Nine of 12 paintings stolen from a Los Angeles home in 2008 are recovered by authorities
Paintings worth $10 million were quietly taken from the home of an elderly Los Angeles couple
For six years, the mystery surrounding one of the largest art heists in Los Angeles history baffled police. Then, a shadowy figure by the name of "Darko" surfaced in Europe. Darko held himself out as a fixer for someone in California wanting to peddle the paintings. The items, police knew, had been stolen from an Encino home in summer 2008. The collection included works by Marc Chagall and Diego Rivera and was worth an estimated $10 million. The discovery led undercover FBI agents to pretend to be interested in buying the art. They arranged for a meeting at a Brentwood hotel.
There appeared Raul Espinoza, who was arrested after he tried to sell the agents the artworks, according to a search warrant filed in court this month. Authorities recovered nine of the 12 paintings, the warrant said. The return of the stolen works — no small feat in the world of art theft, where recovery rates are low — marks a significant victory for investigators. The burglary had been swift, and there were few clues.
At the home where the dozen works were part of a multimillion-dollar art collection owned by an elderly couple, caretakers normally shuffled through on a round-the-clock basis. The couple, one of whom was 88 at the time of the theft, had gained their wealth through real estate investments. On the morning of Aug. 23, 2008, the caretaker on duty had left for what she said was a 49-minute period to buy groceries at Gelson's. The home was equipped with a security system, but the couple's children told investigators that the alarm wasn't functioning. Every entryway was locked except for the kitchen door on the side of the home. When the caretaker returned just after noon, the paintings that had hung on the hallway and living room walls were gone, frames and all. The couple, inside their bedrooms, hadn't heard the thief or thieves. And police weren't called to the home until the following morning, according to a police report. Among the stolen works were Emil Nolde's "Figur mit Hund" (Figure With Dog), 1912; Lyonel Feininger's "Fin de Seance," 1910; Chaim Soutine's "La Vieille Dame au Chien" (Old Woman With Dog), 1919; Soutine's "La Femme en Rouge" (Woman in Red), 1926; Kees van Dongen's "Alicia Alanova," 1933; and Hans Hofmann's Untitled (known as "Blue Bottle"), 1947.
Several works of art and paintings worth millions of dollars were left behind. What led investigators to Darko is unclear. Reached Wednesday, Det. Donald Hrycyk of the Los Angeles Police Department's art theft detail declined to say whether anyone else had been arrested or if the remaining artworks had been found. But in the search warrant, filed Dec. 5, Hrycyk said he suspected "the original burglary could not have been accomplished without the assistance of inside help from one of the employees who worked for the victims at the time of the crime." Hrycyk wrote that he believed Espinoza, who also goes by the alias Jorge Lara, knew the insider. During the Oct. 23 meeting in the hotel, Hrycyk watched and listened to the negotiation between Espinoza and undercover agents through a hidden camera in the hotel room, he wrote in the warrant. The agents were offering $700,000 for nine pieces. Espinoza tried to peddle three additional artworks to the agents, including one painting that matched the description of an Endre Szasz piece taken from the Encino home, the search warrant said. Espinoza used "his cellphone to call confederates to signal them during the operation," Hrycyk wrote in the document. Espinoza, 45, was arrested at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel, according to arrest records. He has been charged with one count of receiving stolen property. He pleaded not guilty at an Oct. 27 arraignment and remains jailed at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic. His bail is $5 million. Espinoza's relationship to Darko is unclear, authorities said. This month, investigators sought the warrant to search Espinoza's cellphone, believing that photos and electronic communications could bring the long-running investigation closer to an end. matt.hamilton@latimes.com Twitter: @MattHjourno
Major L.A. art heist: Recovered art worth over $12 million, FBI says
Art worth more than $12 million was recovered in one of the biggest art heists in Los Angeles history, the FBI said Friday. The works were stolen in 2008 from an Encino couple, who did not live to see the recovery of the works. The husband died within four months of the crime, authorities said, and his wife died earlier this year.
A dozen paintings were stolen from the elderly couple's multimillion-dollar collection. The works were taken from the couple's home in broad daylight while they were in their bedrooms nearby. Among the stolen works were Emil Nolde's "Figur mit Hund" (Figure With Dog), 1912; Lyonel Feininger's "Fin de Seance," 1910; Chaim Soutine's "La Vieille Dame au Chien" (Old Woman With Dog), 1919; Soutine's "La Femme en Rouge" (Woman in Red), 1926; Kees van Dongen's "Alicia Alanova," 1933; and Hans Hofmann's Untitled (known as "Blue Bottle"), 1947. See more on the news conference below. In a news conference Friday, agents said there are three pieces yet to be recovered. One of them is believed to be by Hungarian artist Endre Szasz. The FBI said the value of the artwork ranks as the greatest recovered in recent history. A reward of $25,000 was offered for any more information regarding the rest of the stolen art.
The return of stolen works is no small feat in the world of art theft. Recovery rates are low. The FBI will address the recovery of the paintings at a news conference today.
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A Kees van Dongen painting also was among those stolen
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Twelve works of art were stolen from the multimillion-dollar collection of an Encino, Calif., couple. Nine of those were recovered. Below is a detail from "Les Paysans' by Marc Chagall, one of the stolen works.
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Nine paintings worth $10 million that were stolen in one of the 'largest art heists in Los Angeles history' are recovered as the thief tried to sell them
The paintings were recovered in an FBI sting operation in which a suspect identified as Paul Espinoza, 45, was arrested as he tried to sell the works to undercover FBI agents
The stolen paintings included works by Hans Hofmann, Chaim Soutine, Arshile Gorky, Emil Nolde, Lyonel Feininger and Kess van Dongen
The artwork, including pieces by Marc Chagall and Diego Rivera, is worth millions and was taken while the couple was at home
Both art experts and authorities described the art theft as one of the largest in Los Angeles history
Authorities have recovered $10 million worth of art — including paintings by Chagall and Diego Rivera — that were stolen in one of Los Angeles' largest art heists.
The FBI and Los Angeles Art Cop Donald Hrycyk recovered nine pieces of art at a West LA hotel in October, and a man was arrested, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The works, including Chagall's 'Les Paysans' and Diego Rivera's 'Mexican Peasant,' were among a dozen swiped from the Encino home of a wealthy real estate investor on the morning of Aug. 24, 2008, by a crook or crooks who entered through the unlocked kitchen door, police said.
Recovered art: Federal agents and police in Los Angeles have recovered nine paintings worth millions of dollars that were stolen from the home of an elderly couple six years ago, including works by Marc Chagall and Diego Rivera.
Found: The paintings were recovered in an FBI sting operation in which a suspect identified as Paul Espinoza, 45, was arrested as he tried to sell the stolen artwork to undercover agents
The elderly residents were in their bedrooms and heard nothing, police said.
The case grew cold until this September, when Detective Donald Hrycyk of the LAPD's art theft detail received a tip that a man in Europe known as 'Darko' was seeking buyers for the stolen art, the Times said.
Darko 'indicated that he was merely a middleman for an unknown person in possession of the art in California,' Hrycyk wrote in a search warrant.
During the ensuing undercover operation, Raul Espinoza, 45, was contacted at the hotel, where he tried to sell the estimated $10 million worth of paintings for $700,000 cash, prosecutors contend.
Three stolen paintings remain missing.
Espinoza pleaded not guilty in October to receiving stolen property and remains jailed on $5 million bail.
Messages seeking comment were left for his public defender, Aparna Voleti, on Wednesday.
The Times said Hrycyk sought permission this month to search Espinoza's cellphone for possible photos or communications that could reveal the identities of the thieves involved in the original burglary.
Not over: The FBI investigation of the art theft is continuing and additional suspects are being sought. Authorities are also are looking for three additional paintings stolen from the couple's home in the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles in August 2008 in a daylight art heist that ranks among the biggest in the city's history
Hostage situation in a jewellery store in Montpellier, France - reports
Hostages have reportedly been taken in a jewellery store in Montpellier, Southern France. The new incident is evolving shortly after hostages were freed in Paris and Charlie Hebdo suspects killed in Northern France. READ MORE: Charlie Hebdo suspects killed, store hostages freed - reports According to the media, two people are being held in a shop in the center of the city. The police have surrounded the area. There is no precise information yet about the siege. However, the media report it could be an attempted robbery which turned into hostage taking. The criminal reportedly held the two shopkeepers for about an hour, threatening them with a gun. However, no one was killed nor wounded, local Midi Libre said. Special police forces arrived on the scene along with the region’s prosecutor and the city mayor. According to Montpellier prosecutor Christophe Barret, cited by Midi Libre, the situation is "very calm" and there is no reason to connect the siege in Montpellier with the events in Paris and in Northern France. People from the surrounding shops were evacuated by the police and the electricity was cut to prepare the police attack to release the hostages, the newspaper reported. READ MORE: Charlie Hebdo massacre aftermath LIVE UPDATES The incident in Montpellier has caused a new wave of panic in France as it followed less than an hour after the Charlie Hebdo suspects were killed in Northern France and a hostage siege in a kosher store in Paris, where a gunman was killed. France's Interior Minister has confirmed that "several" hostages have been killed. There have been four deaths reported in the Paris hostage taking.
Man accused of stealing £700,000 worth of rare Faberge antiques
Richard Tobin, 45, is accused of breaking in to Christie’s in London and stealing the valuable antiques
A man accused of stealing more than £700,000 worth of rare Faberge antiques from from one of the world’s top auction houses in London appeared in court. Richard Tobin, 45, is accused of breaking in to Christie’s in London on Sunday December 7 last year. Items stolen included a jewelled gold Faberge clock, worth £125,000 made in St Petersburg, Russia in 1899, and a Faberge Jasmine flower silver gilt, worth £550,000, as well as other items made by the court jewellers of Imperial Russia. Tobin, of no fixed address, is also charged with breaking into the offices of financial firm Muzinich & Co, in Hanover Street, Mayfair, two nights earlier and stealing a rucksack and a pair of headphones. He appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court via videolink from Charing Cross Police Station in central London. He is charged with two counts of burglary. Mavis Ramkissoon, prosecuting, said: “Due to the value of the items involved in this case it should be sent to Crown Court.” Tobin, who was arrested on Wednesday by officers from Westminster CID,spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth. There was no bail application and no pleas were entered. He was remanded in custody to appear next at Southwark Crown Court on January 22. Magistrate Kristen Walker said: “We will decline jurisdiction in this case.” Addressing Tobin, she said: “These matters are too serious to be heard in this court. They will be transferred to Southwark Crown Court.
CCTV released after theft from antique shop
Police have released this CCTV Credit: THAMES VALLEY POLICE
Thames Valley Police has released CCTV images of men it would like to speak to in connection with the burglary of an antiques centre in Tetsworth, near Thame. At 2.40am on the 12th December four men forced entry through the door of the Swan Antiques Centre in High Street and attempted to steal a safe using a strap tied to a rear of a Land Rover Defender, which had been stolen from Horspath. The safe was not stolen but several display cabinets were smashed and antique jewellery, watches, brooches, necklaces and bracelets were stolen. The Land Rover was found abandoned near Postcombe on the same day.
Police have released this CCTV Credit: THAMES VALLEY POLICE
One of the items stolen Credit: THAMES VALLEY POLICE
Rathkeale Traveller cites ‘emotional distress’ in €19m lawsuit
'Emotional distress': Richard Kerry O'Brien
A RATHKEALE man who is suing magazine publisher Bloomberg for $23m (€19m) has said that an article he claims linked him to the illegal trade in rhino horns has left him suffering “severe emotional, psychological and medical distress”. Richard Kerry O’Brien has lodged a libel action against the media giant over an article which was published in Businessweek magazine in January of last year under the headline The Irish Clan Behind Europe’s Rhino Horn Theft Epidemic. The story investigated the global trade in rhino horns, and the involvement of the so-called Rathkeale Rovers gang in this and other criminal activity. The article, by Adam Higginbotham, made reference to Mr O’Brien whom it described as “the King of the Travellers”. It also referred to the arrest in the United States of Mr O’Brien’s son, also named Richard, for buying rhino horns. However, Mr O’Brien has denied any connection with the Rathkeale Rovers. In papers filed with the New York Supreme Court, his lawyer states: “Richard Kerry O’Brien has never been a member of, or associated with, any criminal ‘clan’, group, gang, organisation or network, specifically the Rathkeale Rovers. He has never held himself out in his community as the ‘king’ of any group that partakes in criminal activity.” The lawsuit claims that since the story was published last January, Mr O’Brien “has been subject to much ridicule and scorn”. “As the public ridicule, embarrassment, shame, hatred and harassment against Plaintiff continues, his despondency over the publication of the article and its impact on his life continues to grow,” it continued. Bloomberg has this week defended its reporting of the story.
Stolen ‘Blue Dog’ painting recovered, art thief still sought | #Louisiana
NEW ORLEANS – Hours after a thief strolled out of a French Quarter gallery with a Blue Dog painting worth thousands of dollars, four men found the artwork two blocks away on the street outside a hotel, police said. A thief walked out of the Rodrigue Gallery on Royal Street with a painting estimated to be valued at $250,000 Tuesday afternoon, according to the Rodrigue family. The incident occurred around 3:15 p.m. in the 700 block of Royal Street. The painting, titled "Wendy and Me," depicted Blue Dog artist George Rodrigue as a blue dog wearing a tuxedo and standing next to his wife Wendy. It was taken directly from the wall, according to Andrew Freeman, a spokesman for the gallery. Around 11:50 p.m., four men saw two paintings lying against the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel near the corner of St. Louis and Royal streets, according to the New Orleans Police Department. One of the men recognized the painting as the stolen artwork, and the group took the paintings to the 8th District police station. WWL TV
NEW ORLEANS – Hours after a thief strolled out of a French Quarter gallery with a Blue Dog painting worth thousands of dollars, four men found the artwork two blocks away on the street outside a hotel, police said.
This Sept. 29, 2006 file photo shows the exterior of the French Laundry restaurant in Yountville, Calif. More than $300,000 of world-class wine stolen from the famed Napa Valley, California restaurant has been found in a private cellar in North Carolina. The stolen wine included bottles of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, where the winery owners use laser and digital technology on corks and capsules to curb counterfeiting and theft. A single bottle can cost up to $10,000. Screaming Eagle wines were also stolen.
SAN FRANCISCO -- More than $300,000 in world-class wine stolen from a famed Napa Valley restaurant has been recovered from a private cellar on the other side of the country.
But the mystery of who broke into the unmarked wine room at the world-renowned French Laundry eatery and how the 76 bottles of fine wine got to a private cellar in Greensboro, North Carolina, has yet to be solved.
The theft occurred on Christmas, a day after Chef Thomas Keller's restaurant closed for a six-month kitchen remodel.
The Yountville establishment is rated three stars in the Michelin guide and twice has been named the world's best by Restaurant Magazine.
Napa County sheriff's Capt. Doug Pike said no arrests have been made. But he added authorities are withholding some information -- including any clues about how the wines were located or who took them -- to maintain the integrity of the investigation.
Still, those in the tight-knit Napa Valley wine community have their theories.
"This has the earmarks of somebody who knew what they were doing and had the knowledge to choose those wines," said Stefan Blicker, who co-owns BPWine.com, an online merchant of fine and rare wines in Napa.
Because of their value, some of the stolen wines would have been outfitted with digital tracking devices, a practice used by winery owners to prevent theft and counterfeiting, Blicker said. It's unclear whether that helped crack the case.
"I'm not positive that the tracking numbers on the bottles themselves had anything to do with this apprehension," Blicker said. "It's hard to know if that wine was even sold."
Restaurant Magazine named the French Laundry best in the world in 2003 and 2004. The restaurant is famed for twice daily serving nine-course tasting menus, none of which use the same ingredient more than once. The wine list is several dozen pages.
The stolen wine included Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, a single bottle of which can cost up to $10,000. An online wine list shows the bottles sell for $3,250 to $7,950 at the restaurant.
Bottles of Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon, one of the most highly sought-after American wines, also were stolen. The restaurant wine list shows one vintage sells for $6,000.
"I looked at the French Laundry wine list, and those wines probably make the most sense from a thief's point of view in the sense that it packed the most amount of value in the least amount of space," Blicker said.
The Domaine de la Romanée-Conti would have been especially appealing, he said.
"To have a very large collection of multi vintages of one very prestigious producer was a logical choice," Blicker said. "It's quite possible that this was pre-planned."
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti bottles have a tracking number, and collectors want to see that number because it legitimizes the bottle, Blicker said.
"If the person buying the wine has the inclination to find out where the original sale of the bottle was, they can do that," he said. "You have to imagine a bottle of wine like a rare piece of art. It may change hands five or six times."
Screaming Eagle uses radio-frequency identification tags to fight counterfeiting.
On Monday, after a nearly monthlong investigation, analysis of forensic evidence, and numerous interviews, Napa County sheriff's detectives traveled to Greensboro to recover the majority of the stolen wines.
Capt. Joel Cranford said the Greensboro Police Department was not involved in the case. The FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The sheriff's office will be working with state and federal law enforcement to follow up on leads, Pike said.
Blicker said he's happy French Laundry will have its wine returned but hopes it was properly cared for in the transfer.
"Wines like that are very delicate" and must be kept at a certain temperature, he said. "If they were driven through the Las Vegas desert in a 98-degree day, (they) may have destroyed $300,000 worth of wine."
Emily Wines, wine director for Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants and one of 140 master sommeliers in the nation, said she understood the theft of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and the Screaming Eagle, since they are high-dollar wines.
But she wondered why some lesser-valued burgundy and Dom Perignon -- listed at French Laundry for $695 to $1,450 a bottle -- was part of the take.
"Dom Perignon champagne is certainly something people recognize, but it's not something that you can sell for megabucks," Wines said.
Italy Recovers 5,000 Looted Ancient Artifacts In Trafficking Crackdown
Part of a massive stockpile of ancient Italian artifacts that were stolen and smuggled with the intent of selling them around the world.
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More than 5,000 ancient artifacts smuggled out of Italy and sold around the world were recovered in what is being called a record-breaking art trafficking bust The hoard of vases, statues and jewelry- dating from the eighth century BC to the third century AD- were discovered during an investigation into an international smuggling ring traced back to an art gallery owner in Switzerland, the Agence France-Presse reported. Raids conducted on several warehouses owned by Sicily native Gianfranco Becchina, who ran the gallery, turned up the antiques collectively worth 45 million euros, or $52 million. Italian police took Becchina into custody while his wife was arrested by Swiss authorities. The 5,361 antiques recovered are "the biggest recovery in history, in terms of the quantity and quality of the archaeological treasures," Carabinieri general Mariano Mossa, head of a stolen art unit with the Italian police, said according to Italy Magazine. Traffickers got a hold of the pieces during illegal archaeological digs in Italy before they were shipped to Switzerland for restoration, police who specialize in stolen art told AFP. They were meant to be sold to buyers around the world with fake certificates of authenticity, including to the U.S., Great Britain, Australia, Germany and Japan, Mossa told AFP. Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said the artworks will be returned where they came from an be displayed to the public. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30929656
12-year-old girl hunted by police after helping pull off HK$36 million U.S. $3million diamond heist
'Innocent-looking' teen calmly made away with jewellery while middle-aged accomplices distracted staff
A robbery gang who used an innocent-looking child to stage the audacious theft of a HK$36 million diamond necklace from under the noses of staff at a luxury jewellery shop were being hunted by police last night. The heist - which detectives have described as "very well planned" - unfolded when two women, a man and a girl thought to be between 12 and 14 years old walked into the Emperor Jewellery shop in the 1881 Heritage shopping mall in Tsim Sha Tsui shortly after 3pm yesterday. Well-dressed and speaking Putonghua, the trio of adults, managed to distract staff by asking to look at a series of items on display while the girl stole a key from a drawer, opened a display cabinet then slipped the necklace off a display bust and into her pocket. The girl was was later caught on CCTV cameras calmly walking out of the mall. Detectives say she may have quickly changed her appearance after leaving the shop before jumping into a taxi to escape. Her adult accomplices, who police say are aged between 30 and 40, remained inside the mall as if nothing had happened. Shop staff did not notice the 100-carat gold necklace embedded with more than 30 diamonds was missing until shortly before 5pm. A 63-year-old member of staff then called police. "Initial investigations suggest the girl stole a key from a drawer and then opened a display cabinet to steal the necklace when the three adults - one man and two women - kept staff busy," a police source said, adding that it was the first time in recent years a child had been used in such a heist. "The necklace was embedded with more than 30 diamonds totalling about 100 carats. We were told it was worth about HK$36 million, $3 million. "The three adults posed as big spenders and demanded employees show them jewellery in an apparent move to divert staff attention," the source said. Police said that after spending more than 30 minutes in the shop, the four left without buying anything. A search was mounted but no arrests were made. The girl is about 1.4 metres tall and was wearing a grey windbreaker, dark jeans and black shoes after she left the shop but may have been dressed in pink and white inside the shop. Border officers are looking out for the thieves as police believe they will flee the city. Art Crime The Case of the Stolen Stradivarius
The Lipinsky Stradivarius, shown here shortly after recovery, is 300 years old and valued at more than $5 million.
