Congress toughens anti-fraud Indian-crafts law

Zuni silversmith Tony Eriacho stands behind tables of American Indian jewelry and crafts that are not what they seem. He picks up a necklace of Indian-style fetish animals made in the Philippines; dangles an earring with colored stones made of plastic; explains that what looks like solid turquoise is glued-together dust of turquoise and other rocks; uses a magnet to pick up beads supposedly made of silver, but they aren't magnetic. What bothers Eriacho isn't just that these objects look like something they're not. It's that too often, they're fraudulently marketed as authentic, a violation of federal law. Falsely suggesting goods are Indian- or Alaska Native-made could be harder to get away with now that Congress has approved changes to the 1990 Indian Arts and Crafts Act. The revisions, approved in July as part of the Tribal Law and Order Act, allow all federal law enforcement officers, not just the FBI, to investigate suspected violations. That includes officers working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the National Parks Service and U.S. Customs and Border Protection...more