WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Customs agents, working with military and museum experts at the National Museum in Baghdad, have recovered nearly 40,000 manuscripts and about 700 artifacts, government officials announced in Washington Wednesday, leaving perhaps only a few dozen key pieces missing.
...
Agents of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs (ICE) said that so far they have photos and documentation to confirm only 38 items from the museum are still missing. Although they suspect additional pieces may have been stolen, they declined to speculate on the scope of the additional uncatalogued items that may have been looted.

Officials from ICE, newly created as part of the Department of Homeland Security, said many of the missing items had been stored for safekeeping in hidden storage vaults within the museum before the war. Other items had been returned after public promises of amnesty and rewards.
...
The Justice Department officials said their best information continues to be that whatever the scope, the thefts were organized, not the result of random crime.

"From the evidence that has emerged, there is a strong case to be made that the looting and theft of the artifacts was perpetrated by organized criminal groups," Ashcroft said Tuesday at the Lyons conference. (Full story)

Expanding on those comments, ICE agents Wednesday said there was no apparent sign of forced entry to the storage sites, and the doors were locked when investigators arrived.

» CNN.com - Thousands of Iraqi artifacts found - May. 8, 2003