When a 300-year-old Stradivarius violin valued at more than $5 million was stolen from Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Frank Almond last year, investigators initially believed the theft may have been the work of sophisticated art thieves. The truth turned out to be much less glamorous. Still, the tale of the theft and recovery of this rare instrument goes down in the annals of the FBI’s Art Crime Team as a one-of-a-kind case. When Almond emerged from a back door of a concert hall at Wisconsin Lutheran College last January, where he had just performed, he was carrying the “Lipinski Strad”—made by Antonio Stradivari in 1715 and later named for the Polish violinist Karol Lipinski who played it. As Almond walked to his car, a man approached, pulled a Taser from his coat, and fired. With Almond temporarily incapacitated by the stun gun, the thief grabbed the Lipinski and fled to a waiting vehicle. Hours later, Milwaukee Police Department officers found the violin case discarded by the side of the road. “There was an automatic assumption the violin would be traveling interstate and then most likely overseas,” said Special Agent Dave Bass, a member of the Art Crime Team in the Bureau’s Milwaukee Division. Aware of the cultural significance of the violin—and that time was of the essence—the Milwaukee Police Department swiftly marshaled its forces and requested the FBI’s assistance tracking down possible leads outside Wisconsin. Special Agents Tim Bisswurm and Brian Due began gathering information about the weapon used in the robbery, which led to one of the big breaks in the case. Using evidence found at the crime scene, agents were able in a few days to trace the weapon from the manufacturer to the purchaser—a Milwaukee barber named Universal Knowledge Allah. At the same time, with the investigation in high gear and a $100,000 reward available, police received a tip regarding Milwaukee resident Salah Salahaydn. A week after the robbery, Allah and Salahaydn were arrested and charged locally, but the violin and two valuable bows were still missing. “One of my big concerns was how the violin was being stored,” Bass said. Because the delicate instrument might be critically harmed by extreme cold or humidity, Bass and others were worried that it might be irreparably damaged. Nine days after the robbery, Salahaydn led investigators to a Milwaukee home. With a borrowed ladder from the SWAT team, Bass climbed through a crawl space into the attic and retrieved the violin and the bows wrapped in a baby blanket inside an old suitcase. “I am by no means a violin expert,” Bass said, “but because of our training, I could make an informed opinion that in fact it was the Lipinski. And it appeared to be in great shape.”
Hours after the Stradivarius was stolen, Milwaukee Police Department officers found the violin's case discarded by the side of the road.
The stolen violin was recovered in excellent condition.
In May 2014, Allah pleaded guilty to felony robbery for his role in providing the stun gun to Salahaydn. He is currently serving a three-and-a-half-year prison term. Last November, Salahaydn was sentenced to seven years in prison after earlier pleading guilty to the theft. “My opinion is that the robbery was all about the reward money,” Bass said. “I believe Salahaydn’s intention was never to sell the violin. There are only a handful of people in the entire world who could do that, and he’s not one of them.” And nearly two decades earlier, Salahaydn was linked to a Milwaukee art theft and was later convicted of receiving stolen property after he tried to sell the stolen $25,000 sculpture back to the gallery years after the crime. In the end, Bass said, the Stradivarius robbery scheme was anything but sophisticated. The Taser was only good for one shot, and on a winter night when people wear heavy coats, it was more luck than skill that the weapon found its mark. Still, Salahaydn conducted extensive surveillance on Almond and knew where he and his family lived. The crime was clearly premeditated. Almond, who has been playing the Lipinski since 2008—on loan from an anonymous donor—was thrilled to get the violin back. “This was a fairly violent and traumatic event for me and my family,” he said recently. “But there were silver linings as well, in large part because of the unbelievable police work and cooperation between the Milwaukee Police Department and the FBI. I will be indebted to all of them for the rest of my life.” When the violin was stolen, Almond said, “the community really came together and saw what kind of cultural treasure was in their midst.” Now, with all the publicity surrounding the case—and as the Lipinski celebrates its 300th birthday this year—he explained, “people want to hear the violin. There’s an interest in hearing the violin played live, and not just locally.” Almond showed his gratitude last month to investigators who solved the case by taking part in a presentation at the FBI’s Milwaukee headquarters and playing the Lipinski for members of the Bureau, an FBI Citizens Academy group, and special guests from the Milwaukee Police Department. Bass, a 10-year veteran of the Art Crime Team, explained that the Bureau worked “hand in hand” with the police department to support their case and added that he has never seen an armed robbery of an instrument of this value. “There are plenty of examples of theft—breaking into a practice room, or the musician accidentally leaves the instrument somewhere—but there has never been an instance I know of where someone walks up to one of these world-class musicians and forcibly takes an instrument. We hope that it never happens again.”
Paintings found decade after Hoorn museum burglary
Thieves made off with dozens of paintings from a Walnut Grove art school and gallery after prying the door open. Robert Barrett of the Neighbourhood Art Studio said one of the staff members arrived Thursday morning to find the door had been pried open sometime late Wednesday night or early in the morning. “It wasn’t a smash and grab,” Barrett said. Between 30 and 35 paintings, in oil, watercolour, acrylic, and even stained glass, had been taken down from the walls and packed away, along with the theft of the cash drawer. Some paintings appeared to have been left behind in favour of others. The paintings belonged to a mixture of established artists and students at the gallery, which teaches about 130 artists. All the paintings are originals. The studio will be able to track precisely which paintings are missing, because the tags for the paintings and the names of the artists were left on the walls. Langley RCMP were investigating the theft, and Barrett said the insurance company has been contacted as well. Barrett said he wasn’t sure what the thieves’ plans might be. “I don’t know what they’re going to do with them all,” he said. They might try to sell them through flea markets, Craigslist, eBay or other online outlets. Police estimated the value of missing paintings at about $18,000. The Neighbourhood Art Studio has been in Langley for almost 24 years, first in Fort Langley and then in Walnut Grove on 200th Street and 92A Avenue for the past few years. They’ve had one theft of a painting before, when on New Year’s in 2000 someone stole a $2,400 painting of Chief Dan George, said Barrett. Despite leads to that painting popping up as recently as last year, it has never been recovered, he said. Anyone who knows where the paintings might be or has other information on the theft can contact the Langley RCMP at 604-532-3200, or to remain anonymous, call CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).
How do you feel about Target closing all its Canadian – including Langley – stores?
- See more at: http://www.langleyadvance.com/news/art-thieves-make-off-with-langley-studio-s-paintings-1.1739821#sthash.nKuW8kDN.dpuf
Art theft investigator Arthur Brand has received a photo of a 1629 painting by Jan Linsen which was stolen, along with 22 other paintings, from the Westfries Museum in 2005. Brand says that the 23 paintings that were stolen from the museum in Hoorn still exist and are in the hands of a criminal gang. He says that such a gang often does not know what to do with the paintings, as they cannot be sold. They make contact with Brand to get rid of them. Often the owners of the stolen goods are not the actual thieves. Museum director Ad Geerdink said that “seeing is believing”. Though after ten years of tips that led nowhere, there is now some new hope.
Man in court over £700k Faberge theft tells judge he is Lee Harvey Oswald
Identity theft: Richard Tobin claimed his name was Lee Harvey Oswald (Picture: Getty)
A man who allegedly stole more than £700,000 worth of rare Faberge antiques from a London auction house today told a court his name was Lee Harvey Oswald.
Richard Tobin, 45, stole jewellery and trinkets made by the famous court of jewellers of Imperial Russia from Christie's auction house, Southwark Crown Court heard. He made the bizarre statement at Judge Alistair McCreath as he walked into the dock at court today. Asked by the clerk if he was Richard Tobin, the diminutive Scotsman, who was wearing a white and green striped t-shirt tucked into blue jeans, said: "No, I'm Lee Harvey Oswald." Speaking in a thick Glaswegian accent, he added: "I'm named Patsy" before demanding a cup of coffee. Despite the interruption, the judge said the case could proceed, telling the court: "The gentleman has informed us that he is Lee Harvey Oswald, but I don't think that's right somehow. I expect we can proceed on the basis he is Mr Tobin."
Tobin, 45, of no fixed abode, is alleged to have broken into Christie's headquarters in King Street near Piccadilly on December 7 last year and swiped a three coloured, jewelled gold Faberge clock, worth £125,000 and made in St Petersburg, Russia in 1899. He is also alleged to have stolen a Faberge Jasmine flower silver gilt, worth £550,000; a gold and silver aquamarine necklace from 1900 and worth £35,000; a Faberge carved bulldog and a carved cockerel worth £25,000; rings worth £20,000; silver cutlery costing £2,500 and 200 US dollars, the court heard. He is also charged with breaking into the offices of financial firm Muzinich & Co, in Hanover Street, Mayfair, two nights earlier and stealing a rucksack and a pair of headphones worth £200. He is charged with two counts of burglary. He pleaded not guilty and was remanded in custody to appear at Southwark Crown Court on April 2 for a plea and case management hearing. The House of Faberge was founded in 1842 in St Petersburg and is most famous for designing opulent, jewel-encrusted eggs for the Russian Tsars. The firm was nationalised in 1918 after the Bolsheviks swept to power, and fearing for his life the company's head, Peter Carl Faberge, fled the country.
Police recovers seven antiques daggers of 18th century stolen from Government Custody
AMRITSAR: Seven ancient weapons (daggers) belonging to Sikh warriors of 18th century of Sher-e-Punjab Maharja Ranjit Singh which were stolen from the Museum of Maharaja Ranjit Singh Panorama, located in the historic Ram Bagh garden in Amritsar have been recovered here today.
Stolen ancient weapons were found in the Gurudwara Ramsar when they were donated by an unknown lady in a wrapped cloth. Things came in a limelight when a priest of the Gurudwara noticed some heavy metal in the wrapped cloth, subsequently reported to SGPC Shiromani Gurudwara Pharbandak Committee. Thereafter SGPC when learnt that these are the same daggers stolen from the Museum of Maharaja Ranjit Singh Panorama, further informed the Police and handed over the same.
It may be mentioned here seven daggers were stolen from the Museum on last week belonging to Sikh emperor Maharja Ranjit Singh particularly to the Sikh warriors who were in the Army of Sikh emperor of 18th century.
All antique weapons were on display in the museum under the lock and key system of glass box which was broken during night, last week, were in the direct supervision of the Department of Cultural Affairs, Archaeology and Museums which was being maintained and looked after by the local Municipal Corporation Amritsar.
Case dropped against Honiton jewellery raid accused
Edward O'Hare was captured on CCTV robbing the shop
Prosecutors have dropped the case against a man accused of robbing an antiques shop in Devon.
Silver, gold and jewellery worth £150,000 was stolen from Sanwell Antiques in Honiton last March. Prosecutors offered no evidence against Kevin Neal, 52, from London, during a hearing at Exeter Crown Court. Edward O'Hare, 45 - caught on CCTV during the raid and who previously admitted robbery - was remanded in custody to be sentenced in March. O'Hare was filmed attacking a female staff member as she opened the shop in Honiton's High Street on a Saturday morning. She was left shaken but unhurt. Items taken included gold bangles, bracelets, necklaces and rings, including 200-300 rings set with diamonds and semi-precious stones. O'Hare - of no fixed abode, who later fled to Belgium but was extradited - admitted robbery at a hearing in November. His sentencing on Tuesday was adjourned to allow pre-sentencing reports to be prepared.
The buyer of £25.5m worth of artworks left on a train in Italy faces a legal claim from the heir of the man from whom they were stolen in 1970.
John Henderson's advisors have spoken exclusively to Antiques Trade Gazette of how they are waiting to meet Roberto Matarazzo, the Naples lawyer of the 70-year-old retired Fiat factory worker from Sicily who reportedly bought the two paintings - by Paul Gauguin and Pierre Bonnard - for 45,000 lire, the equivalent of around £20 in today's money, at an auction of lost property in Turin in 1975.
Still Life with a Small Dog, by Gauguin, dating to 1889, is valued at £25m, while Woman with Two Armchairs, by Bonnard, is worth £500,000.
The revelations of the Italian buyer's luck sparked international media coverage when the story broke at the beginning of April last year.
Carabinieri alerted to paintings
According to Rome public prosecutor Marcello Cascini, the carabinieri were alerted to the paintings when a friend of the Italian buyer tried to sell them. That intervention led to the public revelations and ensuing media coverage, which detailed how the artworks came into the Italian buyer's possession and how he kept them on the wall at his home for 40 years.
Mr Cascini has explained to Mr Henderson's advisors that the judicial review that followed led to the works being returned to the Italian buyer on the basis of the Italian civil code. That grants ownership to holders of artworks after ten years if they are not aware that they have been stolen and after 20 years if they are.
However, Mr Henderson is preparing to challenge the decision under English law where there are no such time restrictions under the criminal code and, if successful, hopes that European Union regulations would overrule the Italian courts and enforce his claim.
He is the heir of the late Terence Kennedy, an American author whose wife was Mathilda Marks, the Marks and Spencer heiress who died in 1964.
Exhibition catalogues, newspaper reports and magazine articles, as well as Mathilda Marks' will and the picture frames from which the pictures were removed, with detailed labels on the back, place the two pictures firmly in their ownership - it is thought they were the buyers when Sotheby's sold the Gauguin on June 28, 1961.
When Mathilda Marks died she left her husband her entire estate, including the pictures, which remained in his possession until stolen in a high-profile burglary at his Chester Terrace home in Regents Park in June 1970. The thieves, posing as a policeman and two workmen, arrived at the house on the pretext of fitting a burglar alarm, removing the pictures from their frames during the few minutes the housekeeper took to make them a cup of tea. -
International media coverage of burglary
What happened next is not clear, but Mr Henderson's advisors have even managed to trace witnesses who knew Mr Kennedy at the time and remember the incident, which was reported on the front page of The Observer newspaper the day after the burglary as well as in The Times and the New York Times.
Soon after, the pictures were taken to Italy and then reportedly left on a train.
They were then thought to have been kept by the Turin lost property office for the next five years before the Italian buyer acquired them at the auction.
"What checks did the Italian authorities carry out at the point of recovery, when the theft was very much in the public consciousness thanks to the international media coverage?" asked Dick Ellis, of
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director of the Art Management Group and a former head Scotland Yard's Art and Antiques Squad. He is a specialist in the field of art recovery who has become involved in the case.
Having closed the house in Chester Terrace, Mr Kennedy put the rest of his belongings in storage and moved to Switzerland.
While on a later visit to London he suffered a major stroke and was recovering in the South of France when in 1976 mutual friends asked Mr Henderson, then a young actor, to travel down and act as Mr Kennedy's personal assistant/secretary for a few months - essential as, having previously spoken five languages, Mr Kennedy now struggled to speak at all. -
Henderson made sole heir !!
Mr Henderson helped him communicate and eventually recover his speech and with their shared interests in theatre, dance and art a strong bond developed and Mr Henderson stayed on continuing speech therapy with Mr Kennedy every morning for the rest of his life.
Mr Kennedy went on to live for more than 20 years, finally dying in 1997 and making Mr Henderson his sole heir under a will administered in Switzerland.
The terms of that will mean that all Mr Kennedy's possessions, whether in his keeping at the time or not, passed to Mr Henderson. That covers the stolen pictures.
Investigations have not uncovered any insurance payout being made on the pictures, so Mr Henderson retains title under English law.
Mr Dick Ellis, of
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who has notified Mr Matarazzo of the legal claim and warned him that his client should not attempt to sell the works, believes that proper due diligence was not carried out prior to the Italian sale of the paintings. He has shown Antiques Trade Gazette evidence that would indicate the carabinieri may not have carried out a full investigation into the circumstances of the Italian buyer's acquisition of the works. Both potential shortcomings might have a material impact on the Italian ruling awarding the Italian buyer ownership, he argues.
As this report was filed, Mr Dick Ellis of
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and Mr Henderson's advisors were awaiting a reply from Mr Matarazzo arranging a meeting to discuss the matter in Naples.
Art Hostage Comments:
This is all about money, the Heir apparent wants a slice of the proceeds, Dick Ellis wants his thirty pieces of silver and the Italian buyer wants to sell the disputed artworks. The veiled threats by Dick Ellis means the scope of sale could be diminished and only if the Italian buyer agrees to give a cut of the proceeds will Dick Ellis back off.
Otherwise Dick Ellis will act as a spoiler and prevent the artworks from making their true value.
This is nothing more, nothing less than a shake-down, designed to bulldoze their way into the proceeds of a doggy deal from the get-go.
Whilst there is a case to be argued about the validity of the Italian who allegedly bought the artworks in dubious circumstances, it has been decided under Italian Law that he has the right to keep them and has been declared owner of them, despite them being stolen property. The Italian Art and Antiques Police are no slouches by any means and the way Dick Ellis insults them by accusing them of dilatory actions wins Dick Ellis no medals and alienates Dick Ellis yet further him from all and sundry in the art crime world.
Still at 65, Dick Ellis is just trying to secure his pay off for his retirement to his home at
QUINTONS FARM HOUSE GROVE LANE ASHFIELD STOWMARKET IP146LZ with his wife and daughter
JOYCE P ELLIS
VERITY A ELLIS
This is a brazen attempt at getting a share of the proceeds, not any moral crusade, and the minute an offer is agreed to cut Dick Ellis and the Heir apparent in on the sale they will be rubbing their hands with glee.
Perhaps the Italian lawyer Mr Matarazzo, acting for the Italian owner might seek to clarify just how Mr Henderson went from being a hired help to the Heir apparent, in a will drafted in Switzerland? What extent was this so-called "strong bond"?
Many more questions than answers at this stage and Dick Ellis crawling out from under his rock leads us to think this is another case of the Foxes Guarding the Hen-House !!
The October surprise Art Hostage is referring to may occur in the next few days or weeks. Without revealing too much.
Art Hostage reminds those who control or have access to high value stolen artworks, be they paintings or other iconic artworks such as the Fitzwilliam Oriental Jade, you have been warned that as soon as any of these artworks see the light of day Police will swoop and arrests made. However, that said there may be an initial exchange then the sting in tail with arrests, in a Hong Kong Dick Ellis manner.
To those trying to prevent high value art thefts form occurring, there is no taste in nothing and prevention comes at a price, so if a huge art theft occurs then authorities and the insurance industry have no-one to blame but themselves for being so cheap, wanting to prevent art theft for free.
Degas theft suspects to appear in court next month
By Angelos Anastasiou THE three men – aged 53, 47 and 48 – held in connection with the theft of an Edgar Degas painting, reportedly worth €6m, as well as a safe containing valuables worth €162,000 from a 70-year-old pensioner’s home in Apeshia, near Limassol, will be brought before the Criminal Court on November 27, it was announced on Friday. A fourth suspect, a 55-year-old Russian, also held in connection with the case, was released after no evidence was found to justify his detention. The three men will face charges of conspiracy to commit a crime, burglary and robbery. The court will decide on Monday on whether they will remain in custody until the trial. The 53-year-old South African is the person who had initially contacted the painting’s owner, ostensibly to mediate for the sale of the pensioner’s house and part of his art collection, which included the stolen Degas. The other two, residents of Larnaca who had been known to police for past cases, were arrested last Sunday, when their mobile phone records indicated they had been in the area at the time of the robbery. It was also found that one of them had two telephone conversations with the 53-year-old during the robbery, and eye-witness testimony confirmed that they resemble two individuals approaching the plaintiff’s house in a car shortly before the robbery. Witnesses also described the vehicle as one resembling the car owned by one of the two men. As the painting, entitled ‘Ballerina adjusting her slipper’, remains missing, police continues efforts to locate it. An investigation into the painting’s authenticity is also ongoing, as a French house specialising on Degas works has suggested it may be a forgery. The painting was reported stolen by its owner on September 29 along with a metal safe which contained seven gold watches, three pairs of gold opera glasses and 20 cufflinks, estimated to worth around €162,000 in total. The owner had been at a scheduled meeting to negotiate the sale of his house and part of his art collection at the time of the theft. The Degas was not part of the deal. Police said the Russian man had shown interest in buying the art collector’s estate along with some of the paintings in his collection and that a viewing had been arranged two weeks before the painting was stolen.
