Chile’s thousands of years of human history and culture can be viewed at sites and cultural institutions from the Atacama Desert in the north to Tierra del Fuego in the south. The United States is committed to working with Chile to protect and preserve Chilean heritage and cultural property and to prevent criminal actors from profiting from its looting and trafficking. In 2020, the two countries signed a cultural property agreement to work together toward these goals.
In support of the agreement, the Department of State-led Cultural Antiquities Task Force and the Government of Chile convened nearly 40 law enforcement and cultural property experts from the United States and Chile for a cultural property crimes and investigations workshop in Arica from November 14-18. Attendees exchanged best practices in the investigation of cultural property crimes to disrupt the looting, theft, and illicit trafficking of cultural patrimony in Chile.
The workshop provided a forum for deepening connections between U.S. and Chilean government agencies and individuals working on cultural heritage protection. The Chilean Working Group Against the Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Patrimony heralded the workshop as an opportunity for many of its multi-agency members to coordinate in person for the first time.
The Department of State’s Cultural Heritage Center and U.S. Embassy Santiago, with support from Fundación Altiplano and guidance from the Chilean Ministry of Culture, organized the four-day workshop. Current and retired experts from the Cultural Heritage Center, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security Investigations, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and U.S. Forest Service traveled to Chile and led presentations on cultural heritage-focused community outreach, U.S. cultural heritage and customs law, valuation of seized cultural property, and investigative techniques for law enforcement and customs officers in a variety of contexts. Many of the sessions also addressed how government agencies and cultural institutions can engage with local communities in furtherance of the protection of cultural heritage.
Attendees had the opportunity to apply what they learned in presentations and discussions through a field exercise simulating a crime scene investigation at a local archaeological site as well as a practical exercise involving a hypothetical theft from the Sitio Colón 10 Museum’s collections.
U.S. Ambassador Bernadette M. Meehan gave opening remarks at the workshop and participated in a repatriation of five pre-Columbian textiles that were returned from the United States in the framework of the bilateral cultural property agreement.
The Department of State funded the workshop through a Cultural Property Agreement Implementation Grant, an initiative designed to support the United States’ cultural property agreements with 25 countries, including Chile. The Cultural Antiquities Task Force is a law enforcement-focused working group of the U.S. Cultural Heritage Coordinating Committee.
Both are managed by the State Department’s Cultural Heritage Center.
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