Each day ARCA is made aware of between five and fifty art crimes, and those are only the ones which are reported.  Here is a sample of headlines from the past week in art crime.

Selected Art Crimes from the week ending Feb. 25, '08:

- Update on the Zurich Theft:
The manner and rapidity of the recovery of two of the four stolen Buhrle Collection paintings implies that money changed hands. It may never come out who paid whom, and how much, whether insurers or the museum or a trustee provided funds to recover two of the works. There may have been insufficient funds available to buy back all of the paintings at once, or there may be other plans for the two remaining works. In the short term, of course, paying criminals may result in the recovery of what was stolen. But in the long run it encourages future such thefts, as it proves that crime does pay.

- A German museum has discovered that a painting long believed to be by French impressionist Claude Monet is a forgery, officials said Thursday. The painting, previously believed to be Monet's "On the Banks of the Seine by Port Villez," was unmasked as a fake when restorers analyzed it ahead of an exhibition on the Impressionist period, according to the city government in Cologne, where the Wallraf-Richartz Museum is located

- Police and private investigators have made a breakthrough in probing the theft of artworks in Pretoria, seizing paintings and sketches worth hundreds of thousands of rands in a raid on a local syndicate. The syndicate, which allegedly specialises in the theft and sale of famous South African artworks, was cracked following the theft of more than 50 Otto Klar works from a Pretoria businessman earlier in February.

- Colombian police arrested four suspects in the city of Pereira over the theft of a baroque treasure from a museum in Ecuador. Police found part of a baroque monstrance and several other artifacts stolen from the religious art museum in the central Ecuadorean city of Riobamba last October, Deputy Foreign Minister Jose Valencia said today in a radio interview with Ecuador Inmediato. The base of the 1 meter (3.3 foot) tall Riobamba Monstrance, which in Roman Catholic liturgy is used to display the host in processions, hasn't been recovered, he added. Made in 1705 and valued at several million dollars, the complete monstrance weighs 36 kilograms and is made of gold and silver and encrusted with about 3,500 diamonds, pearls, emeralds, amethysts and other precious stones. rough House in Blessington, Ireland. Some of the paintings are later recovered.

- Officers of Lithuanian General Prosecutor's Office and criminal police in the course of their operation found pictures from the collection of the poet, art works collector and Catholic priest Ricardas Mikutavicius murdered about a decade ago. The case of the priest murder and theft of his collection was considered in court in 2001. The crime organizer, art trader from Kaunas Vladas Beleckas (Vladimir Stupakov, before he had changed his name) was sentenced to life imprisonment, and his three accomplices got from 13 to 20 year of prison. A part of the stolen collection was found in March 1999 (the total collection value was estimated at $2 to 4 million). Later, another three pictures from the collection were detected due to joint efforts of law enforcement bodies of Lithuania, Germany and Great Britain, but almost half of the collection is still missing.

- Steven Spielberg led the FBI straight to a stolen $700,000 Norman Rockwell painting someone snatched from a Missouri gallery. It was in his collection in California. Spielberg wasn't the thief, and he doesn't know who took Rockwell's "Russian Schoolroom" -- an oil of 16 pupils looking at a bust of Lenin. All the A-list director knows is he paid about $200,000 for the 16 x 37 canvas in a legitimate purchase. The FBI says its just one example of how pilfered art lands in respectable places. And it was an uncommon ending for stolen art -- someone found it. Recovering masterpieces happens in less than 5 percent of cases, said Bonnie Magness-Gardiner, the FBI's Art Theft Program manager.

- An $8 million painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat has been located in a Manhattan warehouse after apparently being smuggled out of Brazil, federal prosecutors said. Prosecutors filed papers Wednesday seeking to seize the 1982 painting, called "Hannibal," in an effort to help Brazilian authorities claim it. U.S. authorities said Wednesday they found the painting in an Upper East Side warehouse in November. A courier had brought the painting from London into the U.S. via John F. Kennedy International Airport in August. No mention of the work's celebrated creator was made and the painting was valued at merely $100 on customs declaration forms, prosecutors said.