French experts could be asked to weigh in on stolen painting
By Stefanos Evripidou POLICE want to send investigators to France to take statements from experts on the authenticity or not of the stolen painting believed to be the work of 19th century French Impressionist Edgar Degas. Investigations into the theft of the painting, which as an estimated value of €6m, from the house of a pensioner in Apeshia in Limassol took an interesting turn after Interpol informed Cypriot police that the painting might be a fake. Police spokesman Andreas Angelides yesterday said that the authorities were informed by Interpol that experts from a French company dealing specifically with French Impressionist artists came to Cyprus last year to examine the painting, on the owner’s request. Following an initial examination, the evaluators left open the possibility that the work might be a fake. The 70-year-old owner insists, however, that the artwork is an original Degas inherited by him from his grandmother who lived in Paris. Angelides said police are seeking the green light from the Attorney-general to send police investigators to France to take statements from this specific company but also to seek assistance from other experts specialising in the work of Degas to help establish whether they are dealing with the real deal or not. Angelides said police were informed by local experts that there are specific tests you can do on the paint, on the signature etc. to verify its authenticity. “To do that, you need to have the painting,” he said, noting that at present this is not possible. The painting is believed to be Degas’ pastel on paper, titled Dancer Adjusting Her Shoe, approximately 47cm by 61cm in size and dated late 19th century. In the meantime, the police are continuing their investigations, putting the work on a list of stolen artwork to inform other European countries, said the spokesman. Four people are in remand in relation to the case, three Greek Cypriots, aged 47, 48 and 53, and a 55-year-old Russian. A fifth man, a 44-year-old taxi driver was released on Monday. The painting was reported stolen by its owner on September 29 along with a metal safe which contained seven gold watches, three pairs of gold opera glasses and 20 cufflinks, estimated to worth around €162.000 in total. The owner had been at a scheduled meeting to negotiate the sale of his house and part of his art collection at the time of the theft. The Degas was not part of the deal. Police said the Russian man had shown interest in buying the art collector’s estate along with some of the paintings in his collection and that a viewing had been arranged two weeks before the painting was stolen.
Limerick man arrested in Germany over rhino horns
Jeremiah and Michael O'Brien pictured leaving Ennis court in March 2013 where they were each fined �500 for having 8 rhino horns valued at approx �500,000 without a permit
AN Irishman arrested by German police for trying to sell illegal rhino horns has been named as Michael O’Brien from Rathkeale. The 29-year-old was detained at Frankfurt airport on Friday, October 1 after he allegedly tried to sell the horns to a number of Chinese men. Two of his customers have also been detained by German police. It is understood they were arrested for alleged breaches of the Endangered Species Act. Reports suggest that police swooped after observing the transaction in a hotel lobby.
The men are still in custody in Frankfurt. A spokesman for An Garda Siochana said they were aware of the arrest of an Irishman in Frankfurt but could not confirm his identity. “The German police have been liaising with An Garda Siochana through Interpol and the other relevant agencies,” said a spokesman in the garda press office. In January 2010, Michael O’Brien of Roches Road, Rathkeale and his brother Jeremiah were arrested at Shannon airport with rhino horns worth nearly €500,000. In March of last year, both men pleaded guilty to charges of illegally importing the horns at Ennis district court. Michael O’Brien admitted importing four rhino horns to the value of €260,400, while Jeremiah O’Brien pleaded guilty to importing €231,760 of the items. Dermot Twohig of the Revenue Commissioners told the court that the horns were found in the O’Briens’ luggage after they flew back to Shannon from Faro in Portugal. Both men were fined €500 each for the offences. Rhino horns have become an extremely valuable commodity, particularly in parts of Asia where they are used in traditional medicine and as status symbols. It is estimated that rhino horn can fetch up to €60,000 per kilo with a large horn worth over €200,000. The high prices which can be obtained from their sale, combined with the, to date, relatively lenient penalties if caught, has led to a number of criminal gangs becoming involved in their trade. They have targeted museums, private collections and other premises where antique horns may be stored. One of the most high profile of these incidents was the theft of eight horns valued at €500,000 from the National Museum of Ireland last April. In January of this year, the Co Cork home of dancer Michael Flatley was also broken into by criminals who stole an antique horn. Rathkeale-based criminals have been linked to this lucrative trade. Last September, Gardai and Criminal Assets Bureau officers raided a number of houses in Limerick city and Rathkeale as part of an investigation into the theft of rhino horns and other rare artefacts. Two other men from the town have also been jailed in the United States for attempting to buy rhino horns from undercover FBI agents. Europol has been tracking a suspected organised crime gang, which reportedly has strong connections in County Limerick. The agency has previously warned the gang is one of the most significant players in the illegal global trade in rhino horns.
Sir Kyffin Williams painting stolen from Royal Festival Hall
Landscape At Llanaelhaearn was painted by Sir Kyffin Williams in 1947
An oil painting by a renowned Welsh artist whose works have been sold for tens of thousands of pounds, has been stolen from London's Southbank Centre.
Landscape At Llanaelhaearn, painted by Sir Kyffin Williams, was discovered missing after a member of staff found the broken picture frame hidden in a toilet cubicle in Royal Festival Hall. It is believed the work was taken from the hall at the end of September. Police said they believe the thief will try to sell the piece. Det Con Ray Swan, from Scotland Yard's Art and Antiques Unit, said: "I urge anyone who is offered the painting to report the matter to us immediately, or contact us if you know anything about the theft or the painting's whereabouts." The painting, which was on loan from the Arts Council Collection, had been on display at the centre since November last year.
Heirs Sue Bank Over Sale of Nazi-Looted Art
When Christie’s auctioned off Edgar Degas’s “Danseuses” for nearly $11 million in 2009, the catalog noted that the masterpiece was being sold as part of a restitution agreement with the “heirs of Ludwig and Margret Kainer,” German Jews whose vast art collection was seized by the Nazis in the years leading up to World War II.
But now a dozen relatives of the Kainers are stepping forward to object. Not only did they fail to benefit from that sale, they say they were never even told about it, or any other auctions of works once owned by the couple, including pieces by Monet and Renoir.
It turns out that the Kainer “heir” that has for years collected proceeds from these sales and other restitutions, including war reparations from the German government, is not a family member but a foundation created by Swiss bank officials.
In lawsuits filed in New York and Switzerland, the Kainer relatives contend that officers of the bank — now part of the global banking giant UBS — never made a diligent effort to find them, and worse, used the family name to create a “sham” foundation ostensibly organized to support the health and education of Jewish youth but actually formed, they say, to cheat them out of their inheritance.
Both the foundation — named after Norbert Levy, Mrs. Kainer’s father — and UBS have said in court papers that they have done nothing wrong, but declined to comment. The lawsuits come as high-profile disputes over looted art focus attention on how courts and governments have handled assets stolen from Jews by the Nazis. Despite the scrutiny, this case shows just how difficult adjudicating such claims remains. The Kainer family lawsuits, for example, involve the legal systems of four countries and rest on the intentions and actions of people who have been dead for many decades. Like many families who survived the Holocaust, the Kainer descendants were not even aware that their relatives had lost or left behind valuables to which they might have a claim. As experts note, the ability to track family members has made great leaps over the years. This case only came to light when Mondex Corporation, which helps recover looted property, noticed in 2009 that hundreds of works once owned by the Kainers had been listed in an international database of art lost in the war years, and then tracked down their relatives.
Then there is the added drama that the New York lawsuit names UBS as a defendant, striking a sensitive chord. UBS, the result of a 1998 merger between Swiss Bank Corporation and the Union Bank of Switzerland, was one of several Swiss banks accused of trying to block attempts by Jewish war survivors and heirs to reclaim assets deposited in what they had thought were safe havens.
The Kainer family’s dealings with Swiss banks stretches back to the period before Hitler grabbed power. Margret Kainer and her father relied on the Swiss Bank Corporation to manage their fortunes. Before his death in 1928, Mr. Levy, a Berlin metals dealer, set up a foundation to benefit his only daughter. He trusted the Swiss bank so much that in the foundation’s bylaws he required a bank director to be one of its two trustees.
When the Nazis seized control in Germany a few years later, Margret and her husband, Ludwig, a well-known artist and illustrator who designed sets for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, fled to France.
The Germans ended up confiscating much of the Kainers’ extensive holdings, which included real estate, securities, bank accounts and a world-class art collection that contained works by Goya, Ingres and Renoir as well as Chinese ceramics and ancient Egyptian sculptures, according to court papers.
Out of the Nazis reach, however, was the Norbert Levy Foundation, based in Switzerland. The foundation provided regular payments to the couple: 800 Swiss francs a month (about $2,800) until the money ran out in 1944, court papers say.
Most of Margret’s relatives were not as lucky. At least four were killed in the Holocaust, said Max Corden, a great-nephew of Norbert Levy, now 87, who is a party to the lawsuit.
After the war, the Kainers, who had briefly sought refuge in Switzerland, moved back to Paris where Mr. Kainer died in 1967, followed by Mrs. Kainer in 1968. Since they were childless, the rightful heirs, the lawsuits contend, are the 12 children and grandchildren of Mrs. Kainer’s cousins. The foundation, they say, was legally terminated with Mrs. Kainer’s death.
What happened next is at the crux of the legal dispute. Did bank officials make a good-faith effort to track down family heirs after the couple died?
The Kainer relatives say no. They charge in court papers that even a cursory search would have turned up the names of relatives who had contacted the bank in 1947 and 1950 to ask about arranging for help from the foundation. A diligent effort, they say, would also have included contacting the International Tracing Service of the Swiss-based Red Cross, which was created specifically to find missing and displaced people. Family members, the court papers say, were listed with the service.
What bank officials did do was post a notice seeking heirs for three months of 1969 in a local governmental journal published by the Swiss state of Vaud, where the Kainers maintained a legal address.
Experts acknowledge that in those days, few institutions initiated the kind of full-bore efforts to find heirs that are considered standard now.
“There were different expectations of what was required,” said Anna Rubin, the director of New York State’s Holocaust Claims Processing Office. She noted that genealogical research was less advanced, and that digital databases did not exist.
Still, experts said a basic search would have included contacting the Red Cross. A more thorough attempt, they say, would have involved Jewish organizations and a registration office in Germany, where Margret Kainer was born.
The question of who qualified as an heir languished until 1970, when West Germany, as part of a postwar settlement, finally agreed to pay the family a lump sum as restitution (the exact amount is unclear). But the money would be forfeited if there were no legal heirs.
Since the bank had not located any family members, Dr. Albert Genner, a Swiss Bank Corporation director who had personally known Norbert Levy, came up with a plan to revive the foundation in order to get the payout. In a memo dated Dec. 21, 1970, and stamped “Private,” Dr. Genner advocated resurrecting the foundation to function as the Kainers’ legal successor, so that “a claim could be constructed.” The foundation’s purpose, Dr. Genner wrote, would be to help educate children, preferably “of Jewish heritage from prewar Germany,” who “for health reasons” needed to attend school in Vaud’s favorable climate.
What no one understood at the time was just how valuable the Kainer estate really was. Over the last decade and a half, millions of dollars in misplaced assets and recovered art have surfaced. The biggest bonanza came after Swiss officials discovered a lost portfolio worth more than $19 million, according to public records in Switzerland. Swiss officials said they, too, were unable to find Kainer descendants despite multiple searches and claimed the windfall. After the Norbert foundation objected, they ultimately negotiated a settlement in 2005 under which the foundation received $5.6 million. (The Kainer family is suing the municipalities of Vaud and Pulley in Switzerland to recover the rest.)
In recent years, the foundation has collected at least $11 million, including $1.8 million from the 2009 “Danseuses” settlement and proceeds from the sale of at least three other stolen works by Monet and Renoir. (Hundreds of other Kainer collection paintings are still unaccounted for.)
Given those assets, the question of how much has been spent by the foundation on Jewish students remains unclear.
Tracking the activities of a foundation in Switzerland can be difficult, because, unlike the situation in the United States, financial information is not necessarily open to the public. Lawyers for the foundation and its president, Edgar Kircher, declined to discuss its finances or comment on the accusations.
But the minutes of nine annual board meetings held between 1990 and 2008, and gathered by Moneyhouse, a Swiss data and information service, give some sense of the organization’s reported finances.
For example, in 2008, the last year for which minutes are available, the board reported that it planned to award $8,570, divided among three students. That year, the board also discussed removing the foundation’s investments from UBS’s management because of poor performance.
“I haven’t found any evidence that they’ve given any significant money to anybody,” said James Palmer, the president of Mondex. There is, however, no evidence that the board members have taken anything but minor reimbursements for their services.
The board has been controlled since its creation in 1971 by current and former bank officials or their spouses. For the past 25 years, Mr. Kircher, an executive with UBS, has been its president or served on its board. Since 1992, the foundation has been run out of his home.
Lawyers for UBS said in court papers that the company has no relationship with the foundation and is merely a bystander in this case. Margaret Stinson, a spokeswoman for UBS, declined to comment further.
In court papers, the foundation has maintained that, under the terms of Norbert Levy’s will, it has a legal right to the assets it collected.
Mrs. Kainer’s cousin, Mr. Corden, a retired economist, scoffed at such suggestions. In an email, he said he was “outraged” by the conduct of Swiss bank officials and the foundation. He said he is not looking to profit personally from the lawsuit, as he and his family no longer are in need.
“If I get any money,” he said, “I shall give most or all to good causes.”
Overwhelmed U.S. port inspectors unable to keep up with illegal wildlife trade
It was a tomb for African elephants, with about 425 pieces of tusks carved to resemble tribesmen and totems, “one of the largest known caches of illegal elephant ivory in the United States,” court records said, worth about $1 million.
Gordon was a middleman in the grisly supply chain of African elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn who took advantage of a poorly guarded U.S. port. He was by no means a rarity.
For nearly a decade, Gordon orchestrated what prosecutors called one of the “most significant and egregious” violations of U.S. laws against trafficking elephant ivory. He paid smugglers to buy ivory from stockpiles in West Africa and sneak it through New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in shipping crates weighing as much as a ton. It was a low-risk operation for the smugglers. With only six U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service inspectors and four police agents to search millions of shipments that arrive at JFK’s massive cargo facility each year, there was little chance of being caught.
One ton of ivory was seized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agents during their investigation of Philadelphia art dealer Victor Gordon's smuggling schemes and U.S. business deals. (Bill Butcher/AP)
While the international response to poaching is focused on Africa and the demand for contraband in China and Vietnam, middlemen such as Gordon have been running extremely lucrative operations within U.S. borders. They bring cargo in through poorly policed ports and take advantage of legal loopholes that exempt antiques and some hunting trophies from the ban on trading elephant ivory and rhino horn. When agents do manage to snare a wildlife smuggler, the courts are often lenient. “Our nation hasn’t prioritized wildlife trafficking,” said David Hayes, a former Interior Department deputy secretary who serves as vice chair of an advisory panel for wildlife trafficking formed by President Obama. A major part of the problem, Hayes said, “is the lack of inspections at our ports.” Fewer than 330 Fish and Wildlife inspectors and agents patrol the largest U.S. ports, about the same number as 30 years ago, when the agency’s law enforcement branch was formed. Since that time, international wildlife trafficking has grown from a small concern into a criminal colossus worth an estimated $20 billion per year, police and economists say — the fourth-largest global black market behind the trades for drugs, guns and humans for sex. The growing revenue has attracted crime syndicates, leaders of rogue armies, and terrorist groups, according to U.S. intelligence reports. African elephant populations have been reduced by more than half in the past 30 years; nearly the entire black rhino population has disappeared since the middle of the 20th century. The White House in February unveiled a national strategy to attack wildlife trafficking by increasing cooperation among a half-dozen or so federal agencies, toughening laws and enhancing enforcement. But nowhere does it specifically commit to increasing the thin ranks of inspectors and agents at the ports.
Leilani Sanchez, a supervisory wildlife inspector with the Port of Newark, opens a box of elephant tusks at a private cargo warehouse exam site in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens. (Yana Paskova/For The Washington Post)
For every crate with illegal ivory, rhinoceros horn or some other banned product crafted from a threatened or endangered animal that is discovered, about 10 get by, police said. “We don’t have enough people to do what we have to do,” said Paul Chapelle, the special agent in charge of the Fish and Wildlife law enforcement office near JFK Airport. And when they do arrest someone, he said, “you go back and look at the [shipping] manifests, and you see the same people had been doing the same thing for five or 10 years. . . . It happens all the time.” The detection of the shipping crate that led federal agents to the immigrant smugglers, who led them to Gordon in 2011, was a stroke of luck, essentially the discovery of a needle in a haystack made up of hundreds of thousands of crates. With a long prison sentence hanging over his head, Gordon admitted to his crime and begged for mercy at a federal court in Brooklyn. “I know I was wrong,” he wrote to a judge. In a rare victory for wildlife law enforcement, Gordon was sentenced in June to 2½ years behind bars.
Spot-checking crates
As a soft rain fell on a dreary weekday in February, Naimah Aziz watched two other Fish and Wildlife inspectors crack open a shipping crate with a crowbar.
It was more than just another wood box stacked in a dank warehouse at JFK. It was also a coffin. Aziz ran her fingers across four milky white tusks of elephants shot dead in Zimbabwe. “It’s a hunting shipment,” she said, legal at the time under federal law, a loophole that allowed hunters to import the remains of non-endangered animals for trophies.
A second crate was opened, bigger and deeper. The skull of a crocodile sat atop the generous hide of a hippopotamus, folded as neatly as a bed comforter and sprinkled with lime to suppress the odor. “We see these all the time,” Aziz said.
Aziz is a member of one of the smallest federal enforcement units in the United States — Fish and Wildlife inspectors and police.
LeeAnn Bies, U.S. Fish and Wildlife service officer, looks around a room of confiscated items in Valley Stream, N.Y. (Yana Paskova for The Washington Post)
The United States ranks as the world’s second-largest retail market behind China for legal artifacts crafted from the remains of wild animals, with some studies estimating that as much as 30 percent of imported shipments are illegal, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.
And JFK, with its 4-million-square-foot cargo facility, is the nation’s largest port for legitimately traded wildlife — including pricey T-shirts finely embroidered with crocodile skin, coats with buttons made from shells, and stuffed museum exhibits featuring authentic animal horns and hides.
Inspectors spend most of their time spot-checking some of the 140,000 declared shipments — merchandise with a federal permit allowing its entry — that come and go each year. Crates’ contents are electronically scanned by U.S. customs officials seeking contraband such as weapons and narcotics, not wildlife.
A spot-check put law enforcement on the trail of the smuggling ring in 2007. That year, a crate that arrived at JFK from Cameroon with documents saying it contained low-value wood trinkets aroused suspicion. A search revealed that much of the cargo was illegal ivory. Police traced the crate to a smuggler, who after his arrest divulged the names, telephone numbers and bank account numbers of the men who paid him, said Philip Alegranti, a Fish and Wildlife investigator.
The informant, whom the government has declined to identify because of an ongoing investigation, said he smuggled raw ivory and “worked” ivory, meaning it had been carved into statues and masks. He had the ivory boiled and soaked in resin by artisans in West Africa to make it look like a 100-year-old antique that’s more expensive and legal to sell, another loophole the federal government only recently sought to close.
On at least three occasions between August 2006 and January 2009, Gordon paid the informant a total of at least $24,000 to deliver ivory to his store.
With the informant’s information, a federal agent posing as a buyer arranged to meet Bandjan Sidime, a member of the smuggling ring, at a cheap Richmond hotel in August 2008. Sidime, a native of Guinea, assured the buyer that he was offering one of the hottest products on the black market. “It’s real,” he said about four carved elephant tusks offered for a bargain of $1,200. “It’s real ivory.”
