Tag: Arrests

Vanishing Heritage in the Cradle of Civilization


Things are looking increasingly grim in Iraq these days, with the US considering arming Sunni groups that once attacked coalition forces. Soon after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, western journalists visited the Iraqi Museum in Baghdad and reported incorrectly that 170,000 objects were stolen from the museum. More careful reporting soon accurately placed that number far lower, and current estimates seem to indicate that a still alarming 3,000 objects are still missing, with about 47 main exhibition artifacts missing.

Thus I always maintain a healthy bit of skepticism when articles come out detailing the loss of archaeological context and heritage in Iraq. The article last Friday by Simon Jenkins in the Guardian titled “In Iraq’s four-year looting frenzy, the allies have become the vandals”even viewed skeptically reveals some very troubling things about the way archaeological sites are treated by coalition forces.

The catalyst for the discussion was a presentation by Abbas al-Hussaini, the head of Iraq’s board of antiquities and heritage to the British Museum. He detailed a number of disturbing things. The former head of the antiquities board in Iraq, Donny George, left for a teaching position in New York, fearing for his life. Today the national museum “is not open but shut… Its doors are bricked up, it is surrounded by concrete walls and its exhibits are sandbagged. Even the staff cannot get inside.” A 10th century caravenserai of Khan al-Raba was used to explode captured weapons. Looters are better armed than the Iraqi forces seeking to protect the ancient monuments. Two 4,000 year-old cities, Isin and Shurnpak, have been demolished by looting pits. The 11 teams Hussaini has organized travel the countryside attempting to retrieve any artifacts the looters have left behind. Even muslim sites are subject to destruction, with a number of bombings of mosques from the 10th and 11th centuries

When I was in Istanbul in May, I saw some of the glazed bricks from the Ishtar gate leading to Babylon, and they are stunning. The lion image above was very impressive. For me then perhaps the most disturbing claims detail the destruction taking place at the ancient city of Babylon:

Hussaini confirmed a report… on America’s conversion of Nebuchadnezzar’s great city of Babylon into the hanging gardens of Halliburton. This meant a 150-hectare camp for 2,000 troops. In the process the 2,500-year-old brick pavement to the Ishtar Gate was smashed by tanks and the gate itself damaged. The archaeology-rich subsoil was bulldozed to fill sandbags, and large areas covered in compacted gravel for helipads and car parks. Babylon is being rendered archaeologically barren.

Despite some unnecessary snarking by Jenkins here, the destruction at Babylon is a grave tragedy. He does conveniently overlook some facts though. The coalition forces only seem to be continuing the destruction and disdain Saddam Hussein had for the site when he was in power. This slide show taken by US Marine Gunnery Sergeant Daniel O’Connell in 2003 shows the ancient city, the unfortunate modern reconstruction by Hussein on top of the archaeological site, and the modern palace he built where marines first stayed. The colonel in charge of the site apologized last year, and UNESCO officials are even considering developing the place into a tourist attraction at some point.

It seems very unfortunate that coalition forces, in the face of the looting of so many sites, should have blundered so badly at Babylon, which is in one of the most secure regions of Iraq. The Geneva Convention dictates that forces should treat opposing cultural heritage with care. Also, though the US and UK have failed to implement the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict(because it might restrict their ability to use nuclear arms), they notionally abide by its tenets.

The US is doing a good job of policing its antiquities market, as a Fox News cameraman was arrested for smuggling Iraqi antiquities into the country recently. The UK also has legislation preventing the import of Iraqi antiquities. Jenkins gets a final jab in at the Department of Culture Media and Sport which seems far more concerned with the upcoming London Olympics than the illicit cultural property market. I wonder if the £400,000 recently spent on the unfortunate mascot would have been better served policing the antiquities market. The Met’s Art and Antiquities squad has only 3 full time investigators, and is in jeopardy of further budget cuts. But only so much can be done when provenance or a title history is not routinely given during transactions. As long as the market is hidden from view, looters will continue to find purchasers for their ill-gotten gains.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Scotland Yard Halves Art and Antique Squad Funding

Grim news for the London Metropolitan Police Art and Antiques Squad. Saturday’s edition of the Guardian had the following:

The dramatic scaling down of Scotland Yard’s once renowned arts and antique squad has left organised criminals free to plunder the nation’s heritage, according to a leading fine art insurer.

