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US federal prosecutors have ordered Kim Kardashian West to hand over a classical Roman statue alleged to have been stolen from Italy.
According to a civil complaint filed by a Justice Department lawyer on Friday, US Customs and Border Protection officers confiscated a fragment of Myron’s Samian Athena; a statue believed to have been sculpted in the first or second century, at the Long Beach Seaport in Los Angeles on June 15, 2016.
The complaint states CBP still keeps the statue.
The statue was imported and consigned by Kardashian West and the Noel Roberts Trust, as shown by documents submitted to CBP by Masterpiece International, the broker.
The Noel Roberts Trust is a financial company related to several property acquisitions made by Kardashian West; they were was sent an invoice for the statue on March 11, 2016, according to the complaint.
According to the complaint, the statue, which represents the lower half of a female body, was part of a 40-piece antique shipment worth an estimated $745,882.
The prosecutors demanded that Kardashian West surrender the statue, claiming that it was “was illegally imported and entered into the United States.”
According to the lawsuit, the evidence submitted to US officials by Masterpiece International, Italian officials, and the Axel Vervoordt art gallery, the alleged vendor, indicated that the statue was illegally shipped from Italy. The lawsuit does not accuse Kardashian West of any wrongdoing.
In the complaint, Masterpiece International provided the CBP with documentation proving that the statue was sold to Vervoordt by the Galerie Chenel, a Paris-based sculpture firm.
However, some of the details in those records — such as the fact that the statue was identified as “a huge draped statue” from Italy — conflicted with an affidavit from Robert Lauwers, a director at Axel Vervoodt, who stated that the statue was not from Italy.
According to the lawsuit, Italian authorities claimed that there was no proof that the statue was legally exported from Italy.
Furthermore, Italian police officers working for the Ministry of Cultural Heritage told the CBP in July 2016 that they believed Vervoordt had the statue before his alleged 2012 purchase.
Italy has requested that the statue be returned to them.
Kardashian West’s spokesperson told MailOnline that his client was unaware of the purchase.
“Kim never purchased this piece, and this is the first that she has learned of its existence,” the spokesman said. “We believe it may have been purchased using her name without authorization, and because it was never received, she was unaware of the transaction.”
He said, “We encourage an investigation and hope that it gets returned to the rightful owners.”