Six tons of ivory confiscated by the U.S. Fish and Wildfire Service are displayed at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge in Commerce City, Colo. (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)
The buyer was a federal agent who recorded the conversation. Sidime said smuggling ivory was expensive: “You have to give people something, a bribe,” he said, but worth the price. “Always the price of ivory go up like a diamond, like gold, all the time.”
Sidime pleaded guilty to violating a federal wildlife laws in 2010 and was sentenced to 30 days in prison, five months of home confinement with a digital monitor and two years of supervised release.
Some of the ivory he tried to sell in Richmond belonged to Gordon. When police raided Gordon’s shop in July 2011, they traced ivory through receipts to buyers in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Texas, Illinois, Kansas and California, where they were mostly used as carvings and other decorative art.
Fish and Wildlife put Gordon and his helpers out of business, but police were starting to see bigger, richer, better organized illegal operations that aggressively pursued the animal piece that commanded the highest prices in the illegal wildlife trade: rhino horn.
The rhino horn trade
A rhino’s horn is an icon that any grade school student can point out, perched on the long snout of a beast that looks prehistoric.
Aside from that, the horn is nothing special. Made of keratin, the same structural material that makes up bird feathers and donkey hooves, it has the same healing power as clippings from human fingernails or a clump of hair, which keratin also forms.
There is little explanation for why so many Chinese and Vietnamese have held firm to a centuries-old belief that rhino horns have the power to heal maladies from cancer to a post-drunken stupor.
On China’s black market, a single pound can command up to $45,000, said Edward Grace, the deputy assistant director of Fish and Wildlife law enforcement. The horns of an adult rhinoceros typically weigh between 10 and 20 pounds. They are also valued as ornate carvings.
Rhino and elephant populations continue to plummet as prices skyrocket on the black market for the animals’ horns and tusks. Weak enforcement and light penalties encourage smugglers to continue trafficking, which is pushing several large mammals toward extinction.
Buying and selling rhinoceros horn is banned throughout the world, but it is possible to purchase horns online and at auction in the United States, and criminals have smuggled them to Asia in airplanes, ships and even the U.S. mail.
During a sting operation in 2011, Fish and Wildlife police found that domestic and foreign crime syndicates were pursuing rhinoceros horn deep inside the United States.
That year, an undercover federal agent lured Richard O’Brien and Michael Hegarty into buying a pair of horns in Commerce City, Colo. The agent had no idea how big a find the two men would turn out to be.
Buyers are usually jittery, but O’Brien and Hegarty were bold and confident. When the agent asked if they were afraid of being caught, they said it could never happen. Their organization made similar transactions all over the world, they said, and their modus operandi was foolproof.
The men were arrested as soon as they tossed the contraband into a rental car and prepared to drive off. They were eventually sentenced to six months in prison and two years of supervised release.
Inside their car were items that police had not seen in other arrests: passports, large packing boxes and shrink-wrap to bind the horns. A search of the men’s criminal histories exposed them as members of a syndicate known as the Rathkeale Rovers, based in Rathkeale, Ireland. Under the same international treaty that protects elephants, rhino horn cannot be imported or exported without a federal permit, and the sale of anything other than an antique is generally prohibited.
But there was a loophole — rhinoceros hunting trophies. The United States has banned the import of hunting trophies with elephant ivory and rhino horn from some countries but still allows it from others where hunters are needed as both a form of eco-tourism and to carefully manage herds.
Trophies are supposed to be imported strictly for personal use, with the stipulation that they not be sold for profit. But owners who tire of the trophies can put them up for sale to American collectors at auction. But that is where criminals show up with forged documents claiming residency and false permits that allow them to purchase items. In 2012, members of the Rovers showed up with fake documents and purchased a trophy at an auction outside Dallas. They hacked off the horns and tried to sell them in New York.
The Rovers first made money by selling antique furnishings to buyers in Asia, but their criminal enterprise quickly diversified to trading rhino horn, police said.
“The Chinese and Vietnamese led them into the rhino trade,” Grace said. “They told them, while you’re out buying these . . . antiques, keep an eye out for rhino horn, for which we will pay more than the price of gold.”
Unknown in the United States, the Rovers were infamous in Europe for their snatch-and-grab thefts at museums in Britain and other nations, yanking rhinoceros horn from exhibits, police said. Thanks to gangs such as the Rovers, replicas are used in place of real rhino horns in museums throughout Europe. “It had ballooned into something bigger than even we expected,” Grace said.
A spike in rhinoceros horn theft in the United States pushed Fish and Wildlife to step up its lagging police effort.
The United States was “being used as a base and a transshipment point by criminals seeking to profit on the deaths of hundreds of rhinos,” Fish and Wildlife Director Daniel M. Ashe said. It was “imperative that we act here and now to shut them down.”
Months after the Rovers’ arrests, Grace and others met to discuss the growing influence of organized crime over the wildlife trade. Within a year, Fish and Wildlife partnered with the Justice Department and other police agencies nationwide to launch a hunt for rhino horn traffickers in the United States.
They called it Operation Crash. Crash is slang for a stampeding herd of rhinos. In nearly three years, Operation Crash has logged 21 arrests and 12 convictions, with at least two suspects awaiting trial. The biggest bust by far involved Vinh Chung “Jimmy” Kha, 49, and his son, Felix, 26, masters of rhinoceros horn smuggling. Their supply chain included a Texas cowboy, and their smuggling operation included the elder Kha’s girlfriend, the owner of a nail salon, who police say mailed horns to Hong Kong.
Police burst into Kha’s store outside Los Angeles in 2012 and found dozens of horns, shavings from horns, cash and diamonds. The father and son pleaded guilty and were each sentenced to more than three years in prison.
In another case, the promise of acquiring rhinoceros horn in the United States drew Zhifei Li 8,000 miles from his shop in China’s Shandong province to Miami Beach. He set aside half a million dollars for his shopping trip last year, U.S. prosecutors said.
After an undercover police officer sold him two horns, the biggest weighing five pounds, he was arrested. Li, 29, was sentenced in May to more than five years in prison for operating a rhino horn smuggling and trafficking network in the United States from his home in China.
The most widely publicized Operation Crash arrest is also one of the most recent. Michael Slattery, 25, another member of the Rathkeale Rovers, traveled from Ireland to Houston and tried to buy a rhinoceros head on a hunting trophy at a Dallas-area auction.
He was arrested and given a one-year prison sentence early this year.
‘We have a better job to do’
At wildlife conservation meetings held yearly by governments around the globe, U.S. officials say they are the toughest enforcers of crimes against wildlife while encouraging other countries to strengthen their laws. But some U.S. officials and conservationists question that boast.
“We have a better job to do” in order to be a role model “and practice what we preach to other governments,” Brooke Darby, a deputy assistant secretary for narcotics and law enforcement issues at the State Department, said during a recent panel on Capitol Hill. As illegal wildlife trafficking thrived with the growing participation of crime syndicates, army renegades and terrorist groups, Obama issued an executive order in July 2013 “to address the significant effects of wildlife trafficking on the national interests of the United States.” Four months later, seeking to lead by example, the federal government crushed six tons of ivory that U.S. agents had seized over 25 years and kept in a repository in Commerce City. It set off a chain reaction of crushes from Belgium to Hong Kong. The White House appointed an advisory panel and a task force of federal agencies to address ivory trading. Their recommendations led to the government’s toughest stance yet on trading ivory: A Fish and Wildlife Service rule enacted in February made selling ivory across state lines and international borders illegal.
There were a few exemptions: if the ivory is more than a century old, if a family moves with ivory art or furniture not intended for sale or if a legitimate institution such as a museum is planning an exhibit.
A confiscated ivory figurine at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement in Valley Stream, N.Y. (Yana Paskova/For The Washington Post)
Until recently, ivory imported as hunting trophies from a handful of African nations was exempt. But Fish and Wildlife, saying elephant populations in countries such as Tanzania were threatened and falling, issued a temporary ban effective in June. As the federal government grappled with loopholes in its laws, states continued to cling to laws that failed to discourage wildlife crimes, prosecutors said. A case in New York was held up as a perfect example of how criminals are largely unpunished. Mukesh Gupta, 67, and Jung-Chien Lu, 56, who were caught in 2012 with enough ivory to equal 100 dead elephants, a haul worth at least $2 million. They both pleaded guilty to a single count of illegal commercialization of wildlife. And they both walked away with a fine, forfeiture of the illegally obtained ivory and probation.
Gupta is tending shop at his company, Raja Jewels, and Lu returned to his business, New York Jewelry Mart, and both continue to live well in upscale Westchester County.
Cyrus R. Vance, the Manhattan district attorney who prosecuted the case, walked away thinking that the law “doesn’t give a court or prosecutor much power to alter behavior,” he said in a telephone interview.
But outrage over the case pushed the state General Assembly into action. In June, the assembly passed a law that punished wildlife trafficking with significant fines for first offenses and prison time for repeat offenders. The law also banned the sale of ivory in the state with few exceptions.
Elly Pepper, a legislative advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the groups that pushed for new laws, called it a precedent for states that have expressed interest in strengthening their ivory laws. “The largest U.S. ivory markets following New York are California and Hawaii, and we will be pursuing efforts in both states next session to ensure they follow New York’s lead,” Pepper said.
Not everyone supports the tougher law. It could devastate individuals and families who legally own ivory that they have held for decades and hoped to sell. Antiques dealers said the federal law and the New York state law will cost them millions of dollars, without giving them a chance to sell artifacts that had been treasures.
Police and prosecutors argue that extraordinary measures had to be taken because the legal ivory trade masked the illegal one, fueling the slaughter of elephants.
“We’re all confident that we could go out today and send investigators into antique shops and trinket shops and find ivory for sale,” said Julieta V. Lozano, the lead prosecutor on the case involving Gupta and Lu. That case “made us realize there’s a brisk trade,” she said. It also “confirmed for us what we knew: If we had all the resources we needed to make these cases, we could find dozens of shops every month.”
“From at least my perspective, this is a business, just like sex trafficking is a business,” Vance said. “I don’t think it’s unusual that people will go in illegal business to make money, and if you don’t enforce it, they will continue to do it.”
The importance of tougher sentences is obvious, Vance said. “We are talking about something of global significance, the extermination of species.”
The lack of information about the economics of ISIS’ funding is puzzling.
In the movie Trading Places, Eddie Murphy’s character, Billy Ray Valentine, says, “You know, it occurs to me that the best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or Admiral James Stavridis, former NATO Supreme Commander, to know that ifISIS didn’t have money or weapons they would not be successful for very long. So it behooves us all, especially our leaders, to ask who funds ISIS, where their weapons come from, and to cut off their resources – to turn them into “poor people,” so to speak. Besides, those who fund terrorism are no less terrorists than those brandishing the swords. We hear daily about the military successes of ISIS, our targeted airstrikes, and what our President is willing and not willing to do to defeat them. (Such willingness to tell the enemy what plays you won’t run doesn’t seem to me to be the best military strategy. It may be good political strategy, but in football you don’t tell your opponent you’ll never throw a forward pass.) So the lack of information about the economics of ISIS’s funding is puzzling, but let’s hope there is a strategy. If we have the capability of listening in to everyone’s phone conversation and read every email and Facebook post, surely we know the sources of ISIS’s funding and weaponry and are doing something about it. Despite the administration’s silence on this facet of the war on ISIS, we do know some things. Most articles estimate that ISIS earns $1 to $3 million a day from oil sales – oil coming from lands and refineries they have seized in Iraq and Syria, which is purchased by black market brokers primarily in Turkey. Let us hope no U.S. company, American citizen or ally is participating in these purchases. If they are, let’s hope the administration is putting an immediate stop to it. If the administration won’t do that, I believe we should be told why not. Another source of money is the sale of antiquities by ISIS after they raid and loot churches and museums in seized territories. I did a lot of research on looting and the sale of stolen antiquities for my novel, When Men Betray. It’s an industry of about $3 billion a year, with a lot of money finding its way into the hands of terrorists and a lot of art finding its way into the homes of Americans and Europeans. That’s right: art collectors and museums who buy stolen antiquities indirectly fund torture and murder. Again, let’s hope the administration is being aggressive with purchasers of stolen art for the sake of the stolen art, but also for the humans who are the ultimate victims of such an outrageous enterprise. Speaking of outrageous, apparently another major source of ISIS’s funding is the sale of women and children captured in Iraq and Syria. I am not sure what is worse: ISIS selling women and children as sex slaves or the people buying them. The world community should have no stomach for this behavior, and if anyone who buys a human comes into the jurisdiction of the U.S., justice should be swift and certain. Groups monitoring sources of ISIS’s weaponry report that much of their stash was also acquired by seizing territory, thereby seizing arms supplied by the U.S. to, for example, the Iraqi government and Syrian rebels. Once again, we learn that weapons supplied to allies can easily fall into the hands of our enemies. When will we learn not to be a source of “tools of terror?” The purpose of a bomb is to explode. The purpose of military weapons is to be fired and kill or maim. Until we quit treating weapons as a commodity of profit, we will always have terrorists and and mad men using them for evil. We can’t undo past mistakes. If it were my call, I would say that U.S. weapons should only be in the hands of U.S. soldiers, but I know that is not realistic, given the vise grip the military-industrial complex has on political decisions in this country. But if this administration intends to be transparent about our military plans for ISIS, then perhaps we need the same transparency about our economic war plans as well. At minimum, if U.S. corporations are buying “black market’ oil from ISIS’s brokers, let Americans know so that we can stop buying their gas and dump their stock. If other countries or individuals are arming ISIS, let Americans know so that we can stop doing business with those countries. If other countries are turning a blind eye to the sale of antiquities or human beings, let Americans know so that we can boycott products from those countries and encourage U.S. companies to take their business elsewhere. I don’t need to know our plans to defeat ISIS and believe it might be a better strategy not to know. But I think it would be advisable for our leadership to acknowledge that we are waging war on ISIS economically as well as militarily, and to treat those who support ISIS by buying oil, weapons, stolen art, and women and children just as we will treat ISIS. Please, Obama Administration, don’t let us find out years from now that oil interests, large corporations and wealthy individuals prevented us from fighting an economic war against ISIS because it may hurt their profits, or because our country has a double standard for terrorists. Wage war on the foot soldiers — but take a pass on the “rich people.”
Rookwood vase recalls famous stolen pots
Someone must own a photo of the pilfered Rookwood pots. That's the hope of a Cincinnati Police detective. A picture of the 37-piece collection, lifted from a medical research facility in East Walnut Hills, might help solve a cold case that has been on the books since 1988. Interest in the stolen Cincinnati-made vases, pitchers, ashtrays and tankards that vanished from the now defunct St. Thomas Institute surfaced with the recent appearance of a rare Tiger Eye Rookwood vase at the Downtown auction house of Humler & Nolan. "This Tiger Eye vase is the famous Uranus vase. This is not part of the collection of stolen Rookwood," noted Riley Humler, the auction house's manager. The vase belongs to the same type of large pots taken in the burglary. As he spoke, Humler carefully turned the 15-pound, 18.5-inch tall vase so its glossy surface glimmered in the light. "The Uranus vase was exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900. It sat on display for years at the Rookwood Pottery showroom (now the site of the Rookwood restaurant) in Mount Adams," Humler said. "This piece was made around 1899. Although we have not found a signature, it looks to be the work of famed Rookwood artist, Albert Valentien." Humler, one of the world's foremost Rookwood experts, estimates the Uranus vase will fetch "$20,000 to $30,000" when he puts it up for auction Nov. 9. The entire stolen Rookwood collection was appraised at $52,000 in 1988. The vase and the 37-piece collection once shared the same owner, George Sperti. The medical researcher founded and ran the St. Thomas Institute in East Walnut Hills. He also owned the Rookwood Pottery, Humler said, "for four or five years, depending on which history you read, starting in 1942." Sperti housed most of the purloined 37-piece Rookwood collection in a glass display case on the second floor of his institute. "I remember going there to see the Rookwood collection," Humler said. "They didn't let you play with anything in the case. But you could just walk right in and go up the steps to see the display." Sperti earned world renown, along with a sizable fortune, for his inventions. He came up with freeze-dried orange juice, sun lamps and adding vitamin D to milk via lamp light. His biggest claim to fame was inventing Preparation H, a friend to hemorrhoid sufferers everywhere. Illness forced Sperti to close the institute in 1988 and put it up for sale. While the building was being shown to potential buyers, the Rookwood vanished over the weekend of August 27 to 29, 1988.
At least two of the stolen vases sported the Tiger Eye finish. As with the Uranus vase, those pieces featured an iridescent dark brown glaze with gold flecks producing a layered look with rich liquid effects. This surface resembles the highly polished version of a tiger's eye gemstone. The arrival of the Uranus vase reminded Humler of the 1988 theft. He wondered if the items were ever recovered and if the thieves had ever been caught. A search of The Enquirer's archives turned up no leads. A call to the Cincinnati Police Department's records section elicited a chuckle on the other end of the phone as a woman said: "We don't have anything that old." One more call led to Detective James Wigginton of Cincinnati PD's Financial Crimes Unit. He joined the force in 1999, 11 years after the theft and five years after the statute of limitations ran out on the Rookwood burglary. And yet, he was still intrigued. "If we were to find these pieces of pottery," Wigginton said as he admired the vase Humler was hefting, "no one would be charged with stealing them. There is, however, another crime called: 'Receiving stolen goods.'" Wigginton conducted a search for the robbery's file. He came up empty. He did learn that the file had been shredded, along with photos of the 37 pieces of pottery.
On television, cold-case files are stuck in a police station basement and kept watch over by a crusty sergeant chewing on an unlit cigar. A detective tells old sarge what he wants. Sarge grabs a key and waddles down an aisle bordered by walls of chain-link fence. He flicks a switch, a florescent light flickers into action. He pulls down a battered box, blows off the dust and growls: "Here you go." "It was almost like that," Wigginton said. "Everything was true except for the cigar. And, finding the case." In his 15 years on the job, the detective has never dealt with an art theft of this magnitude. "Nowadays," he said, "you just don't encounter things like this." That was not the case in 1988. "At that time," recalled Owen Findsen, The Enquirer's retired art critic, "a gang in town specialized in stealing Rookwood pottery, paintings and stained glass. The gang knew its stuff. And, the collection at the St. Thomas Institute was well known." The 37 pieces "once belonged to a museum of American ceramics the owners of Rookwood were planning to set up at the Mount Adams pottery," Findsen said. "When that did not happen, the pieces went to the institute." After they were stolen, he added, "you can be sure they didn't end up at the bottom of the Ohio River. They were too valuable." Wigginton agrees with Findsen. That's why he wants to get the word out about the stolen Rookwood pots. "They are still out there," the detective insisted. "And, we need a photo of them to see what they looked like. "Somebody took those pieces of Rookwood in 1988," he added. "Somebody has them now. They need to be recovered." Somebody needs to do the right thing. Stolen Rookwood A 37-piece collection of Rookwood vases, ashtrays, pitchers and tankards – crafted between 1885 and 1957 – vanished from the St. Thomas Institute in East Walnut Hills in 1988. Back then, the collection was appraised at $52,000. The theft included two rare Tiger Eye vases, one of which today would be worth $20,000 to $30,000. The stolen items were never found. Cincinnati Police Detective James Wigginton is looking for photos of the collection as well as the pieces of pottery. If you have any information about the theft, the photos or the missing Rookwood, contact him at: james.wigginton@cincinnati-oh.gov or 513-352-3542.
The Stradivarius Affair
It isn’t every day that a street criminal—a high-school dropout with two felony convictions—is accused of stealing a centuries-old violin worth as much as $6 million. But nothing about the heist of the Lipinski Stradivarius, which galvanized the music world last winter, was normal, or even logical
SAFE AND SOUND Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Frank Almond and the “Lipinski,” a 299-year-old Stradivarius.