Police have sought private money to finance the squad after its annual budget of some £300,000 was halved earlier this year. But the Guardian has learned that Scotland Yard has failed to secure a penny from insurers or auction houses, after months of discussions.

Britain’s art market is second only to the US and experts claim up to £200m worth of stolen art and antiques are sold in the UK each year. Interpol estimates that art theft is the fourth largest organised crime after drugs, people trafficking and arms.

Annabel Fell-Clark, chief executive of Axa Art UK, which pays out tens of millions of pounds a year to reimburse victims of art theft, condemned the slashing of the unit’s budget. She warned that scaling down the unit was already having an impact on pursuing art thieves who target Britain’s stately homes and museums.

“We have seen that they [the team] are increasingly overstretched and being treated as a very low priority. At the moment we have very good information which we are wanting to pass on, which would bring arrests, if not convictions. But we are not being treated particularly seriously, let’s put it that way.

“We want to see criminal gangs brought to justice, and in some instances lack of interest from the squad has stopped us being able to pursue further recovery. We want and need to work with the police.”

She said Axa was aware the government was seeking funding for the squad but the company had decided it would not consider paying directly for the unit, adding that attempts by the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police to find private sponsors in the art world were shortsighted.

“It would be a conflict of interest for us to get involved,” she said. “We have slightly different agendas. As insurers, we are interested in recovering the pieces however we can, and are not that bothered about finding and prosecuting the perpetrators. We are concerned that this aspect of law enforcement is not taken particularly seriously right now.

“Very often when you are investigating art theft connections are uncovered with organised crime in relation to drugs and arms dealing, so it doesn’t make sense to ignore this aspect of criminal activity.”

The London based “arts squad” was formed in 1969 to pursue and prosecute criminals who operate in the second biggest art market in the world. In the past the unit, which is called in to investigate 120 cases a year, was involved in recovery of art works across the world.

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This is a troubling development. 150,000 is not a very large sum, and a drop in the bucket compared to the amounts of money which changes hands in the UK art and antiquities market. If the United Kingdom is serious about combating the illicit trade in arts and antiquities, it needs to maintain a well-funded art-theft unit. To expect the arts and antiquities unit to solicit funding from those they are supposed to regulate and police also strikes me as ridiculous.



Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Federal Art Theft Charges


Stephen Kurkjian and Shelley Murphy have an article in yesterday’s Boston Globe about the arrest of Robert Mardirosian, an attorney charged with attempting to possess, conceal, store, and sell stolen art. The Boston Herald has a story as well.

The 72 year-old Madirosian had been entrusted with the paintings by his client the thief nearly 30 years ago. This work, Paul Cezanne’s Pitcher and Fruits was stolen from Michael Bakwin, back in 1978. He recovered the work a few years ago, and it was sold by Sotheby’s for close to $30 million.

In a strange series of events, the paintings were hauled all over the world in an attempt to sell them, from Massachusetts to Switzerland, London and Monaco. As the Boston Herald’s AP article details:

In 1988, Mardirosian moved the paintings to Monaco, thinking he might have a legal claim to ownership or a 10 percent ”finder’s fee,” according to a May 2006 affidavit from FBI Special Agent Geoffrey Kelly, also unsealed Tuesday.

Lloyd’s of London was contacted in 1999 by an unknown person about insuring the paintings before sale, the affidavit says, and discovered they were listed with the database Art Loss Register as having been stolen. It says Julian Radcliffe, chairman of Art Loss Register, determined that the paintings were being sold by a Panamanian corporation called Erie International Trading Company, later found to be registered to Mardirosian.

Radcliffe contacted Bakwin and brokered a deal with unnamed agents of Erie, who agreed to return the Cezanne in exchange for the other six paintings. Two months after retrieving the Cezanne, Bakwin auctioned it through Sotheby’s in London for $29.3 million.

As part of the contract, the owner of Erie agreed to disclose his identity in a sealed envelope. A British judge later ruled the contract void because Bakwin ”signed it under duress.” He ordered the envelope unsealed, revealing Erie’s owner as Robert Mardirosian, and ordered the lawyer to pay Bakwin $3 million.

It’s fascinating stuff, and reveals a number of things about the current state of the market. First, the shroud of secrecy surrounding transactions is not productive. Second, import controls are not working. It is just not possible to adequately inspect most of what gets shipped around the world. Finally, how does an attorney expect to get away with this kind of thing? It seems the final straw was the fact that Madirosian’s colleague, Paul Palandjian, got tired of having the stolen works in his own attic and went to the police.

