Mark Durney points out that the Lopez hypothesis about a lack of evidence that organized crime is involved in art theft "runs counter to what a number of other cultural property law enforcement investigators, including former members of the FBI's Art Theft Program, have suggested to me".
The article "The FBI Art Theft Program and Its Impact on Collecting: A Report from FBI Special Agent Robert Wittman and the Editor," which was published in the The American Society of Arms Collectors Bulletin 93 (2005), supports the claim that organized crime's involvement in art theft is not limited to only a few isolated cases. The Editor, who was furnished with a description of the FBI Art Crime Team
operations by former Agent Wittman, writes, "Russian officials have advised the FBI that over forty Russian organized crime groups have been identified as dealing in stolen art and cultural property." It continues to describe an "isolated case" from 2002 that involved the recovery of $50 million worth of art and the arrests three men, who were seeking to sell the art to an Eastern European criminal organization. Accordingly, I am interested to know who is floating the "fanciful theories regarding the methods and motives behind art theft"?
He then refers to my earlier blog post (I may regret the use of the phrase "the art of antiquities theft") and points readers to Neil Brodie et al. 2000 for more information.
Finally, for an in-depth, criminological study of organized crime's links to art crime I suggest reading A.J.G. Tijhuis "Doctoral Thesis: Transnational crime and the interface between legal and illegal actors: the case of the illicit art and antiquities trade," Leiden University, 2006.Tijhuis has a brief article "trafficking in stolen art, antiques and cultural property" in Shanty et al. 2009 (pp. 223-5).
Coming back to antiquities, the involvement of organized criminal groups in the trade in Chinese antiquities (and the fake antquities of varying egrees of sophistication produced in 'industrial' quantities) has long been a commonplace of discussions on the seedier side of the trade. The same goes for other Asian countries, such as in Cambodia where temple looters sometimes operate in large well-equipped groups. In Iraq too the involvement of organized criminal groups in looting museums and archaeological sites has been posited.
See also S. Manacorda (ed) Organized Crime in Art and Antiquities. Milan: International Scientific and Professional Advisory Council of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme. I am sure there are a lot more considerations of this topic in the literature, these are just a few that come to mind at the moment.
One can understand the "art" trade's discomfort of having these links pointed out. Nevertheless it is going to take more than a single interview with a single FBI officer to "debunk" this issue. The no-questions-asked collecting of portable antiquities is deeply embedded in a network of links to all sorts of distasteful practices and groups which the money from indiscriminate collectors is going to finance.
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References
Neil Brodie, Jenny Doole, Peter Wilson, 2000. Stealing History – The illicit trade in cultural material. Cambridge: Mc Donald Institute for Archaeological Research.
Gregory Elich 1994. Spoils of War: The Antiquities Trade and the Looting of Iraq
Centre for Research on Globalization
Frank Shanty, Patit Paban Mishra eds. 2007. Organized crime: from trafficking to terrorism part 1. ABC-CLIO.
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5 comments:
Dear Mr. Barford,
Again, a very interesting and erudite discussion, but I'd like to clarify here, as I did in the previous post - http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2010/06/museum-security-art-antiquities-and.html - that the actual subject of my discussion with Mr. Wittman in the summer issue of Art & Antiques has become somewhat garbled through re-transmission.
Wittman does not debunk--nor did he attempt to debunk--the idea that organized crime is involved in art theft. Of course it is. And Wittman's book, "Priceless," mentions several cases, primarily in Europe, where organized or semi-organized criminal gangs carried out quite brazen robberies.
What Wittman disputes, both in the Art & Antiques interview and in his book, is the idea that stolen art objects are systematically traded back and forth between criminals as a kind of underworld currency, supposedly essential to the financing of diverse nefarious activities such as terrorism, large-scale drug dealing, arms trafficking and the like.
It's this fictitious system of clandestine finance that Wittman states he did not see during his years with the FBI. He allows that isolated cases of art-traded-for-drugs, etc. may well exist but contends that this simply isn't an important motivation behind art crime (usually more of a desperation move actually).
For those of your readers who might be interested, the full text of the interview is available here: http://jonathanlopez.net/Wittman.pdf
With regard to some of the more aggressive comments directed at me personally in the post above, since they appear to have been based on a false understanding of the article and of my position, they fall, in my opinion, under the heading of innocent mistakes and mis-characterizations, and I take no offense.
Very best wishes,
Jonathan Lopez
Frankly Mr Lopez, I see nothing particularly "aggressive" about you in the above, so perhaps it is just as well you did not take offence ("gormless" refers to an entirely different group of people). I did actually give a link to the whole interview in the original post.
As for any garbling, as I said, "my concern was that this statement be not taken out of context and used by the advocates of no-questions-asked collecting and trading of antiquities" against those of us who oppose the latter. Unfortunately they and their supporters do a lot of garbling, which is why I tend to be rather suspicious of "arts" journalism as a whole I guess.
My concern was with two specific statements:
1) "Mark Durney points out that the Lopez hypothesis about a lack of evidence that organized crime is involved in art theft 'runs counter to what a number of other cultural property law enforcement investigators, including former members of the FBI's Art Theft Program, have suggested to me'."
The problem here is that I formulate no such hypothesis. Hence, this mis-characterization would seem to ignore the actual content of my exchange with Wittman in preference for a straw-man argument. Disputes of that type are easy to win but not terribly interesting.
2) "One can understand the 'art' trade's discomfort of having these links pointed out. Nevertheless it is going to take more than a single interview with a single FBI officer to 'debunk' this issue."
What my interview with Wittman debunks is a the use of objects stolen in "big heists" as a form of alternate currency in "a system of underworld finance," not a connection (essentially a tautological one) between art crime and art criminals, organized or not. Likewise I am not involved in the "art trade," by which you appear to mean here (I think) the buying and selling of antiquities.
That you are suspicious of arts journalism, however, seems fair enough--suspicion is a healthy attitude to have toward most forms of journalism, whether related to the arts or anything else.
Again, I enjoy your blog and the high intellectual standard it sets.
Very best wishes,
Jonathan Lopez
Ok, but they are not statements which are "aggressive" about you personally.
Neither I think is it fair to categorise what I wrote as a straw man argument, I clearly make reference to an ongoing discussion on MSN, in which Ton Cremers and Mark Durney are mentioned by name as well as yourself. As I have said, I was concerned lest the garbled version is taken up by the antiquity traders' lobby.
Frankly I (personally) am less concerned about the mechanisms by which antiquities are used within criminal networks (that is a matter for law enforcers to sort out). Whether they are or are not used as "collateral" or simply sold abroad does not concern me over-much. The point is that the trade is not offered an opportunity to deny that the antiquities which are the focus of this blog are being handled by organized criminal groups.
Thank you for your comments, I hope we have clarified that.
Yes, perfectly clear and very fair-minded of you, I think.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
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