Looking at it one way, there was a certain twisted creativity to it. It just isn’t every day that a high-school dropout and twice-convicted felon, your basic street criminal, as he was described, is the alleged mastermind of a crime that no one in law enforcement the world over had ever quite seen. Maybe it wasn’t the crime of the century, but it definitely was the crime of the century in Milwaukee. The city, known for beer, bratwurst, the Brewers, and frighteningly large portions at German restaurants, had never been a hotbed of headlines. But this made national and world news not seen since the days of the city’s own serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. The Milwaukee Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation put out dozens of officers and detectives and supervisors to crack the case and find a suspect named Salah Salahadyn. Forty-two years old with a thin frame and the studied manner of someone trying very hard to be measured and professorial when he is neither, Salahadyn was a Milwaukee native and fancied himself a high-end art thief, according to police. It is not exactly clear why he fancied himself this way. There was no evidence that he was a high-end art thief, except for one strangely bungled attempt roughly 15 years earlier in which he tried to return—for a finder’s fee—a $25,000 statue to the same Milwaukee gallery owner from whom it had been stolen. (In an interview with Vanity Fair, Salahadyn insists that he did not know the statue had been stolen.) He was arrested by police and given a five-year sentence for receiving stolen property. His lifestyle, a free apartment and $400 a month in return for managing the apartment building, with two of his five children under the age of three, and fighting to make ends meet over the years by selling weed, did not seem the stuff of The Thomas Crown Affair either. He was articulate and well spoken, somewhat at odds with his fractured life. You couldn’t help but feel it all should have been better. But you only had to spend a minute with him to figure out that he loved notoriety even if it was bad, that he had a very serious case of grandiosity. Still, there was method.
SCALES OF JUSTICE Salah Salahadyn, the alleged mastermind of the theft, after a court appearance in Milwaukee on July 24.
This idea of stealing a Stradivarius violin known as the Lipinski—299 years old, still eminently playable, and valued at somewhere between $5 and $6 million—did not just fall from the sky. Police say Salahadyn had been thinking of stealing a Stradivarius for at least a decade, ultimately setting his sights on the Lipinski because of the Milwaukee connection. He knew the patterns of his target, the routine of where he worked, where he parked, where he shopped, what car he drove, the name of his wife, all chilling because of the stalker aspect. According to police, Salahadyn went to one of his concerts, noting, among other details, that he was the only African-American there. He knew the history of what he was after, so much so that you could say he had become obsessed with it. This was no ordinary object of desire. If you look at it another way, there was something dangerous and almost deranged about it, the kind of crime Abbott and Costello might plan, after consultation with Cheech and Chong and Martin and Lewis. There were also repercussions that could have been catastrophic far beyond the fate of a multi-million-dollar violin. A Taser was used on Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Frank Almond as he was about to get into his car in a parking lot in subzero temperatures after a performance on January 27. Tasers in very rare instances have caused fatal heart attacks. In falling to the ground, the 50-year-old Almond could have cracked his head open on the patchy ice that had built up as a result of the frigid winter. The Taser did immobilize Almond just long enough for someone to grab the violin case slung over his left shoulder. In that respect the crime went off just the way Salahadyn had allegedly dreamed of in prison—the ease of stealing a Stradivarius simply by grabbing it from an unsuspecting classical musician. But there are two parts to an art heist such as this—stealing the object and then having a plan as to what to do with it afterward. It was in this second area that the scheme seemed stunted. The getaway vehicle was a somewhat bruised minivan, sticking out like a phosphorescent bulb because of its maroon color. Police say its driver was not some trained professional but the mother of three of Salahadyn’s children. It did not help that the Taser used on Almond shot out dozens of confetti-size identification tags, thereby enabling the F.B.I. to track down where the Taser had been purchased online and the owner of record. It also did not help that the owner, the sublimely named Universal Knowledge Allah, or Uni to his friends, an affable barber and Tupperware consultant hoping to crack the middle-age-housewife party market, blabbed about details of the robbery (he was not at the scene that night) to a customer, who coughed him up to the police. It did not help when a former inmate who years before had been in the same Wisconsin prison as Salahadyn, sniffing a reward for the return of the violin, said in an e-mail to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra that Salahadyn had talked in prison about stealing a Stradivarius. A $100,000 reward was offered, and in high-end thefts of this nature, it sometimes has the same effect as the perfect worm, with fishes jumping all over themselves to the top to get it. It really did not help that unlike hubcaps, for example, or even a python, you can’t just walk up to someone in the street and say you know where you can get a really good deal on a stolen $6 million violin. It really really did not help that the Stradivarius happened to be stolen in perhaps the one place in America where the police chief didn’t think it was a form of Streptococcus and, fully cognizant of its cultural significance, decided to send in “the cavalry.” The cavalry won. In July the 37-year-old Allah, after admitting to his role in the theft, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. Salahadyn is scheduled to appear in court on October 3. According to Milwaukee Police detective Billy Ball, one of the key investigators on the case, the district attorney’s office agreed after his arrest in February to reduce the charge against him from armed robbery to robbery. In return Salahadyn agreed to lead authorities to the violin and also plead guilty, according to Ball. Several scheduled hearings were postponed, one in July, when Salahadyn’s attorney withdrew as counsel, and the most recent in early September, when, eight months into the case, Salahadyn’s new attorney asked for a motion hearing. As of mid-September, Salahadyn had still not filed any plea, although claiming innocence appears somewhat difficult for him because of a lengthy interview with Vice News in which he did a seemingly failproof job of incriminating himself. During the interview, which he gave without the knowledge of counsel, he admitted to being involved in the robbery of the violin and in the physical possession of it. He claimed that he had been coerced by an Asian crime syndicate that he had made contact with and performed various activities for over the years; in this case he said they wanted him to take the Lipinski to Chicago, presumably for eventual transport to somewhere else. But he said he had changed his mind because he could not bear for the priceless instrument to leave its rightful home of Milwaukee. Federal and local law-enforcement authorities describe Salahadyn’s claims as ludicrous, ridiculous, and pretty much any other likewise description. Dave Bass, who is a special agent on the F.B.I.’s Art Crime Team and who works in the bureau’s Milwaukee Field Division, where the case was assigned, says there is absolutely no evidence that an Asian syndicate was behind this. He gives several reasons, the most cogent being: Why would any sophisticated crime organization trust a local thief from Milwaukee, particularly one with terrible judgment? Bass believes the motive may have been the $100,000 reward that was being offered by private sources. It is not uncommon in art heists for someone to steal an object, send in “mules” to help “find” it, and then reap reward money, since owners are often frantic to get their property back with no questions asked. So perhaps the intent was to let the investigation die down, make sure no specific names had surfaced, and then aid in the recovery in return for at least a portion of the reward. The flaw in this scenario, as Bass notes, is that the money is not usually released unless there is a conviction. Or it simply could have been what Milwaukee police chief Edward Flynn hypothesized: “We can’t ever dismiss the nitwit factor.” Whatever the motive, it is safe to say that neither Salahadyn nor Allah could have remotely imagined the tsunami that was about to hit them. Nor could the Lipinski, whose nearly three-century journey up until the moment of the robbery had already been the musical equivalent of the cat with nine lives.
The Lipinski
On April 28, 2008, Frank Almond received a curious e-mail. The writer, who still refuses to be publicly identified, claimed something improbable. She or he said that he or she was in the process of inheriting a Stradivarius violin known as the Lipinski. Two or three times a year, Almond got e-mails similar to this, about the discovery of a Stradivarius. It was typical for someone who had reached Almond’s stature: two degrees from Juilliard and the Charles and Marie Caestecker Concertmaster Chair at the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He’s also the founder of a much-acclaimed chamber series called Frankly Music and a guest concertmaster appearing with symphonies across the globe. Since around 1666, when the singular genius Antonio Stradivari began making his own violins in Cremona, Italy, it is not unreasonable to assume that everyone in history has at one time or another come to believe that the violin shoved into the corner of the attic is in fact a Stradivarius when it was probably purchased at a Henny Youngman concert. Not much is known about Stradivari except that he was a workaholic up until his death, in 1737. (The exact date of his birth has been pegged to sometime around 1644.) For centuries classical musicians and scholars and scientists have tried to pinpoint the exact reason that his instruments are still believed to be the best ever produced, an unequaled balance of upper partials and lower partials, bright and joyful at times and painfully beautiful at others. Trying to account for the uniqueness of the Stradivarius is something of a growth area unto itself. Some say it was the varnish (no proof). Some say it was because of wood that was indigenous to the Cremona region and is now extinct (no proof). Stefan Hersh, a leading expert in the field of rare string instruments, sums it up best when he says, “What certainly must be true is that Stradivari had to have a great intuitive feel for acoustics, astonishing skill as a carver, and a truly dazzling imagination to create the works he did.” Many of those who have played a Stradivarius, whether it’s a violin or viola or cello, ascribe human characteristics to it. They talk about its soul and its moods. It is no accident that many of them, including the Lipinski, are named after past owners, in this particular instance noted 19th-century Polish violinist Karol Lipi´nski. You don’t simply repair a Stradivarius; you “stabilize” it. If you follow that line, the instrument can also be bratty, temperamental, imperious if it doesn’t trust you, and, like a runaway, prone to disappearance. In past years they have reportedly been left in the trunk of a New York taxi, a Newark cab, a train in Switzerland, on a porch in Los Angeles, the seat of a Porsche, and the side of the freeway, once again in Los Angeles, after it flew off the top of a moving car, according to one account. Some were destroyed in the bombing of Dresden in World War II. Another had been camouflaged in sticky black shoe polish, and it was only on the precipice of death that the person playing it admitted it had been stolen 49 years earlier. Another was stolen from its owner in New York as she was critically ill and 19 years later has still not been recovered. Yet another was stolen from a sandwich shop at a London train station when the violinist using it had become distracted with her cell phone. The Stradivarius has also been accused of fraud. The French being the French, whose role in the world seems to be to debunk everything that isn’t French, have instigated research studies, one in which maestro violin soloists played a variety of instruments and basically could not distinguish between a Stradivarius and a much newer violin. The Stradivarius has not only endured but increased exponentially in value. In 2011 the Lady Blunt, in excellent condition and rarely played, was sold for nearly $16 million to raise funds for Japan earthquake relief. Auction-house asking prices have also gone up astronomically. In June of this year the minimum bid at Sotheby’s for a Stradivarius viola, very rare because so few were produced, was $45 million. (It did not sell.) The Hill brothers, owners of a violin-making firm in London and believed to have been the leading experts on the Stradivarius, said in their 1902 volume that Stradivari produced a total of 1,116 instruments, the preponderance of which were violins. The Hill brothers believed that 540 violins, 50 cellos, and 12 violas could be accounted for, one of those violins being the Lipinski. The Lipinski’s initial owner, Giuseppe Tartini, composer of the famous “Devil’s Trill” sonata, said the inspiration had come to him from a dream in which he handed the violin to the Devil to see what he might do with it. The Devil was good. The owner up until 2008 was classical pianist Richard Anschuetz. The instrument had originally been purchased in 1962 for $19,000 by Anschuetz’s mother for his wife, concert violinist Evi Liivak. The couple had met in Nuremberg, where Anschuetz was an American war-crimes-tribunal translator and Liivak a refugee from Estonia whose father had been killed by the Gestapo. They performed all over the world together. As a pianist, Anschuetz had no personal use for the Lipinski after his wife died, in 1996. The natural inclination would have been to sell it, particularly since Stradivarius instruments were booming in price. But he still loved her so much that he could not bear to part with it. So he kept it in his New York apartment and went about his business with extreme privacy, playing the piano into his 90s and finding solace in the works of Indian philosopher and yogi Sri Aurobindo. Anschuetz eventually moved to Milwaukee to be closer to relatives after becoming ill. (He died in 2008.) The Lipinski came as well and was placed in a bank vault downtown. It had not been played for at least 12 years. As Almond continued to read the e-mail, it became apparent that the person writing it was credible. There were too many meticulous details, like the violin receiving small repairs and new strings at Jacques Français Rare Violins, in New York, and being appraised at some point by Christie’s. There was some question as to whether the Lipinski was ready to come in from the cold. But the writer of the e-mail wanted to meet with Almond and seek his advice. He was asked to keep the information confidential. They ultimately met at the bank vault with Stefan Hersh, brought in because of his expertise. Almond was excited, but he remembers that Hersh, whose family had been in the violin business for more than 75 years, was beside himself. He knew the lineage of the Stradivarius perhaps as well as anyone in the world. The Lipinski had been made during Stradivari’s so-called golden period. This could be a historic moment. A disinterested bank employee carried the case into a nondescript viewing room. It was opened. Even in the unflattering fluorescent light, it was immediately clear that this was an authentic 1715 Stradivarius. The bridge was down. There was an open seam. But with restoration it could be playable again; under the circumstances it was in remarkably good condition. The owner’s family, humble, with a lineage of public service in Milwaukee, could have kept it or sold it for somewhere around $2.5 million. But they admirably eschewed personal gain and collector vanity. Rather than force the Lipinski into early retirement at the age of 293, they decided its life should actively continue. They lent it to Almond with virtually no conditions.
Almond’s Joy
The problem with a Stradivarius is that once you decide to play one you actually have to play one. The Lipinski was tough and demanding. Almond found out right away that “it maximizes your strengths and really, really illuminates your weaknesses. There is no place to hide anymore.” The most difficult thing was to learn how not to work so hard to get the most out of it, how to appreciate its fast response. The more Almond played the Lipinski at concerts, the more the Lipinski began to respect him. They became comfortable with each other, then quite intimate. In a city choking on inferiority—the monolith of Chicago, 92 miles away, obscuring Milwaukee in insecure shadow—Almond was also determined to make the Lipinski a source of public pride. He gave interviews about it. He created a CD comprised of pieces composed by those who had owned it. He was obsessively careful with it, never letting it wander away. But he never thought the Lipinski would be the object of a robbery. F.B.I. special agent Bass, who has been with the Art Crime Team since its inception, said he knew of no instance of a Stradivarius being taken by force. “My initial thought [was] this was bizarre and made no sense.”
From the Milwaukee Police.
ALL WRAPPED UP Days after the Lipinski was stolen, it was found in a Milwaukee attic, swaddled in a blue baby blanket in a suitcase.
“Call the Cavalry”
The alleged origins of Salahadyn’s plan to steal a Stradivarius traced back to the 2000s, when he was serving his second term in prison. According to the e-mail that was sent to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra after the theft by the ex-prisoner, Salahadyn “would talk of stealing high-end art and how easily it could be stolen from unsuspecting victims. His dream theft was a Stradivarius violin because of its potential value and the fact that it could be snatched from the hands of a musician as they walk down the street.” The night of January 27, as part of the Frankly Music concert series, Almond and three other musicians had just finished Olivier Messiaen’s extraordinary Quartet for the End of Time in the Schwan Concert Hall, at Wisconsin Lutheran College. Messiaen, who was French, had written it in a prison camp during World War II after being captured by the Germans. The piece had been emotionally draining. The audience did not make a sound immediately afterward. There was a reception that lasted until about 10:15 P.M., when Almond and the other musicians left down a long hallway that ran parallel to the theater. Almond collected some items from the dressing room, then exited through a side door that led to a small parking lot. He walked out with clarinetist Todd Levy. The other two musicians, cellist Joseph Johnson and pianist Christopher Taylor, left ahead of them. The plan was to meet at a restaurant called the Knick. The temperature was six below, with a windchill of minus 25. Almond, wearing only a thin jacket, had propitiously gotten a good parking space just a few yards from the exit. It wasn’t himself he worried about as much as the Lipinski, which might well pout at his next several performances if kept in the cold too long. It was slung over his left shoulder. As Almond left he noticed a minivan parked next to him nearest to the exit. He assumed it was waiting to pick someone up. Then he noticed a man coming toward him. He was dressed in a bulky coat with a gray furry hat on top of his head with the earflaps tied. Almond also got a brief look at the person in the driver’s seat, a heavyset woman dressed in a parka and also a big furry hat. If Milwaukee had a winter fashion week, the perpetrators would have led the runway. Almond figured the person wanted to talk to him about the concert. Then he saw him open his jacket and point something at him that gave off flickers of light. Todd Levy had walked ahead to his own car, a Chevy Volt, when he heard the sound of somebody saying, “Ah! Ah! Ah!” He thought it might be some kids messing around, maybe drunk. “Todd! Todd! Todd!” yelled Almond. “They got the violin! They got the violin!” Levy ran over to Almond. By this time he was standing, but it was obvious he was in shock, as the object he had seen was a Taser. Levy got him into his car. He was shivering and still stunned and generally freaking out. “This is my worst nightmare.” They immediately called 911. The first patrol car arrived about five minutes later. The officers’ understanding of what had happened was apparently not immediate. As Almond and Levy tried to explain, the cops were having considerable difficulty figuring out what they were talking about. The officers were extremely cordial and polite and professional, but more than once they probably wondered to themselves what they were doing out here in minus-25 windchill on a Monday night. Almond and Levy tried to impress upon them the urgency of the situation. Whoever had just taken the violin might well be on the way to the airport as the first step in getting it out of the city and selling it. The officers congregating at the scene had their own problems, which could likely be boiled down to three distinct issues:
How do you spell Stradivarius?
What the fuck is a Stradivarius?
How could a violin—whatever it’s called—cost $6 million?
It seemed to be going in a circular direction, so Levy made a call to the orchestra’s development director, Tanya Mazor-Posner. She in turn called a member of the board named Mike Gonzalez, who was on a golf vacation in South Carolina. Mike Gonzalez in turn called Chief Flynn, who was a friend of Gonzalez’s. Flynn, in turn, was sound asleep, since it was about 12:30 A.M. Flynn had been to Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concerts. He knew Almond. He did not have to be given a quick tutorial on the Stradivarius. He called the sergeant at the scene on his cell phone. “Sarge, Chief Flynn.” “Really?” “What do you got?” “I got a guy here. Somebody robbed his violin.” “Listen to me very carefully. This is not a violin. This is a fucking multi-million-dollar musical instrument. Call the cavalry.” The investigation picked up a notch after that. Many notches actually. There were those who questioned the priorities of the department in expending such manpower on finding a $6 million violin that at the end of the day was still a violin. During the period leading up to the recovery, there were two homicides in the city, which did not sit right with critics given the number of detectives who had been assigned to the stolen-Lipinski investigation. (Both cases were reportedly solved.) But Flynn strongly felt otherwise. It wasn’t just the dollar value of the violin but its symbolic value as a piece of history that could never be replaced. “This was Milwaukee’s little piece of the Western heritage,” Flynn said later. “We had just been challenged. It had just been stolen. And we were bloody well going to find it.”
To Catch a Thief
The next morning at around six, with the aid of G.P.S. technology, the violin case for the Lipinski was discovered in the middle of a street. It appeared to Milwaukee police inspector Carianne Yerkes, one of the supervisors on the investigation, that it had been thrown out the window of the getaway vehicle, presumably for the very reason that there might have been some kind of tracking device inside it. Not only had the Lipinski been taken out of the case but so had two bows, valued in the range of $50,000, another indication that whoever was involved knew something about the marketplace. The Milwaukee Police Department explored the possibility that whoever took the Lipinski might try to fly out of the city with it. The Transportation Security Administration was asked to keep an eye out for anyone traveling with a violin. Interpol was contacted. The F.B.I. office in Milwaukee offered major assistance. Investigators followed up on hundreds of tips, with the possible exception of the person calling to say one of their in-laws was squirrelly. There was speculation that this had been the work of the Russian Mafia or an Asian gang. But Agent Bass immediately felt otherwise. Stradivarius violins had been stolen before, but they had been stolen quietly, out of a dressing room of a concert hall or from an apartment, so it took a while for the owners to even notice. You wanted to create as little noise as possible, when all this particular crime did was create noise that only got louder. There was also the issue of who would buy a $6 million violin after it was stolen. Bass did not think there was a dealer in the world who would touch it, because it was so hot. As for the theory that a collector might want it even if he could never display it to anyone, Bass pointed out that collectors live to show off what they have collected. The Taser also didn’t add up. Bass thought it was a very odd and unsophisticated choice, the risk high that it would not work if you were not familiar with it. In fact, only one of the two barbs that were fired broke Almond’s skin. The other lodged in his jacket. There was another problem with the Taser: the confetti with the serial number that shot out when it was fired. It ultimately led to a distributor in Texas, who supplied the name and address of the purchaser, Universal Knowledge Allah. Police captain Jeff Point, the lead supervisor on the case, immediately assumed that it was a dead end, because how could anyone have a name like that? On February 2, an off-duty Milwaukee police officer ran into someone he apparently knew from the street. This witness said he had gotten his hair cut by Allah the day before at a barbershop called First Impressions, where there was a lot of chatter about who would be stupid enough to do something like this, since you could not readily sell it. Allah asked the client for a ride home, during which Allah volunteered that about seven months earlier Salahadyn had asked him to purchase a Taser since he had a permit to carry a concealed weapon and Salahadyn could not get one, because of his record. Allah further said, according to the criminal complaint that was filed, that Salahadyn called him the evening after the robbery and told him he had gotten the “instrument.” Allah confirmed to police what he had said in the car. Salahadyn was a client of his, he told police, and he had known him for at least seven years. The mention of Salahadyn’s name looped police back to the e-mail from the former inmate. The investigation moved quickly after that. Salahadyn and Allah were arrested on February 3 and taken into custody. It was a huge breakthrough. There was only one significant gap: Where was the violin? During a search of Salahadyn’s apartment, according to Detective Ball, police had found a scrapbook containing general articles and pictures about the Stradivarius instrument. But there was also one from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from 2008 about the Lipinski finding a home in the city with Frank Almond. The Lipinski had been through a great deal in its history. It had survived countless wars and epidemics. But neither the Lipinski nor any Stradivarius instrument could have been prepared for the indignities it suffered after it was stolen. Taken from the bosom of its case, it had ultimately been placed in a soft-cloth American Tourister suitcase and transported to one of the worst possible places for its health, a cold attic.
