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American Busted Twice in 3 Days Smuggling Mayan Artifacts Out of Guatemala

Stephanie Jolluck, who works as a photographer and designer in Guatemala, celebrated the country's rich culture via her internet presence.
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Three days after being caught at an airport trying to smuggle Mayan relics out of Guatemala, an American woman was busted again while traveling in a car with over a hundred artifacts inside. 

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Local authorities first detained Stephanie Jolluck, 49, on November 10 at the Guatemala City airport after discovering two pre-hispanic artifacts in her luggage as she attempted to pass security for a flight to the U.S., according to the Guatemalan Public Ministry. Photos of the relics released by authorities showed two large engraved stones that are believed to be from between 600-900 AD. Jolluck reportedly claimed at the time of her arrest that she’d bought the pieces at a market in the city of Antigua.

Jolluck was charged with trafficking national treasures, but a judge granted her house arrest rather than prison to await her next court date. According to Jolluck’s instagram bio, she lives in Antigua, a colonial city popular with expats that lies about an hour’s drive west of Guatemala City.

But on Sunday, police detained Jolluck again, this time inside a vehicle with 166 other reported artifacts. Authorities later released a diagnostic analysis of the objects and determined that 90 percent of them were real pre-hispanic relics, while 10 percent were replicas. Among the artifacts found Sunday were 19 anthropomorphic figures, 11 amorphous figures, ten mushroom-type stones, five anvils, and a wide variety of tools and mortars.

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Jolluck was arrested with another U.S. citizen named Giorgio Salvador Rossilli. The two Americans were charged with damaging the natural and cultural heritage of the nation, but were released again on Monday after paying a $6,400 bond, according to the Associated Press. They are reportedly not allowed to leave Guatemala while they await trial, nor to be in proximity of any location where archeological pieces are sold.

Jolluck works as a designer and photographer in Guatemala, according to her personal website and Instagram. Much of her internet presence is of photos of the country and its people, with quotes from popular Western writers like Charles Bukowski, Mary Oliver and Franz Kafka. Others captions are attempts to explain Guatemalan culture, like a recent one of a Ceiba Tree: “The Maya & other pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures considered the Ceiba tree sacred—a symbol of the link between heaven, earth & the world that was believed to exist below. This was a giant tree upholding the world, with roots reaching down into the underworld…”, she wrote.

Jolluck did not respond to a message from VICE World News sent via the contact page of her website. News of her arrests has begun to lead to backlash on her photos.

On her most recent post, one person wrote: “You better do the right thing and return the ancestral artifacts. Your fetishization of Guatemala and Indigenous culture is disgusting.”

In Guatemala, and many countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, the robbery of cultural artifacts is a particular source of concern for many. Indigenous relics were stolen for centuries by colonizing nations, and many are now in museums or personal collections in far off countries around the world. In recent years, some relics have begun to be returned to their countries of origin. Guatemala has recovered 313 prehispanic archeological pieces since 2020 alone from countries like the U.S., Canada, Belgium, Italy, Germany, and France, according to the country’s ministry of sports and culture.