Sometimes evil is really, really stupid – History

Let’s go back to August 2015, when the Prometheus mosaic entered the United States illegally from Turkey, hidden in a shipment of cheap vases and two other modern mosaics, vaguely described as “ceramic, unglazed tiles.” There is an invoice from a Turkish distributor dated June 4, 2015, listing the apparent contents and shipping charges. At the bottom of the invoice is a statement that is a false document and the equivalent of the “not sure what if meme”: “We hereby declare and certify that the content covered by this receipt originates from Turkey and has nothing to do with Turkey. [sic] What about Israel? ” Well, anyway, the Israeli part is true, strange and unfounded, but true. On the other hand, the “full Turkish descent” part…

Mohamad Yassin Alcharihi hired California-based Soo Hoo Customs Brokers of Commerce to expedite the passage of his goods through customs, but due to his lies, the containers were not subject to additional scrutiny and It was trucked to his home in Palmdale. Even as they studied further, the mosaic’s age and importance were obscured by its condition. It had been removed from the ground, glued to a backing and rolled up to make it easier to hide, leaving many of the tiles crushed and the entire mosaic in need of expert protection. He hired Miotto Mosaic Art Studio to restore the mosaics (pdf). They removed the previous adhesive and fabric backing, placed the mosaic on a new backing, and filled the lost areas with custom-cut marble inlays to match the originals.

In early March, Alcharihi prepared to sell it. On March 19, FBI and Homeland Security agents issued a search and seizure warrant for his march. The mosaic was confiscated, as was a large pile of relevant documents (pdf). One is a real sales contract between Alcharihi and Turkish distributor Ahmet Costanci. In the contract, Alcharihi agreed to purchase the mosaic for 36,000 Turkish liras ($12,000 to $13,000), including shipping. The rest is window dressing.

Federal agents also discovered forged source documents that he had put together just days before the raid, and boy oh boy was it a ridiculous concoction. It was a signed and notarized statement from his neighbor saying she had sold “a rolled mosaic rug” that had belonged to her late father since the early 1970s to Alcharihi at a yard sale in 2009 . When agents interviewed the neighbor, she said she sold him a rolled area rug, not a rolled mosaic, in 2009 for less than $100. She found it strange that he asked her to sign a document for a small rug he purchased six years later, but since she couldn’t speak or read English, she had no idea what crap she was signing. It’s enough to make you long for a copy of a letter from an anonymous collector in Switzerland.

But his computer and cellphone (also seized by the FBI) ​​were the real source of information. They uncovered emails sent to potential buyers in late 2015 claiming the mosaics had been removed from a destroyed historic building in Idlib, northwest Syria. His cover was that the property’s owners demolished it in 2010 and sent it to Türkiye for restoration and sale. (A government expert later determined that the mosaic’s style was consistent with mosaics found in and around the city of Idlib.) The email also claimed that the mosaic was from the Hellenistic era (haha, no), and that it Depicting Zeus, Hercules, Aphrodite “with her famous baby boy, two others and a black bird”, this is “Zeus released from prison after being captured by his enemies in war story” scene. Apparently, this clown couldn’t be bothered to decipher the bullfinch myth, or even Wikipedia to get some semblance of a coherent description.

The smoking gun is extensive communication via text messages and emails between Alcharihi and his main associate in Syria, Belal AlJrad, starting in January 2015, when AlJrad sent Alcharihi photos of the Mosaic site and discussed its value on international markets . When federal agents interviewed Alcharihi on March 19, he stuck to his story that he bought the car from a dealer in Turkey and thought it was Turkish, but evidence from his text messages and emails with AlJrad It was clear that from the first minute Alcharihi became a Turk. Aware of the Mosaic’s existence, he knew it was in Syria.

But he persists in lying like butter that won’t melt in your mouth. He even had the audacity to submit a petition demanding the return of what he called a “Turkish mosaic.” He complained on his own behalf that he had paid import fees, paid for professional restoration and transformed it from “an item of low value approaching junk” to a “precious item of extremely high value” and that the confiscation had “caused a loss of goodwill and loss of profits”. Risk of losing interest from potential buyers of Mosaic and other properties. “There are no other properties. Prometheus is the only mosaic that he has restored and is preparing to sell, so it’s basically like someone is asking a judge to bail him out so he can leave the country. There’s no question that the petition was denied (pdf).

As the case moved like molasses through the system, Alcharis had another eureka moment: He insisted that his co-conspirator, Beral Algerrard, be allowed to testify for the defense at the trial. The prosecutors were like, “Uh, sure,” because obviously they would be happy to question the guy who was on the ground in Syria doing the actual looting. He needed to obtain a visa to enter the United States from his current residence in Saudi Arabia, and prosecutors coordinated with several federal agencies to obtain the visa. They gave Algerrard “safe passage,” guaranteeing he wouldn’t be arrested for anything he said on the witness stand.

There’s just one tiny problem. The U.S. Departments of State and Homeland Security denied his visa application due to his ties to terrorists (pdf). They found a photo he had emailed to himself, showing four members of al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group operating in the Idlib region, holding machine guns and wearing masks. Smile. They are known to carry out widespread looting of antiquities in the areas they control. Well, this is why visiting the United States is prohibited.

It’s unbelievable to anyone with a synapse that Alcharis still wants Algerrard to testify on his behalf. Defense attorneys argue that his testimony will disprove the government’s theory of the case, and if he cannot appear in person, they want to schedule the deposition via a live video conference call. The government doesn’t object to this because, whether in person or virtually, it’s a blatant advantage for them to take out this jerk on the witness stand. They did object, however, to a defense motion not to mention Algerrard’s denial of a visa on terrorism grounds, his known ties to terrorists and his rich history of lying under oath. So the worst possible witness of all was set to testify from the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia, and on the eve of the trial, defense attorneys told prosecutors they would not subpoena him.

Instead, the defense is reduced to a rather weak argument: Mosaic is fake anyway. They hired an expert witness to testify that it was a “modern forgery or reconstruction” because a) it would not have decorated a wealthy Syrian home, b) the woman with the child appeared to be wearing inappropriate trousers, and c) the woman with the child Who is the woman? There is not one in the typical portrait of Prometheus. The government sent three experts, and the restorer said otherwise, which the jury found more convincing.

As a result, Alcharis was convicted and sentenced, a measure of justice that was far too small for the many horrific crimes for which he served several months in federal prison.