By Jon Riemann/Milwaukee Police.
CASE CLOSED Milwaukee police chief Edward Flynn with the recovered Lipinski at a news conference on February 6.
Lost and Found
When Detective Billy Ball interviewed Salahadyn, he said, the suspect seemed quite taken with himself. Ball recalled the following conversation: “I figured you guys would be coming.” “Why?” “Because of my reputation.” “What reputation?” “My reputation as a high-end art thief.” Ball said Salahadyn danced around that day and part of the second. He had the leverage of knowing the location of the violin. But police believed they had significant leverage of their own. On the third day of interrogation, Ball said, a written agreement was made between Salahadyn and the Milwaukee County district attorney. Later that night Salahadyn led detectives to the apartment building where the violin was being stored. He guided them to the second floor, then pointed to the attic. A search warrant was obtained. A ladder was borrowed from the SWAT team. Bass, who had handled high-value musical instruments before, climbed up the steps through the space in the ceiling. Bass’s biggest worry was that the violin had been damaged, and the condition of the attic did nothing to lessen that fear. The temperature hovered at about freezing, and such cold can be devastating: the wood of the violin might dry out, in turn causing a catastrophic split in the back. There was dust and insulation everywhere. But one item was free of detritus. Bass unzipped the suitcase. He took a peek. Wrapped in a blue baby blanket with the logo of a little toy truck was the Lipinski.
Coda
The Lipinski has gone back to the mundane task of beautiful music. Almond continues to play it with regularity, the only major creative difference being that the Lipinski, a publicity hound at this point, sometimes seems to get louder applause than he does. Almond has also been supplied with security. On Saturday, August 23, as part of the Music in the Vineyards chamber-music series, Almond performed at Hall Wines, in Napa Valley. He spent the night at a nearby vineyard. The next morning, an earthquake of 6.0 magnitude hit the region. Almond was knocked out of bed. The Lipinski, on the floor in its case, slept like a baby.
Thieves plunder wealth of antiques from country house
THIEVES got their hands on a remarkable haul during a burglary at a Grade II listed country house in Worcestershire. A wealth of antiques including silver cutlery, an 18 carat gold pocket watch and a pair of George III cast candlesticks were stolen from Chambers Court, Longdon, near Tewkesbury, after the offenders forced entry to the property. The incident took place overnight between Wednesday, September 24 and Thursday, September 25. Other items taken included a silver brace of pheasants, silver candlesticks, a George II beer jug crested by Fuller White, silver candlesticks, a boat-shaped sweetmeat dish with ivory handles, an 18th century bracket clock, a pair of George III silver chamber candlesticks and a heart-shaped silver box with turquoise stone. West Mercia Police are now appealing for witnesses to come forward. Detective Constable Pete Ryland, the investigating officer, said: "I urge anyone who has seen or heard of these items being sold to contact the police. “I also ask for anyone who saw somebody acting suspiciously in the area at the time of the burglary to make contact."
Austria Mistakenly Releases Pink Panther Gang Member from Jail
A member of the Pink Panther organized crime network, which especially targeted jewelry stores, has been mistakenly released from an Austrian prison three years early.
Media reports reveal that the man, a Serbian National known as "Ilija B", was due to be released in fall 2017 after serving a six-year sentence for his role in an armed robbery of a jewelry shop in Eisenstadt in November 2005, but a computer error meant he was released by Austrian authorities in June.
Prison error releases robber too early
A 30-year-old convicted thief who was released from prison in Upper Austria three years too early because of an embarrassing computer error is a member of the notorious Pink Panther gang, the Austrian Press Agency reports
Serbian Ilija B took part in the armed robbery of a jewellery shop in Eisenstadt in November 2005.
A 22-year-old watchmaker who had followed the masked gang as they were driving off in their getaway car was shot in the face by one of the thieves at close range. He needed full time care after the attack and died seven years later from his injuries.
Austrian detectives tracked down Ilija B and two other Serbs and they were arrested in Serbia in December 2006, for the brutal jewellery shop robbery as well as numerous other burglaries. However the Serbian authorities released Ilija B and one other suspect, Slavko P, days later, for reasons unknown. Ilja B was later sentenced in Germany for six and half years for aggravated robbery. After serving half of his sentence he was extradited to Austria, and given an additional six year sentence for the Eisenstadt robbery. He should have been in jail until autumn 2017 but the prison computer in Garsten miscalculated his release date, failing to include the three years of the German sentence he still had to serve. After his release he was banned from living in Austria and deported to Serbia. There is now a European arrest warrant out for him as he was due to be the star witness at Slavko P’s trial for murder and robbery in Eisenstadt on October 15th. Peter Prechtl, head of the prison directorate, said there would now be a review of all discharge data in local prisons after the embarrassing mistake. "Of course this mistake hurts, but the prison employees are basically good people," Prechtl said. It is customary that two prison officers check all personal data for prisoners, including release dates, but in future a senior officer or prison director will also be checking any data for serious criminals, he added. The Pink Panthers group is behind armed robberies targeting high-end jewellery stores in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the United States. They are believed to have carried out robberies worth in excess of €330 million since 1999. Hundreds of suspects are linked to more than 340 robberies in 35 countries. Many gang members are known to originate from the former Yugoslavia, but they work across countries and continents. The Panthers got their nickname after a diamond stolen during a raid in London was later found hidden in a jar of face cream, copying a tactic used in the original 1963 Pink Panther crime comedy, starring Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau.
Cheuk Nang tycoon Cecil Chao latest celebrity victim of burglary
Thief escapes with antiques and other items worth HK$10 million taken from bathroom safe
During the robbery, more than $550,000 worth of goods were stolen. The jeweler was shot in the face and died seven years later as a result of his injuries, which had left him an invalid.
Cecil Chao declined to comment on the robbery. Photo: SCMP Pictures
Flamboyant tycoon Cecil Chao Sze-tsung became the latest victim in a string of celebrity burglaries when antiques and other items valued at about HK$10 million were stolen from a safe in a bathroom at his 20,000 sq ft mansion.
The burglary was discovered at about 9.30am yesterday after Chao's girlfriend found the bathroom in Villa Cecil on Victoria Road locked from the inside. "When she used a key to unlock the bathroom, she found signs of ransacking inside," a police officer said. "The 3ft by 5ft safe was prised open and some antiques were stolen." Initial investigations revealed that six antiques, five watches and 20 items of jewellery had been stolen. The girlfriend, 35, told police that she had gone to the bathroom at about 2am and found nothing suspicious. "The house is very big. It's just like a maze," the officer said. But he refused to comment how an intruder could have discovered the safe and whether it was possible it was an inside job. "Police believe the burglar scrambled down a hillside into the mansion and then climbed into the cloakroom of the [girlfriend's] bedroom," he said. A police source said the CCTV system was out of order and no one had been arrested. The western district crime squad is investigating the crime. Leaving his mansion in a Rolls-Royce at about 1.30pm yesterday, Chao said it was inappropriate to comment as police were investigating. Chao, 78, is the chairman of the family property company Cheuk Nang. His daughter, Gigi Chao, is its vice-chairman. The family made international headlines in 2012 after Chao offered HK$500 million to any man who succeeded in marrying Gigi after learning she had wed her girlfriend Sean Eav. His mansion was the third luxury house burgled on Hong Kong Island in the past four days while a quarter of the 28,000-strong police force was busy controlling Occupy Central protesters. Two houses in the exclusive Peak and Repulse Bay areas were broken into on Friday. The year's biggest raid was in February when five-carat diamond earrings worth HK$7 million and HK$1.7 million in cash and valuables were stolen from the Sai Kung home of a Taiwanese businesswoman.
Chicago Raid Uncovers Cache of “High-End” Art
Seized artworks in Chicago. Photo: Screenshot from Chicago Tribune video.
According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, a warrant carried out against a family charged with stealing $400,000 worth of high-end watches unexpectedly turned up thousands of stolen items, including a hoard of high end art.
Though the story does not identify any of the artworks—presumably because it might spark false claims from the public—one police sergeant tells the paper that some of the art was stolen from an art gallery in San Francisco, adding: “It seems as though this family is a clearinghouse for high-end art.”
Experts from the Art Institute of Chicago are helping police with the investigation, and most of the purportedly stolen merchandise was on display at the 18th district police station. Over the past weekend, victims were able to visit the station where they were required to provide proof of ownership.
Three men and two women were arrested recently after making off with the trove of watches. A man who was at the home when the search warrant was executed reportedly attempted to flee with some artworks but was apprehended. Along with artwork, the police also discovered designer clothes, vases, electronics, rugs, DVDs, and more.
Antiques stolen in burglary
ANTIQUES were stolen after burglars forced their way into a home. They broken in through downstairs windows at the property in Longdon and searched the house. A number of items of antique silverware, clocks, watches and ornaments were taken during the burglary, which occurred between 11pm on Wednesday, September 24 and 7.30am the next day.
A snuff box, silver candle sticks and a coffee pot among items stolen from Blackheath burglary in images released by detectives in hope to track them down
The engraved snuff box stolen from the Blackheath property in September
Detectives in Greenwich have released images of distinctive antique items stolen from a Blackheath property during a recent burglary in a bid to attempt to track them down. The items consist of a pair of silver coasters, a salver, a pair of silver candle sticks, a decorative antique box, a silver coffee pot and an engraved snuff box.
The burglary took place some time between 2.30pm on September 20 and 1.30pm the following day. The suspect(s) is believed to have broken in through the kitchen window. Detective Constable Steve Brunt, from Greenwich CID, who is investigating the burglary said: "The antiques and items stolen during this burglary are worth several thousand pounds and are of huge sentimental value. It is likely that the thief may have tried to sell these on for a quick profit in the local area. “We'd urge anyone who may have seen these items or with information to contact us so that we can progress with our enquiries.”
Picasso's handyman accused of stealing £50m art hoarde
Danielle and Pierre Le Guennec face up to five years in prison if convicted
Pablo Picasso's former electrician and his wife go on trial today in Paris, accused of having stolen 271 pieces of the artist's work.
The cache includes lithographs, portraits, a watercolour and sketches created between 1900 and 1932. Pierre and Danielle Le Guennec say they were given the art, worth 80m euro (£50m) by Picasso's second wife. The Picasso estate says their account is "ridiculous" and is suing them for illegal possession of the works Picasso's son Claude has insisted his father would "never" have given such a large quantity of works to anyone. He told the French daily newspaper Liberation: "That doesn't stand up. These works were part of his life."
The case is shaping up largely as one of “he said, she said” as some potential witnesses have died in the interim and because hard evidence of theft 40 years ago may be hard to come by; furthermore, even the state’s own case doesn’t mention who may have stolen it.
Le Guennec began working as a general handyman at Picasso's estate in the South of France in 1970. He says that he and his wife Danielle were given 180 lithographs, collages and paintings and 91 drawings in 1970 by the artist's then-wife, Jacqueline. He claims she gave him the works in a closed box containing the works, saying: "Here, it's for you. Take it home". Danielle recalled that her husband came home with a stuffed bag, and told her that Picasso had given the works to him. The works, which have never been displayed publicly, were kept virtually untouched in Le Guennecs' garage until the couple decided to put their affairs in order for their children in 2010. According to Le Guennec's lawyer, he started worrying around five years ago about what might happen to the works after his death. He contacted the Picasso administration, which looks after works held by his heirs. In September 2010, Le Guennec travelled to Paris to have the works assessed by the administration. But within days of art experts proving the works were genuine, police swooped on the elderly pair at their home in Mouans Sartoux, near Cannes, and arrested them on suspicion of receiving stolen goods. The seized Picassos include a watercolour from his Blue Period, and nine cubist works which experts believe are worth 30m euro (£24.5m) alone. Also in the collection are portraits of his first wife Olga, as well as a number of gouaches and lithographs. Mr and Mrs Le Guennec were initially released without charge while an investigation was launched to establish how they had come by the paintings, but eight months later they were formally charged. If convicted, the couple face up to five years in prison and a 375,000 Euro (£278,000) fine for concealing stolen goods.
Picasso trial: So how did French couple come by £50m art hoard?
Electrician and wife say they were given 271 paintings, collages and sketches as thank-you gifts but descendants of Pablo Picasso accuse them of fraudulently obtaining the haul
Pierre Le Guennec and his wife DaniellePhoto: (AP)
A retired odd job man and electrician and his wife stand trial on Tuesday, accused of illegally possessing 271 works by Pablo Picasso.
Six of the legendary Spanish artists’ descendants accuse Pierre and Danielle Le Guennec of hiding the sketches and paintings thought to be worth £50m in a box in the garage of their Riviera home for 37 years despite knowing they were “fraudulently” obtained.
Mr Le Guennec, 75, claims that he was given the collection by the artist and his second wife Jacqueline when he carried out odd jobs for them more than 40 years ago at their Côte d’Azur home in Notre-Dame-de-Vie in Mougins. Picasso died in 1973. Jacqueline committed suicide in 1986.
“(Picasso) often invited me in to have some cake or a coffee. We talked about all things great and small with the master,” he told AFP in 2010. “One evening, I was leaving my work, when madame handed me a little package saying: ‘This is for you’,” he said.
The pieces, dating from 1900 to 1932, include portraits of Picasso’s first wife, Olga, nine highly-prized Cubist collages worth €40 million (£36 million), a watercolour from his blue period, studies of his hand on canvas, gouaches, around 30 lithographs and 200 drawings. “When I returned home, I saw sketches, drawings – I knew nothing about it. If madame had given me a painting on the other hand, that would have been odd,” he said. In 2010, Mr Le Guennec and his wife took 175 totally unknown pieces in a suitcase to the Picasso Administration headquarters in Paris, showing them to Claude Picasso – the artist’s son who administers his estate – and asking to have the works authenticated. Art experts swiftly concluded that not even the greatest counterfeiter could have copied such a wealth of different styles, and there was no way they could have faked the classification numbers on some of them. Soon afterwards, police confiscated the works and launched an investigation. Picasso's horse drawing Jean-Jacques Neuer, lawyer for Claude Picasso, said the couple were deliberately vague. “They don’t remember whether they received the ‘gift’ in 1970, 71 or 72. If you are given 271 Picassos, you remember it,” he said. “You have to imagine that Picasso kept hold of them for 70 years and suddenly decided to give the lot away.” That did not make sense, he added. “Picasso signed his works at the last moment, to give them away or sell them.” All the electrician has to suggest he was close to the Picassos is a signed brochure of an exhibition. Picasso's dice drawing "When you give a present, you choose something precise that fits the person. Picasso here is giving away works that have nothing to do with each other- notably extremely precious cubist collages that represent 10 per cent of his production,” he said. “But also two notebooks of drawings, work tools that he would never have given away.” Picasso has become the most stolen artist in histoy “The issue is not whether Picasso was generous or not. Picasso wasn’t someone who was careless about his works; he didn’t give away any old how.” Charles-Etienne Gudin, lawyer for the couple, said the works came from the artist’s “Grands-Augustins” studio in Paris, and that there was no way the electrician could have stolen them from his final home, which was a “fortress” watched over by two security guards. The trial is due to last three weeks. It starts a week after Marina Picasso announced she was selling off a selection of his art work, as well as his famous French villa, for an expected $290m (£190m). Miss Picasso, famous for her 2001 memoir Picasso: My Grandfather, in which she accused the artist of destroying her childhood, said she is putting at least seven pieces of art up for sale. The offering includes a 1921 painting called 'Maternite' for $50m, his 1911 'Femme a la Mandoline' for $60m, and a 1923 portrait of his first wife Olga Khokhlova for $60m. The announcement sent shock waves through the art market amid worries the glut could seriously dent the value of his work. In modern times, Picasso has become the most stolen artist in historydue to his prolific output, recognisable signature and valuable works. He has more than 1,000 paintings registered as stolen, missing or disputed - more than twice as many as the next on the list.
Charlie Chaplin's honorary Oscar award stolen in Paris
Million-euro honorary Oscar awarded to Charlie Chaplin in 1929 at the first ever Academy Awards stolen from company in Paris
Charlie Chaplin receiving an honorary Oscar for the lifetime achievement in April 1972Photo:
"Impeccably informed" thieves have stolen an honorary Oscar awarded to Charlie Chaplin worth at least one million euros (£750,000).
An unknown number of robbers broke into a company in Paris in early January and made off with the 30cm-high, 24 carat gold trophy the British actor received in 1929 at the first ever Academy Award ceremony, Le Parisien newspaper reported.
They also stole a set of pens valued at around 80,000 euros (£60,000) apiece that also belonged to the star of the silent film era, famous for his down-and-out character, The Tramp, and his satirical portrayal of Adolf Hitler in The Great Dictator, his first talking picture.
Charlie Chaplin in 1940 film The Great Dictator (Rex)
The "sensitive case" is being handled with "the utmost discretion" by the "Broc" division, a police unit specialising in the theft of artworks.
"The authors of this break-in only targeted these objects and nothing else. They were impeccably informed," a police source close to the inquiry told Le Parisien. Police are pursuing all avenues, including the possibility that the theft was carried out by or for a specific collector. Ringmaster of the wardrobe: Charlie Chaplin in 1928 in The Circus (Rex Features) Charlie Chaplin only received three Oscars in a career that spanned more than six decades. The first, now stolen, was for his "versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus" in 1929. At the reception of his second honorary Oscar in 1972 for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century", he received a 12-minute standing ovation – the longest in the history of the Academy Awards. His third Oscar was for Best Score in 1973 for Limelight (shared with Ray Rasch and Larry Russell). The British actor died on Christmas Day in 1977 at the age of 88.
The paintings recovered in the 2014 sting operation shown during a press conference
Man Who Tried to Sell Stolen Art in Los Angeles Gets 4 Years
A man who tried to sell stolen paintings worth a fortune, including works by Marc Chagall and Diego Rivera, was sentenced Friday to more than four years in state prison.
Raul Espinoza pleaded no contest to one count of receiving property stolen in 2008 from the Encino home of an elderly couple, Los Angeles prosecutors said.
The whereabouts of a dozen modern paintings from the home of Anton and Susan Roland remained a mystery for more than six years until a Los Angeles police detective got a tip in September that someone in Europe was trying to broker a deal to sell the art. Meanwhile, police said their investigation led them to a man named “Darko” in Europe. He had allegedly claimed to know the man who had the stolen art. Detectives said that man turned out to be Espinoza.
The FBI set up a sting and Espinoza, 45, was arrested Oct. 23 when he tried to peddle the works to undercover agents at a Los Angeles hotel.
He was asking $700,000 for works he said were worth $5 million, though the paintings have since been valued for as much as $23 million, said Ricardo Santiago, a spokesman for the Los Angeles district attorney.
Officers recovered nine of the stolen artworks, including paintings by Arshile Gorky, Emil Nolde and Chaim Soutine. Three works remain missing. Most of the paintings were works of expressionism.
The art was stolen Aug. 23, 2008 in broad daylight while the Antons, who had round-the-clock care, were in their bedrooms.
The heist occurred when the sole caretaker on duty went to the grocery store and left a side door unlocked. She returned less than an hour later and discovered the burglary.
