sites, and the company went through atypical means to obtain these objects.

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“The acquisition of the artifacts was fraught with red flags,” the statement said. “Hobby Lobby representatives had not met or communicated with the dealer who purportedly owned the artifacts, nor did they pay him for the artifacts. Rather, following instructions from another dealer, Hobby Lobby wired payment for the artifacts to seven personal bank accounts held in the names of other individuals.”

In addition, Hobby Lobby’s United Arab Emirates dealer shipped the packages to three different corporate locations. The packages contained false declarations of item origins and the artifacts were misleadingly identified as clay and ceramic tiles.

Hobby Lobby accepted responsibility for its “unlawful importation” of artifacts and agreed to forfeit them all.

According to the Department of Justice sometime around 2009 Hobby Lobby began to put together "a collection of historically significant manuscripts, antiquities and other cultural materials." The effort involved Hobby Lobby's president president and a consultant traveled to the UAE in July 2010 to inspect a large number of artifacts being offered for sale.