This prosecution is sure to generate a great deal of attention. These works high value continues to fuel illegal activity. The only sure way to prevent it is to erect safeguards in the market place. On one level, its very easy to criticize Mardirosian’s behavior. However, how many of us would think twice about turning over a $30 million work to the police, no questions asked? I would like to think most of us would, but that kind of money must be extremely tempting.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Massive Antiquities Arrests in Spain

Over the weekend in Spain, the civil guard in Cadiz announced arrests of three individuals alleged to have patrolled the shallow waters off Cadiz. They used an underwater robot to salvage objects from ancient shipwrecks, yielding treasures as varied as Roman anchors, Phoenician pottery, and bullets from the Battle of Trafalgar. The Guardian report has labeled the individuals “pirates”. Though their behavior violates Spanish law, I’m not sure we can call them pirates in the conventional sense. A number of companies legally salvage wrecks in other waters. Generally, English and American admiralty law rewards salvors. When property is lost at sea, the rescuer can claim a salvage award on the property. That doesn’t appear to be the case for the defendants in Cadiz though. I would guess that the defendants were patrolling within Spain’s territorial waters. An important issue at the criminal trial will likely be how the prosecutors can prove the objects were taken within Spain’s waters. Of course, their claim seems to be helped by the fact that the individuals were hiding the objects in hidden compartments in their oxygen tanks. The criminal law probably triggers as soon as the objects were brought ashore

Without knowing too much about Spanish Admiralty law, Spain has outlawed salvage in this area, and with good reason. The port of Cadiz has been a bustling port for millennium, and has “the country’s largest shipwreck cemetery, holding an estimated €1.5bn in sunken gold, silver and pearls, according to Juan Manuel Gracia, president of the Association for the Recovery of Spanish Galleons.” No wonder then that Spain is attempting to restrict salvage in the area. As technology is increasingly opening the depths to exploitation, these disputes are likely to increase. Spain and England are currently disputing the wreck of the Sussex, a British warship which sank with $4 billion worth of gold in 1694.

It seems that the underwater treasure hunters had ties to others as well, because there are a number of reports today that 52 individuals have been arrested throughout Andalusia. The arrests seem to be linked to the three in Cadiz. The Guardian reports that “A team of 200 officers searched 68 flats to confiscate the pieces, many of which were bound for foreign collectors. The ring sent coins and small items through the mail. Police found larger pieces destined for Faro, Portugal, where they were to be flown to Belgium.” Reuters has a wire report as well. The reports boast that over 300,000 objects were recovered. That’s a staggering sum, and one wonders how many of the recoveries were of high quality. However, this image of recovered mosaics indicates that the authorities didn’t just recover anchors and bullets.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

52 Arrested for Antiquities Trafficking in Italy

From Bloomberg,

“Italian police arrested 52 people and recovered several hundred smuggled archeological artifacts as part of their “tomb raider” investigation into international art theft.

More than 300 carabinieri of the finance police and paramilitary art squad searched suspects’ homes in eight Italian provinces early today and found smuggled goods of “considerable worth,” Italy’s Culture Ministry said in an e-mail.

Three years of investigations into a group of Sicilian “tomb raiders” led to the searches, arrests and uncovering of a wider international network, with contacts in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, the U.K. and U.S., the statement said. The investigation and raids were coordinated by the magistrates from the Sicilian province of Gela, the e-mail said.”

The Bloomberg story got one important detail very wrong. It incorrectly stated that the Getty has agreed to return 52 antiquities to Italy. In fact, Italy demanded the return of 52 objects; the Getty has agreed to return 25 of them in principle, along with one other which was not on the list.

The Malta Star has more on this story as well. It seems that many of the Sicilians arrested were not “from usual criminal backgrounds but rather from the professions and the business community and also include collectors and antiquarians.” If that’s true, it would be quite a blow to the antiquities trade. One difficulty the Italian authorities may have is following through with convictions of these individuals, who may be considered upstanding members of their community.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Theft of a bust of Rodin’s "The Thinker" (UPDATED)


A number of bronze sculptures, including one of the casts of Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” has been stolen from a Dutch museum. Though it is not particularly rare (there exist 74 other casts of the work), it may be worth hundreds of thousands of Euros. This is another in a string of recent bronze thefts. Some bronze busts have recently gone missing from the Pere Lachaise cemetery as well. Tragically, the works may be melted down, as bronze can be quite valuable. There is also speculation that the bronze may be used to make counterfeit ancient coins.