- A former Mariners' Museum archivist made an appearance in federal court today on charges he stole museum pieces including documents from a mother and son who survived the 1912 sinking of the Titanic then sold as many as 1,400 of them on eBay. Lester F. Weber, 46, and his wife, Lori Childs, 49, were indicted last week on charges of theft from an organization receiving federal funds, mail fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, and filing false tax returns.

- The return of priceless stolen war medals was negotiated by a leading gang figure who has since been released from jail, reports say. Daniel Crichton was granted bail on serious drugs charges after he negotiated with the thieves who stole the 96 medals, including nine Victoria Crosses, from the Waiouru Army Museum in December, the New Zealand Herald reported today. The paper said his release was part of the deal which saw the thieves paid some of the $300,000 reward offered from within New Zealand and overseas for the return of the medals. Crichton was a former Black Power member linked to the feared Headhunters gang.

- JERUSALEM. In a remarkable feat of cooperation between France and Israel, requiring intensive negotiations and the passage of a law by the Israeli Parliament, the Israel Museum here has opened an exhibition of important art looted by the Nazis from France and then returned after the war. Some of it was never reclaimed, presumably because the owners were killed in the Holocaust.

- Police in Italy announced Tuesday the recovery of dozens of looted artifacts, including a first century fresco and ancient Greek pottery. Officers broke up a theft ring that operated out of Italy and France, with 31 people under investigation, police said. Italian police worked with local officials in Switzerland, France and Spain to retrieve the looted artifacts, many of which were illegally removed decades ago. During Italy's three-year hunt for those behind the antiquities-trafficking ring, a raid on a house in Milan also uncovered 22 paintings forged to look like the works of Renoir, Picasso, Modigliani, Monet and Degas, police said in a statement.

- Treasure hunters claim they have may have found a haul of looted Nazi gold said to be part of a Russian collection that was dubbed the "eighth wonder of the world" before it was stolen. The resting place of the Amber Room treasures was reportedly made at the weekend near the German village of Deutschneudorf. Tests showed a man-made cavern 20 metres below ground that contained a large amount of precious metals.

- Masked and armed criminals robbed a church in Doornik, Belgium, stealing a very rare 8th century Byzantine cross (estimated value 25 million) plus 11 other valuable church objects.

- More than six months after the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles agreed to hand over 40 artifacts to Italy, the criminal trial of its former curator of antiquities lumbers on in Rome. A prosecution witness painstakingly presented the court with photographs and documents on Wednesday in an effort to establish that more than a dozen looted artifacts had made their way into the Getty's collection. Marion True, the former Getty curator, is charged with conspiring to acquire illicitly excavated antiquities for the museum.

- Seven Questions: A Reformed Stolen-Art Dealer Tells All

To recover stolen masterpieces, museums must often deal with the criminal underworld. This is where informants like Art Hostage come in. Once a dealer in stolen art and antiques, he now assists with stolen-art investigations. He spoke with FP about why high-profile art theft is on the rise and how authorities can stop it.

Art of the steal: Security procedures at some museums are a real scream.

Foreign Policy: You've said that you got out of the stolen-art game to provide an example for your son. Can you tell me how you came to find art theft morally objectionable?

Art Hostage: Look, I?m not justifying handling stolen stuff, but that's going to go on. What really annoys me and I'm sure it would annoy you and your readers is when they steal stuff from public buildings and museums, which denies the public access to those pictures. I want to create an environment where we create dispersal, and people are frightened to steal from museums and public galleries because of the penalties, and then they might start robbing private collectors. Now, don't get me wrong; private collectors are in a better place to protect themselves with added security, whereas public museums and buildings don't have the finances to do that. You have to be a bit more subtle in your approach.

FP: Do art thieves usually rely on these thefts as their main source of income, or are they typically involved in other sorts of crimes?

