Kim Kardashian, American reality TV star, model, human rights campaigner, mogul, and billionaire, has now landed in an antiquities trafficking case.
Kim Kardashian is accused of “smuggling” an ancient Roman statue in her name from Italy to the United States. The U.S. government has filed a complaint asking Kardashian to forfeit an ancient Roman statue that was illegally smuggled out of Italy.
The statue was captured at Los Angeles Airport in 2016, according to the French news agency AFP.
An Italian archeologist said that the statue was from the 1st or 2nd centuries and was originally looted and illegally exported.
The sculpture is described as “Fragment of Myron’s Samian Athena, Limestone, Roman, and is said to be originally looted from Italy.
According to the verified court document, the name of the importer and the recipient of the statue is “Kim Kardashian dba Noel Roberts Trust” and according to the invoice it was sold by Alex Verwardt to Noel Roberts Trust on March 11, 2016.
The Noel Roberts Trust is involved in the real estate business in the United States and was founded by Kim Kardashian and her now estranged husband Kenny West.
The American media quotes Alex Verwardt as a Belgian art dealer who was responsible for decorating Kim Kardashian’s home in Los Angeles.
A spokesman for Kim Kardashian, however, denied the allegations and said the US media has falsely linked the statue to the reality star which is not the truth.
The Italian archaeologist who studied the sculpture said it was of the “classical Peplophoros style”.
The statue was part of a 7.5 million shipment that arrived in Los Angeles in 2016 without the required documents. The shipment, described as containing antiques, furniture, and decorations, had 40 pieces in all valued at $745,882.
Under the UNESCO convention, items of cultural and historical interest discovered after 1970 cannot be removed from their countries of origin except under special agreement.
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