UPDATE:

Two men have been arrested in connection with the thefts. As I suspected, it appears the thieves were only after the bronze to melt it down. They were apparently quite surprised at the level of media attention. Sadly, it appears that one of the legs was sawed off in preparation for melting it down. On the bright side though, perhaps they can use one of the other thinker busts to reconstitute this one.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Who is Noah Charney?


Yesterday’s New York Times Magazine discusses Cambridge PhD candidate Noah Charney, who is using art history, psychology, and criminal investigation scholarship to form a composite picture of who art thieves are and why they steal. The article gives a good overview of some of the biggest art thefts in recent history, including the theft in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, in which $300 million worth of art was stolen.

Apparently, Charney wants to use criminal profiling and forensic psychology to solve art thefts, or even predict which objects are likely to be stolen in the future. He’s also hired a professional fund-raiser to begin a stolen art consultancy in Rome which will use this inter-disciplinary approach to solving art crimes.

It’s certainly an interesting idea, and one that I’m sure will likely take off for him. Stolen art is a topic everyone is interested in. However, one question I have, apart from how exactly a PhD student gets a write-up in the NYT, is whether this even can work. The article is pretty slim on the details for how exactly his research tackles the problem. It certainly sounds interesting, and I’d love to read more about his work. At the end of the day, the driving force behind art theft is the high value of these objects, and the expense of providing adequate security, especially in museums and houses which receive fewer visitors, and cannot afford adequate security. His new consultancy is headquartered in Rome, which currently seems a great place to see how increased enforcement resources can impact the illicit trade. I will be particularly interested to learn more about who buys stolen art.

This increase will certainly impact the illicit trade in cultural property, but to what extent? The illicit trade in cultural property shares many characteristics with the illegal narcotics trade. In fact, many of the same “source” nations for art and antiquities are also narcotics cultivation areas, including both Afghanistan and a number of areas in South America. An increase in police resources in that illicit trade seems to have brought about the opposite of the intended effect.

William Burroughs wrote a particularly poignant work on this subject, Naked Lunch, which satirizes modern society and its many addictions. Burroughs speaks explicitly about drugs, but he is using that trade as a starting point for any kind of addiction. He talks about a pyramid of junk, which can be analogized to any illegal trade I think. As Burroughs says, “The pyramid of junk, one level eating the level below right up to the top or tops as there are many junk pyramids feeding on peoples of the world and all built on the basic principles of monopoly”. In Burrough’s view, the only way to stop a pyramid like this is at the consumer end. For the drug trade, that’s the user, but for the illicit trade in art, it’s the purchaser of a work.

The likely result of these increased interdiction efforts in the cultural property market will be to lead to a greater number of arrests, but will only force the illicit trade further underground. As long as there are individuals who want to buy and possess these objects, the trade will remain robust. Perhaps Charney’s work will reveal more about who the purchasers of stolen art are.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Hermitage Theft Thwarted

The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, which announced a massive theft earlier this summer, was the victim of an attempted robbery last Friday. A man smashed a glass display and attempted to steal a silver cup before he was arrested. The director of the Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky said that the widespread coverage of the thefts this summer may have prompted the thief to try and steal the object. A great deal was written on the missing objects this summer, and the death of a former curator who died last October further increased speculation. However, this theft appears ill-planned. The man smashed the glass with his elbow or knee and was soon apprehended.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Builder Arrested in Spain


A builder from l’Alcora was arrested on Monday for trafficking in stolen art after Spanish authorities discovered 18th century hand-painted wall tiles which had decorated the Palacio de Vallvert in Valencia. The tiles had been stolen individually over a period of months. The 1,932 recovered tiles have been estimated at almost 2 million €. Authorities have not yet arrested the thieves.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com

Ramses II for sale

French police arrested a man attempting to sell pieces of hair from Pharoah Ramses the II on the internet. He was asking for 2,000 Euros for hair samples. The main claimed his father worked on restoring the body between 1976-77. Ramses II was born around 1304 BC. The unfortunate story highlights the fact that human remains are being bought and sold, and are an unfortunate component of the illicit market in cultural property. It will be interesting to see exactly how French authorities prosecute this man. The mummy most likely belongs to Egypt. Even if the man had nothing to do with the actual removal, it is likely he will be charged with receiving stolen property.

Questions or Comments? Email me at derek.fincham@gmail.com