AH: Well, mostly you're talking about burglars who go into people's houses to steal things. Back in the 1980s, they would steal VCRs and TVs, but then people found that antiques and art were worth more money. We get these big headline-grabbing thefts, but the majority of thefts come off the public, and the'?re normally $100,000 or less. Now, we've had two major heists in one week [four impressionist paintings stolen from the E.G. Bhrle collection in Zurich and two Picasso paintings stolen in the nearby town of Pfaeffikon], but just in the U.S. you?re talking about 100 or 200 a day of art thefts from domestic properties. That's really where the problem is. It's all right that these big ones make the headlines, but underneath that you?ll find the majority of art theft is against the private citizen. For every Picasso that's stolen, there are hundreds of paintings worth $20,000 or so rather than $20 million.

FP: What typically happens to famous or iconic works of art after they are stolen?

AH: When they get them, they can be exchanged for an amount of drugs which can then be sold. They can be sold to what's called a criminal venture capitalist? who might, let's say, give $1 million for the painting, and then there?s a $5 million reward for them. Even if it takes five years [to sell], that's a 500 percent return on investment. Say I'm a drug importer and you come to me with those pictures and I give you $1 million worth of Class A drugs to sell. I would then pass them on to a criminal venture capitalist or to someone else to settle a debt, and that's how they change hands. Sometimes, they'll put it away as a bargaining chip and then later on they might offer it back to get a lesser sentence for something else.

FP: So stolen art is like a form of currency?

AH: Yes, it is. I mean, the mainstream media whores always run out the same line that, Oh, they'll never be able to sell it. There's no market. I understand why they do that, but it?s a bit disingenuous. Sure, they won't sell famous art for market value. But if you?ve got four men who steal four pictures in a half-hour heist, plus planning, and sell it for a million, that?s $250,000 for a very small amount of work. Robbers that used to go into a bank or hold up an armored truck found it very difficult to escape and found that they would get very big sentences. But if an armed robber goes into a museum and makes off with art, he can get a similar type of return for a lot less risk, and if he gets caught, the actual penalties are a slap on the wrist. Those guys who took The Scream in Norway? One guy got six years, and one got four years. That's not really a deterrent, is it?

FP: Back when you were in the business, were you ever approached about buying art of that value?

AH: Well, there was one painting that was stolen that was valued at ?5 million. I paid $20,000 for it and sold it for $100,000 within two days. I made $80,000 in two days, and I didn't care that it was worth 5 million. To be honest with you, the kind of stuff we?re talking about now, Vermeer and all that, I would put that in a class I call headache stuff. I'd much rather deal with a $100,000 piece of silver or $20,000 bits and pieces, but lots of it.

FP: Are there any specific museums or works that you've seen that seem particularly at risk to you?

AH: Yes. I've written about it. It's the Vermeer that's been stolen twice already in Ireland, Lady Writing a Letter With Her Maid. It now sits in the National Gallery [of Ireland] in Dublin. It's already been stolen on two occasions, and it's sitting on a wall in a place where it would be easy to just rip it down and flee across Dublin on a motorbike because it's very small. That?s one that's under threat, and I?ve even contacted the curator about it. Also, the National Gallery in London is quite at risk because in the first gallery, you've got Van Gogh's Sunflowers and several other pictures right by the entrance. The factors to consider are blank spots in security, location, the size of the articles for movability, the estimated response of law enforcement. Probably the best ingredient is inside information.

FP: What steps do you think museums or law enforcement officials could take to deter high-profile art thefts in the future?

AH: Number one: There should be [sentencing] guidelines to judges that anyone stealing from a public building over a certain value gets a mandatory 10 years. By doing that, you will put off a lot of people, though not everyone, because it ups the risk-reward factor. At the moment, if you walked into a museum in D.C. and took a Rembrandt, you'd get about three to five years and maybe a plea bargain. But if you equated the value of the Rembrandt to other commodities, you'd be looking at 25 to life. The second thing they could do is have a blanket ban on offering rewards for works that have been stolen out of public buildings and museums. The refusal to pay a reward means that the benchmark for its value in the underworld is more uncertain.

Art Hostage has been working for years to broker a deal for the return of the paintings stolen from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. His opinions on news and rumors from the world of art theft can be found at the blogs Art Hostage and Stolen Vermeer. He prefers to remain anonymous, but FP confirmed his identity and background independently.

 

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