"I believe the original burglary could not have been accomplished without the assistance of inside help from one of the employees who worked for the victims," detective Donald Hrycyk wrote in a search warrant affidavit to examine Espinoza's phone for more evidence.
The FBI is still investigating and there's a $25,000 reward.
Espinoza, who has prior burglary convictions, is due in court March 25 for a restitution hearing.
The Antons have since died and their children could not be reached Friday for comment. The works were insured by Lloyd's of London, according to a police report.
Art Crime Team Celebrates 10th Anniversary Part 1: A Decade of Successful Investigations and Recoveries
02/09/15 To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the FBI’s Art Crime Team, FBI.gov recently discussed the team’s history, mission, and accomplishments with Bonnie Magness-Gardiner, who manages the Bureau’s art theft program. Q: How did the Art Crime Team get started? Magness-Gardiner: The FBI has always had agents who investigated frauds and thefts related to art, but in 2003, there was substantial looting of Iraq’s National Museum in Baghdad. Thousands of works were stolen. Because of the U.S. presence in Iraq at the time, it was clear that somebody would have to investigate. It was also clear that the U.S. government didn’t have a team organized, in place, or with the expertise required to do that kind of investigation. But the need for such a team was apparent, and the FBI took that on. The Art Crime Team was formed a year or so later. Q: What were those early days like? Magness-Gardiner: When I first arrived, the team consisted of eight agents located in field offices around the country, as well as three trial attorneys from the Department of Justice assigned to assist with prosecutions. Today, the agent component has almost doubled to 15 men and women. One of the great benefits of having the agents located in so many cities in the U.S. is that we literally cover the country. Q: Describe some of the team’s accomplishments over the past decade. Magness-Gardiner: One of our earliest successes was the recovery of a Rembrandt self-portrait valued at $40 million. The painting had been stolen from the Swedish National Museum in Stockholm in 2000. We recovered it during an undercover operation in 2005. Since the Art Crime Team’s creation, we have made more than 11,800 recoveries, and the value of those recovered objects is estimated to be more than $160 million. We have also helped to convict more than 80 individuals for a range of art crimes.
Q: The National Stolen Art File has also been a success, hasn’t it? Magness-Gardiner: Yes, and particularly since it went online on FBI.gov in 2010. The National Stolen Art File is a database listing art stolen primarily in the United States. To be included in the file, the art must be valued at $2,000 or more, and we require a theft report and a description of the work providing its unique characteristics. Unlike automobiles, for example, art does not have a serial number on it. So we need specific descriptors that allow us to positively identify the works. Most submissions to the file come from local police departments or from victims. Currently there are about 8,000 listings, everything from fine art to collectibles—anything that has a cultural value that can be uniquely identified. Q: Is there a particular kind of art that is more susceptible to being stolen or forged? Magness-Gardiner: Unfortunately, it’s an equal opportunity market for thieves and fraudsters. Over the last 10 years we have dealt with everything from fossils stolen from South America to modern art that’s been forged and put on the market in New York. We have investigated cases involving fine art, manuscripts, letters, baseball cards, and textiles from pre-Colombian to modern. Everything that you can imagine that has a monetary value or cultural significance is subject to theft or fakery. Next: Investigators use team approach, time-tested methods.
Gang Who Smuggled Antiques Have Been Caught After Being Accused Of Selling Stolen Antique To Support Islamic State Terrorists
A gang of alleged antique smugglers have been arrested after being suspected of selling stolen Egyptian relics to fund Islamic State terrorists. Spanish police claim the network were operating out of mosques in Barcelona after they raided a shipment which they believe originated in Egypt. They added that the gang had gone to great lengths to try and hide what they were smuggling – which included human figurines, animal figurines and small bronze statues worth several hundred thousand euros. The plundering of antiquities, particularly from the Middle East, has sky-rocketed since the fighting, with much of the money landing in the pockets of terrorists, say archaeologists and international watchdogs. Treasures: Police have recovered Egyptian relics that were allegedly being sold by the network Priceless pieces of history snatched from illicit diggings or swiped from museum cases have become one of the four most common commodities – next to drugs, weapons and human beings – to be trafficked by smugglers, according to United Nations investigators. Iraqis have been urged to protect the nation’s trove of antiquities as assaults waged by the jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) left relics there at risk from looting. UNESCO has also reported that in Egypt, terrorist attacks in recent years have targeted pieces of cultural heritage. Officials from the Spanish civil guard who carried out the operation said they believed money raised was going directly to fund jihadists. Terrorism: Spanish police believe the money was being used to fund ISIS Four Egyptian men and one Spanish man were arrested in the city as a result of the police operation that also led to the seizure of 36 pieces of artwork in Valencia, which are believed to have originally come from Egypt. Experts from the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid say they suspect the antiquities had been looted from sites around the Egyptian towns of Saqqara and Mit Rahina south of the capital Cairo. They were in a container that came from the northern Egyptian port city of Alexandria and was being shipped to Barcelona. Arrests: Police held a press conference for an update on the investigation A police spokesman said: “This gang had gone to extreme lengths to avoid discovery. They operated in a network that was centred around mosques and other venues located in downtown areas in the city of Barcelona.” They said that the one Spanish man arrested had been a dealer in antiquities who appeared to be the gang”s local contact and who was supposed to sell the items on the black market. Those arrested face charges of smuggling cultural goods, money laundering, and membership of an international criminal organisation. Spanish police also confirmed that they were stepping up monitoring ports, airports and border control points following fears that there would be an increase in similar types of smuggling in particular with regards to shipments from the Middle East where conflicts are being fought.
Gauguin Painting Is Said to Fetch $300 Million
Gauguin’s “Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?),” from 1892, was sold by a collector in Switzerland in a private transaction.Credit Artothek/Associated Press
LONDON — A sensuous Paul Gauguin painting of two Tahitian girls has been sold from a Swiss private collection for close to $300 million, one of the highest prices believed to have been paid for an artwork, according to European and American art world insiders with knowledge of the matter.
The sale of the 1892 oil painting, “Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?),” was confirmed by the seller, Rudolf Staechelin, 62, a retired Sotheby’s executive living in Basel, Switzerland, who through a family trust owns more than 20 works in a valuable collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, including the Gauguin, which has been on loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel for nearly a half-century.
Two dealers with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be named because of concerns over client confidentiality, said the painting had been purchased by a Qatari buyer, but Mr. Staechelin would not say whether the new owner was from Qatar, a tiny, oil-rich emirate. “I don’t deny it and I don’t confirm it,” Mr. Staechelin said, also declining to disclose the price.
The Qatar Museums (formerly the Qatar Museums Authority) in Doha, the emirate’s capital, did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.
Guy Morin, the mayor of Basel, acknowledged news of the sale of the Gauguin and bemoaned its loss. On Tuesday, The Baer Faxt, an art world insiders’ newsletter, said Qatar was rumored to be the buyer of the Gauguin at $300 million, which would exceed the more than $250 million that Qatar reportedly paid for Paul Cézanne’s “The Card Players” in 2011.
Todd Levin, a New York art adviser, said of the Gauguin, “I heard that this painting was in play late last year.” He added, “The price quoted to me at that time was in the high $200 millions, close to $300 million.”
In recent years the Qatar royal family and the museums authority have been reported to be expansive buyers of trophy quality Western modern and contemporary art by Mark Rothko, Damien Hirst and Cézanne. In a move that jolted Basel as news of the sale trickled out, Mr. Staechelin said that his family’s trust was ending its loan to the Kunstmuseum as a result of a dispute with the local canton. He said that he was searching for a top museum to accept the Staechelin collection — which also includes works by van Gogh, Picasso and Pissarro — on loan, without a lending fee, with a promise to integrate the pieces into permanent exhibitions.
The works were amassed by his grandfather, a Swiss merchant also named Rudolf Staechelin, who befriended artists and made most of his purchases during and after World War I. Later, the elder Mr. Staechelin advised the Kunstmuseum, which accepted the loan of his collection after his death in 1946.
The grandson said that the works had never been hung in his family’s home because they were too precious and that he saw them in a museum along with everyone else. He has decided to sell, he said, because it is the time in his life to diversify his assets. “In a way it’s sad,” he said, “but on the other hand, it’s a fact of life. Private collections are like private persons. They don’t live forever.”
On the last few days before closing last weekend for renovations through 2016, the Kunstmuseum opened its doors for free and drew a record crowd of 7,500 people, many of whom caught the last glimpse of the Gauguin in its longtime home.
Gauguin’s Tahiti-period paintings are among the most admired and coveted artworks of the Post-Impressionist period. This particular piece, focusing on the enigmatic interplay between two girls in a Polynesian landscape, was painted during the first of the artist’s two spells living in Tahiti.
The painting will still be on display at a special Gauguin exhibition opening this month in Basel at the Beyeler Foundation and then the collection will travel to the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid and the Phillips Collection in Washington. The buyer will take ownership next January, Mr. Staechelin said.
Local institutions in Basel, which learned definitively about the loss of the collection on Thursday morning, were still trying to come to grips with the news. The Kunstmuseum issued a brief statement about the loss saying, in part, “We are painfully reminded that permanent loans are still loans.”
Mr. Morin, the mayor, said in a statement that the canton tried to persuade Mr. Staechelin to bring back the collection when the museum reopened in April 2016. But for months the canton and the family trust squabbled behind the scenes over an existing loan contract.
Mr. Staechelin said that he had sought a new contract after the museum announced plans to shut down. When canton officials failed to budge on a new contract, he said, he canceled the existing one because of a provision that requires that the artworks be on public display.
“The real question is why only now?” Mr. Staechelin said of the Gauguin sale. “It’s mainly because we got a good offer. The market is very high and who knows what it will be in 10 years. I always tried to keep as much together as I could.” He added, “Over 90 percent of our assets are paintings hanging for free in the museum.”
“For me they are family history and art,” he said of the artworks. “But they are also security and investments.”
James Roundell, a director at the London dealership Simon Dickinson, said that in the roiling global art market, “a new category of super trophy is emerging.”
“These items are generally in museums and they’re being sold privately, which explains the very high prices,” he said. “If they were offered at auction, would there be competition at that level?”
Thief may not know value of stolen paintings worth £100,000 say police
Thieves who stole two paintings worth £100,000 may not recognise the value of their haul, according to police. The artworks by celebrated St Ives painter Bryan Pearce were taken from an isolated cottage in West Cornwall last month. Police say they are keeping an open mind, but do not initially believe that the works by the artist were stolen to order or taken by a specialist art thief. A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said two cottages had been raided where near to Zennor, which is a tiny village on the cliff tops between St Ives and St Just. The thief had forced open a ground floor window and search both premises, taking nothing from one but four paintings from another, including the two works by Pearce, White Jug and Catkins and Portreath, both painted in 1960 and worth an estimate £50,000 each. Pearce, who died in 2007, was recognised as one of the UK's leading naive artists whose flat style featuring bright colours and heavy outlines might appear almost childish to someone unaware of his work. As a result, the police spokesman said: "It is possible the thief does not know the value of what they have."
A surveillance camera image of the robbery in Switzerland. Photo: Police
'Pink Panther' fences arrested in Vienna
Police in Vienna have arrested three Israelis and a Serbian suspected of acting as fences for the notorious international Pink Panthers jewel thieves gang.
The four men (aged between 35 and 40) were arrested in a Vienna hotel with €500,000 worth of luxury watches and jewellery which had been stolen in a robbery in Montreux, Switzerland on January 15th.
They are not thought to have carried out the robbery themselves, but acted as the receivers of the stolen goods, and were planning to sell the watches to wealthy clients.
"This is the first time in Austria that we have managed to identify and arrest members of the Pink Panthers redistribution channel," Ewald Ebner from the Federal Criminal Police Office said at a press conference.
Police got a tip-off that a courier from Serbia was travelling to Vienna in order to buy luxury watches. After he crossed the border into Austria police put him under surveillance and he was observed meeting up with a Vienna-based Israeli man in the city's 2nd district, who drove him to a hotel.
After money had changed hands and the Serb emerged from the hotel with €57,000 in cash police swooped and arrested him, along with two Israelis who are resident in Belgium and had been involved in the sale of the watches.
In the hotel room police found a 37-year-old Israeli man carrying a suitcase with a false bottom which contained 25 watches. One of the watches was valued at about €53,000.
Ebner said that the men were "uncooperative" when they were arrested and pretended they knew nothing about the seized loot. If found guilty of handling stolen goods the men could face between six months and five years in prison.
The operation was carried out in cooperation with Belgian, German, Serbian and Swiss police.
The Pink Panthers gang is known for lightning-fast armed robberies targeting high-end jewellery stores in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the United States.
They are believed to have carried out robberies worth in excess of €500 million since 1999.
Many gang members are known to originate from the former Yugoslavia, but they work across countries and continents. The Pink Panthers have been responsible for several robberies in Austria.
Three paintings stolen from the University of Toronto
Toronto police are investigating the recent theft of three paintings from the University of Toronto, including one by the 18th-century Italian master Francesco Guardi, two of whose works have sold for tens of millions of dollars at auction in the last four years.
At this stage, police believe the thefts, done between Jan. 30 and Feb. 10, are likely the work of the same person, a spokesperson said Friday. The Guardi, a Venetian view painting titled Church of Santa Maria della Salute, was taken from Trinity College on a date a Trinity official declined to reveal Friday. The others – Morning at Peggy’s Cove by William E. deGarthe and CreditRiver by Yee Bon – were removed on, respectively, Feb. 3 and the Feb. 7-8 weekend from Victoria University, according to Gillian Pearson, curator of the collection. In each instance, the thief or thieves left the painting’s frame behind.
It’s presumed the Guardi is the most valuable of the trio. Just how valuable, however, is unclear as information on its dimensions, date of creation (Guardi lived from 1712 to 1793), exhibition history and provenance have yet to be disclosed.
A huge Guardi from the early 1780s, A View of the Rialto Bridge Looking North, 115 centimetres by 200 measurement , sold for a record $41.2-million at auction in London in 2011. Another, smaller painting (70 cm by 100), Venice, the Bacino di San Marco with the Piazzetta and the Doge’s Palace, went for $18.1-million at Christie’s auctioneers London last July.
The missing Yee Bon, an early autumn landscape, is 29.5 cm by 35.5 and was painted in 1931 or 1932. It came into Victoria’s collection as a bequest in the late 1940s. In recent years, the painting was stored in a room “that’s usually locked,” Ms. Pearson said, “but it’s also used for events and [on Feb. 7-8] there were a number of groups in.” Born in China in 1905, Yee came to Canada in 1918, enrolling in art school in Toronto in 1931. He lived in Hong Kong from 1935 on, returning in 1956 to mainland China where he died in 1995. Individual paintings by the artist tend to sell in the mid-five figures.
The Finnish-born deGarthe spent most of his life in Nova Scotia, dying at 75 in 1983. His stolen work, an Impressionist-like view of his beloved Peggy’s Cove, is 16 cm by 21. Painted circa 1956, it too entered Victoria’s collection as a bequest, in the early 1990s, and was housed just out of security-camera range at the university’s E.J. Pratt Library. A 46-cm-by-61-cm deGarthe sold at auction in Canada in 2011 for $2,340.
Interpol ranks art theft as the world’s third biggest criminal activity, behind drugs and arms-trafficking. By some estimates, the value of the art stolen each year is in excess of $6-billion.
However, it’s rare for thieves to score a big payday from their loot. Serious collectors like their purchases to have clear title, good provenance and, more often than not, they want to be able to show the works to friends, fellow collectors, art institutions and the public without the taint of criminality. When they do occasionally make a sale, it’s often not worth it: A Rembrandt self-portrait, lifted from the Swedish National Museum in 2000, had an appraised value of close to $40-million at the time of its theft. However, it took five years to sell and went for $250,000 – to an undercover FBI agent.
Trial over Picasso’s ‘gift’ to handyman and the murky world of art crime
Picasso: most prolific and most stolen artist. Anthony Devlin/PA Archive The case of Pablo Picasso’s former electrician Pierre Le Guennec and his wife, Danielle, came to a close on February 12. The pair are accused of handling stolen goods – 271 of Picasso’s works. The French prosecutor seeks a symbolic five-year suspended sentence for the couple. The judge’s verdict and sentence (if found guilty) will be delivered on March 20. Pierre Le Guennec was Picasso’s handyman at his house in Mougin in the south of France. He claims Picasso’s second wife, Jacqueline, gave him a box of the 271 works (among the pieces were lithographs, drawings, sketches) as a gift. For 40 years, the works of art apparently remained in their garage and the couple didn’t look through them properly until 2009. They only came to light in 2010 when Pierre Le Guennec asked the Picasso Administration to authenticate them. The charge of handling stolen goods (rather than theft) meant that no proof about who actually committed the alleged theft was introduced. But the lawyer for the Picasso Administration, who brought the case to court, added an extra twist to the trial by accusing the couple of being involved in international artwork laundering and alleging that the art was passed to them on account of their past with Picasso. Pablo Picasso and scene painters in 1917.
Art crime scene
This case shines another bright light on the fascinating, often violent world of art crime which internationally is often misrepresented by the media and not treated seriously enough by law enforcement agencies. In addition, there are many shades of grey that colour the interface between licit and illicit activities in the art world. The unregulated art world itself can be strongly accused of not doing enough to prevent art crime. The artist Banksy summed up the challenge when speaking to the Sunday Times in February 2010:
I’ve come into contact with a lot more villains since I moved from vandalism into selling paintings. The art world is full of shady people peddling bright colours.
Driven by the belief that work would keep him alive, Picasso was a famously prolific artist. Owing to his huge output and his art’s value in heritage, artistic and economic terms, it is not a surprise that, according to the Art Loss Register, he is the artist with the most stolen work. To illustrate the scale, before this current case, more than 1,000 of his pieces were known to have been stolen. There is a long and well-documented history of insider art thefts – the most famous of which is probably the theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre by an employee in 1911. Another significant crime, highlighted in a security report in 1954, occurred at London’s V&A Museum, where an attendant called John Nevin stole an incredible 2,544 items over 20 years. The accused.Patrice Lapoirie/EPA
Suspicions
The Le Guennec couple’s story is fascinating and confusing for a number of reasons. Despite the work being done by one of the most influential and famous artists in history, the couple claim never to have looked at the art properly and decided to keep it closed up in their garage for 40 years. They apparently also had different stories. In contrast to Pierre’s claim that they were a gift in a box, Danielle has allegedly stated that Pierre was given the works in a bin bag after Picasso had been cleaning up his studio. According to the artist’s biographer, John Richardson, Picasso never gave away work from his early periods, nor did he give anything away without signing the piece. Apparently, only one of the couple’s items is signed. Although the Picasso Administration lawyer’s claim of international artwork laundering may seem far-fetched in this case, the art world’s lack of regulation coupled with the lack of law enforcement involvement in many countries makes an array of art crimes attractive for criminal gangs – so the claim should not be simply dismissed. The couple could have been viewed as easy targets by criminals. The verdict in March could have ramifications much further afield than the south of France. As Degas once said: “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see”. Art theft is often viewed by potential criminals as having a low risk of punishment, something not helped by different media frequently misrepresenting the crime as entertainment. So the prosecutor’s call for only a “symbolic” sentence could continue to make others, whether they be potential criminals, the media or the public, see art theft as entertainment rather than as a serious crime worthy of more attention. The criminologist Simon Mackenzie has highlighted how the effects of criminal law are negligible for art crimes, especially concerning the problem of illicit antiquities. This case, whatever the outcome, could reinforce his argument.
Breaking News: Chinese art works stolen from the Chinese Museum at Fontainebleau Palace, near Paris, were themselves stolen in 1861 by French troops who looted the old Summer Palace (Yuanminguan).
15 Artworks Stolen From Chinese Museum South of Paris
PARIS — Mar 1, 2015, 12:07 PM ET
French cultural officials say 15 pieces of art have been stolen from a Chinese museum south of Paris, including a replica crown of the King of Siam given to France's emperor in the mid-19th century.
The Culture Ministry says the break-in before dawn Sunday at the Chinese Museum at Fontainebleau Castle was over in less than seven minutes.
Police are investigating.
Castle spokesman Alexis de Kermel said he had no estimation of the objects' value. He called them "priceless" and the master works of the museum.
The ministry said the stolen objects were assembled by Empress Eugenie, the wife of French Emperor Napoleon III, for her Chinese museum in 1863. The crown was donated by the ambassadors of Siam, now Thailand, during their official visit to France two years earlier.
Fontainebleau theft: stolen Chinese art previously stolen! Is it on its way back to Beijing? Courtesy of The Irish Rathkeale Rovers On Tour, Calling Richard Kerry O’Brien, Calling Richard Kerry O'Brien?
In an ironic twist on the story, it is now believed that several of the Chinese art works stolen from the Chinese Museum at Fontainebleau Palace, near Paris, were themselves stolen in 1861 by French troops who looted the old Summer Palace (Yuanminguan).
A full list of the 15 items that were stolen is not available, though there are authenticated reports that among the lifted items were an 18th century Chinese cloisonné-enameled chimera and a rare Tibetan mandala, thought to be originally part of the old Summer Palace collection.
For most Chinese the ruins of the old Summer Palace are redolent of an era of colonial exploitation and ruthless pillage, and there will be little sympathy in China for the loss suffered at Fontainebleau this week.
Indeed, there is some speculation now in Beijing that the items now in turn stolen in Paris might just turn up back in the Chinese capital . . .
Château de Fontainebleau was decorated by Empress Eugenie, the wife of Emperor Napoleon III, with artifacts collected by her and by the sack of the Summer Palace by French and British soldiers in 1860.
If you are not Chinese, it’s hard to express how raw the150-year-old wound still is. This BBC documentary aired last month puts it in perspective, when it said:“There is a deep, unhealed historical wound in the UK’s relations with China – a wound that most British people know nothing about, but which causes China great pain. It stems from the destruction in 1860 of the country’s most beautiful palace.” Château de Fontainebleau’s website was offline for most of yesterday. Possibly the site was overwhelmed by traffic, maybe purposely shut down, or even hacked. It is, however, back on today but remains tight-lipped on any further developments.
One of the last times that artifacts originating in the Old Summer Palace were in the news was when one of France’s wealthiest businessmen agreed to return two bronze animal heads in 2013 that were looted by French and British troops in the 19th century.. Several of the original bronze heads can now be seen in person at the Poly Art Museum at Dongsishitiao.
The Old Summer Palace, or Yuanmingyuan, was built in 1707 under the reign of the Kangxi Emperor and is located in Haidian. It was looted and destroyed almost completely during the closing days of the Second Opium War by British and French troops under the order of the British commander, Lord Elgin, at the time.
Noted French novelist Victor Hugo noted at the time: “All the treasures of all our cathedrals put together could not equal this formidable and splendid museum of the Orient … One of the two victors filled his pockets; when the other saw this he filled his coffers. And back they came to Europe, arm in arm, laughing away. Such is the story of the two bandits. We Europeans are the civilized ones, and for us the Chinese are the barbarians. This is what civilization has done to barbarism.”
It would, indeed, represent the supreme irony if some of the items so lately stolen were to turn up again in Beijing. I am making no predictions as such but it is a distinct possibility, according to Beijing chatter. The Irish Rathkeale Rovers have strong connections in China and this would follow the pattern of continued theft of Chinese artworks Europe wide, nay worldwide, given added impetious because of the Police raids and clamp down on the activities of the Irish Rathkeale Rovers in recent times.
Harry Winston Trial Ends With Jail Time, 500 Pieces Remain Outstanding !!
8 jailed in double Paris jewellery heist
PARIS - A French court has sentenced eight men to jail over a double heist at a Harry Winston jewellery shop in Paris in which they made off with gems and watches worth more than 100 million euros (US$114 million).
The Paris court Friday sentenced them to prison terms ranging from nine months to 15 years over the robberies in 2007 and 2008.
Douadi Yahiaoui, nicknamed "Doudou" and considered the brains behind the double heist, was handed a 15-year jail term. Yahiaoui, 50, has already served 23 years for theft and drug trafficking.
"He was the brains of the team. He is the one who organised everything, recruited the robbers, gave instructions and was in charge of selling the jewellery," said prosecutor Sylvie Kachaner.
The court also sentenced former Harry Winston security guard Mouloud Djennad, 39, to five years in jail, with three suspended, for providing information to Yahiaoui.
"My thoughts are with my former colleagues at Harry Winston. I'm ashamed every day but I cannot undo what I've done," he had told the court before the jury retired to deliberate their verdict.
In the first robbery in October 2007, four masked gunmen wearing decorators' overalls held up employees at the store in an upmarket part of the French capital.
The robbers had spent the night in the jewellery shop with the help of Djennad, who let them in the previous evening.
After having threatened, struck and tied up employees, the thieves forced the manager to de-activate alarms and open the safes. The robbers made off with 120 watches and 360 pieces of jewellery worth more than 32 million euros.
Then just over a year later, in December 2008, four men -- including three wearing women's clothes and wigs -- entered the same store, again with Djennad's help.
In less than 20 minutes, they took 104 watches and 297 pieces of jewellery worth 71 million euros and fled in a car.
Police found some of the booty at Yahiaoui's home, but after a five-year investigation, nearly 500 of the jewels and watches have still not been found.
"It's an exceptional case with unusual aspects," Eric Dupond-Moretti, the lawyer of one of the suspects, had said.
"In television series about heists, they wear bulletproof vests. Here it's fishnet stockings and high heels."
Among the other defendants, Farid Allou, 49, who had served 20 years for armed robbery, was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment.
Karim Debaa, 32, who admitted taking part in the second robbery, got six years, as did Hassen Belferroum, 32, and Faudile Yahiaoui, 28, Yahiaoui's nephew.
The court imposed a sentence of three years, with 18 months suspended, on Patrick Chiniah, 40, brother-in-law of Yahiaoui, and nine months for Areski Yahiaoui, 59, Yahiaoui's brother, who was convicted of receiving stolen goods.
PARIS - A French court has sentenced eight men to jail over a double heist at a Harry Winston jewellery shop in Paris in which they made off with gems and watches worth more than 100 million euros (US$114 million). The Paris court Friday sentenced them to prison terms ranging from nine months to 15 years over the robberies in 2007 and 2008. Douadi Yahiaoui, nicknamed "Doudou" and considered the brains behind the double heist, was handed a 15-year jail term. Yahiaoui, 50, has already served 23 years for theft and drug trafficking. "He was the brains of the team. He is the one who organised everything, recruited the robbers, gave instructions and was in charge of selling the jewellery," said prosecutor Sylvie Kachaner. The court also sentenced former Harry Winston security guard Mouloud Djennad, 39, to five years in jail, with three suspended, for providing information to Yahiaoui. "My thoughts are with my former colleagues at Harry Winston. I'm ashamed every day but I cannot undo what I've done," he had told the court before the jury retired to deliberate their verdict. In the first robbery in October 2007, four masked gunmen wearing decorators' overalls held up employees at the store in an upmarket part of the French capital. The robbers had spent the night in the jewellery shop with the help of Djennad, who let them in the previous evening. After having threatened, struck and tied up employees, the thieves forced the manager to de-activate alarms and open the safes. The robbers made off with 120 watches and 360 pieces of jewellery worth more than 32 million euros. Then just over a year later, in December 2008, four men -- including three wearing women's clothes and wigs -- entered the same store, again with Djennad's help. In less than 20 minutes, they took 104 watches and 297 pieces of jewellery worth 71 million euros and fled in a car. Police found some of the booty at Yahiaoui's home, but after a five-year investigation, nearly 500 of the jewels and watches have still not been found. "It's an exceptional case with unusual aspects," Eric Dupond-Moretti, the lawyer of one of the suspects, had said. "In television series about heists, they wear bulletproof vests. Here it's fishnet stockings and high heels." Among the other defendants, Farid Allou, 49, who had served 20 years for armed robbery, was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. Karim Debaa, 32, who admitted taking part in the second robbery, got six years, as did Hassen Belferroum, 32, and Faudile Yahiaoui, 28, Yahiaoui's nephew. The court imposed a sentence of three years, with 18 months suspended, on Patrick Chiniah, 40, brother-in-law of Yahiaoui, and nine months for Areski Yahiaoui, 59, Yahiaoui's brother, who was convicted of receiving stolen goods.
- See more at: http://news.asiaone.com/news/crime/8-jailed-double-paris-jewellery-heist#sthash.Oeq3os60.dpuf
PARIS - A French court has sentenced eight men to jail over a double heist at a Harry Winston jewellery shop in Paris in which they made off with gems and watches worth more than 100 million euros (US$114 million). The Paris court Friday sentenced them to prison terms ranging from nine months to 15 years over the robberies in 2007 and 2008. Douadi Yahiaoui, nicknamed "Doudou" and considered the brains behind the double heist, was handed a 15-year jail term. Yahiaoui, 50, has already served 23 years for theft and drug trafficking. "He was the brains of the team. He is the one who organised everything, recruited the robbers, gave instructions and was in charge of selling the jewellery," said prosecutor Sylvie Kachaner. The court also sentenced former Harry Winston security guard Mouloud Djennad, 39, to five years in jail, with three suspended, for providing information to Yahiaoui. "My thoughts are with my former colleagues at Harry Winston. I'm ashamed every day but I cannot undo what I've done," he had told the court before the jury retired to deliberate their verdict. In the first robbery in October 2007, four masked gunmen wearing decorators' overalls held up employees at the store in an upmarket part of the French capital. The robbers had spent the night in the jewellery shop with the help of Djennad, who let them in the previous evening. After having threatened, struck and tied up employees, the thieves forced the manager to de-activate alarms and open the safes. The robbers made off with 120 watches and 360 pieces of jewellery worth more than 32 million euros. Then just over a year later, in December 2008, four men -- including three wearing women's clothes and wigs -- entered the same store, again with Djennad's help. In less than 20 minutes, they took 104 watches and 297 pieces of jewellery worth 71 million euros and fled in a car. Police found some of the booty at Yahiaoui's home, but after a five-year investigation, nearly 500 of the jewels and watches have still not been found. "It's an exceptional case with unusual aspects," Eric Dupond-Moretti, the lawyer of one of the suspects, had said. "In television series about heists, they wear bulletproof vests. Here it's fishnet stockings and high heels." Among the other defendants, Farid Allou, 49, who had served 20 years for armed robbery, was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. Karim Debaa, 32, who admitted taking part in the second robbery, got six years, as did Hassen Belferroum, 32, and Faudile Yahiaoui, 28, Yahiaoui's nephew. The court imposed a sentence of three years, with 18 months suspended, on Patrick Chiniah, 40, brother-in-law of Yahiaoui, and nine months for Areski Yahiaoui, 59, Yahiaoui's brother, who was convicted of receiving stolen goods.
- See more at: http://news.asiaone.com/news/crime/8-jailed-double-paris-jewellery-heist#sthash.Oeq3os60.dpuf
Diamond Thief Gets 15 Years in Paris Heist
PARIS — A French court meted out a prison sentence of 15 years on Friday to a convicted drug trafficker considered the ringleader of a spectacular $100 million diamond heist at a Harry Winston jewelry store that thieves in flowing wigs carried out with inside knowledge from a security guard.
Throughout the trial, which lasted almost four weeks, the main defendant, Daoudi Yahiaoui, 50, minimized his role in the 2008 robbery in the so-called golden triangle of luxury boutiques in Paris. But the tribunal concluded that he was the brain behind the robbery and a holdup in 2007, which together resulted in the theft of more than 900 diamonds and other jewels.
Mr. Yahiaoui was one of eight men on trial, and the others were sentenced to prison terms of nine months to 15 years. With video of the 2008 robbery, the plot unraveled over the years as the thieves sought to sell the gems, unaware that their telephones were tapped and they were being tailed by investigators seeking to recover the jewels. About 500 gems remain missing.
Mouloud Djennad, 39, the guard who admitted being the “inside man” in the plot, was sentenced to five years, but he remained free with three years of the punishment suspended and additional time reduced for the period he spent in pretrial detention.
During the trial, he expressed remorse for his actions, apologizing to a former co-worker, who was a witness, and weeping in his hands.
The trial, which started Feb. 3, offered an unusual view of the plotting of a diamond theft, one of many that jolted the luxury districts of the French capital in a wave of organized robberies.
The robbery seemed flawlessly executed, but the thieves were tripped up by a series of mistakes, like leaving behind a handbag with a fingerprint, and by their troubled efforts to sell the diamonds amid tensions with intermediaries scouting for buyers.
In March 2011, on the fifth search of Mr. Yahiaoui’s home in a Paris suburb, investigators found stuffed in a drainpipe a hand cream bottle that contained missing earrings, assorted rings and a 31-carat diamond solitaire.
The actual estimates of the loss varied because of the difference in retail and wholesale values of the gems. In court, a lawyer for Harry Winston testified that the company had received insurance payments of $36.7 million for the 2007 holdup and $52.6 million for the second robbery.
Many of the men on trial are related to each other. Mr. Yahiaoui’s brother-in-law introduced the guard to him after he casually revealed security weaknesses in the jewelry store. Mr. Yahiaoui’s brother and nephew were also sentenced in the plot.
Lawyers for the guard defended his involvement by saying he was naïve and trusted Mr. Yahiaoui because they shared family roots in the Kabylie region in northeastern Algeria. Mr. Djennad, who has been working in a butcher shop while awaiting the trial, said he had become trapped in his friendship with Mr. Yahiaoui, who intimidated him into participating in the second robbery in 2008 despite his misgivings after the first holdup.
Grainy black-and-white video from the store shows him opening the door to the men in their outlandish outfits and then standing by the door as they fled with a rolling suitcase of gems.
Missing Picasso, disguised as a holiday gift, is recovered in New York
U.S. officials inspected a FedEx package shipped from Belgium to New York in December with its happy holiday greeting, "Joyeux Noel." They opened it and instead of a $37 “art craft toy” promised on the box found a stolen Picasso painting worth millions.
Loretta Lynch, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York and likely next attorney general of the United States, filed a civil forfeiture complaint seeking to seize the painting, “La Coiffeuse” (The Hairdresser), reported stolen from a Paris museum storeroom in 2001. The painting will eventually be returned to France. “A lost treasure has been found,” Lynch said in a statement released Thursday. “Because of the blatant smuggling in this case, this painting is now subject to forfeiture to the United States. Forfeiture of the painting will extract it from the grasp of the black market in stolen art so that it can be returned to its rightful owner,” she stated. Picasso painted the work in 1911. It is an oil-on-canvas that measures 33 by 46 centimeters, or about 13 by 18 inches. It was bequeathed to the National Museums of France by its former director, Georges Salles, in 1966, and assigned to the collections of the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris. The work was last publicly exhibited in Munich, Germany, in 1998, then returned to Paris and placed in the storerooms of the Centre George Pompidou. There the painting, valued at about $2.5 million, remained until a request was made to again exhibit it. The staff went to the storeroom where they discovered it was missing in November 2001. The location of the painting remained unknown until December. On Dec. 17, the painting was shipped by someone in Belgium to a warehouse in Long Island City, part of the New York City borough of Queens. It was then sent to Newark where it was examined by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, then turned over to Homeland Security investigators, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. The package's shipping label described the contents as an “Art Craft / Toy” valued at 30 euros, or approximately $37 U.S. dollars, a low-value handicraft shipped as a Christmas present. No arrests have been made in the case.
No one uses real jewels since Cleopatra died: Calvin Klein on Lupita Nyong'o Oscar dress
Lupita Nyong'o is graceful in white.
American fashion house Calvin Klein, that was recently in news for Lupita Nyong'o stolen Oscar dress, has asserted that they never claimed whether or not the pearls on the dress were real.
A source connected with the Women's Creative Director of Calvin Klein asserted that they never told anyone if the pearls were real or fake, TMZ.com reported. The source added that everyone knew pearls were fake as no one made dresses out of real jewels since Cleopatra died.
According to reports, the only person who represented the pearls as real and valued the dress at 150K dollars was Lupita's stylist.
Nyong'o stolen Oscar dress was reportedly worth between 150,000 dollars and 10 million dollars.
The thief had called the website and said he took two of the pearls down to the Garment District in LA and learned they were fake and that's when he returned the dress to the hotel.
Spain nabs 9 alleged art forgers for selling fake works by Picasso, Warhol and Miro
In this photo released by the Spanish Interior Ministry on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2015, different pieces of alleged fake art are seen inside a studio in Valencia, Spain. Spanish Police have broken up a network that allegedly created and sold fake works of art purporting to be by artists of international standing including Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Joan Miro. Officers have arrested nine suspects in the eastern region of Valencia, including the alleged counterfeiters and intermediaries involved in selling the fakes. Investigators searched seven addresses and seized 271 works, including canvasses, sculptures and documents to be used to falsify the art's provenance.
MADRID (AP) – Spanish police have broken up a gang that allegedly created and then sold fake works of art purporting to be by renowned artists including Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Joan Miro. Officers have arrested nine suspects in the eastern region of Valencia, including the alleged counterfeiters and intermediaries involved in selling the fakes online and through galleries, an Interior Ministry statement says. The investigation began following a complaint that art objects had been stolen from a house in the eastern city of Denia. Police proceeded to search seven addresses and seized 271 works, including canvasses, sculptures and documents to be used in the falsification of the art's provenance. Saturday's statement says the alleged counterfeiters were three brothers and a couple, who had all been faking art for seven years.
Multi-millionaire businessman who stores cars, wine, cigars and art treasures for the rich and famous is arrested in fraud case
Yves Bouvier was detained in Monaco, along with two alleged accomplices
Comes amid accusations so-called 'Freeports' are being used to dodge tax
Ultra-high net worth individuals use the vast repositories to store treasures
Bouvier owns £50m Luxembourg Freeport at Grand Duchy's Findel airport
It is connected to 'possible fraud and manipulation of art market prices'
Monaco FC owner Dmitry Rybolovlev is one of Bouvier's alleged victims
A multi-millionaire businessman responsible for storing some of the greatest art treasures and luxury goods in the world has been arrested on suspicion of fraud.
Yves Bouvier - whose rich and famous clients include many from Britain - was placed in custody in Monaco on Wednesday night, along with two alleged accomplices.
It follows a complaint about his so-called 'Freeports' - vast repositories where ultra-high net worth individuals keep their treasures.
They include everything from priceless paintings to top marque cars, fine wines and cigars, with Mr Bouvier insisting all would be kept safe and under conditions of utter secrecy.
This had led to accusations that they are being used to avoid tax, and even to fence off stolen property before it is sold.
A source close to Monaco prosecutors today confirmed that the current investigation centres on Mr Bouvier's deposit in Luxembourg, and attempts to 'manipulate art prices'.
The £50m Luxembourg Freeport is situated in the cargo centre of the Grand Duchy's Findel airport, and occupies a bomb-proof 11,000 square metre building.
It contains state-of the-art facilities for storing cars, wine, cigars, art works, and other luxury items, including precious metals.
Mr Bouvier, who also owns the Singapore Freeport, insisted that his so-called 'bonded-area' was completely above board, even though similar complexes have been linked with smuggling and other illicit activity.
The Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev, owner of Monaco football club, is thought to be one of his victims.
Tetiana Bersheda, a lawyer representing Mr Rybolovlev, said in a statement that an 'investigation has been launched by the judicial authorities of Monaco against Mr Yves Bouvier, one of the most famous people in the world of art who is the owner of the free ports of Singapore, Geneva and Luxembourg among others.
'After having worked for more than 10 years with Mr Bouvier, the Rybolovlev family received some information about possible fraud and manipulation of prices on the art market by Mr Bouvier and his accomplices.
'The scope and all the victims of the fraudulent scheme created by Mr Bouvier have not yet been identified at this time.'
Mr Rybolovlev is one of the richest men in the world, with an art collection which includes Monets, Picassos and Van Goghs.
There was no immediate comment from representatives of Mr Bouvier about his arrest.
David Arendt, managing director of the Luxembourg Freeport, said last year: 'The legislative framework under which the Luxembourg Freeport operates guarantees total traceability of all goods stored and ensures that all activities strictly comply with international standards.
He added: 'The Luxembourg Freeport has eight showrooms and a spectacular lobby designed to display the goods in storage.'
Shell are among companies who have called for the closure of 'bonded areas' in the Philippines, where oil smuggling costs hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tax revenue every year.
In 2003 the authorities in Switzerland, where there are numerous similar centres, announced they would return hundreds of antiques stolen from Egypt and then stored.
Richtung22, a pressure group campaigning against tax avoidance, said the Luxembourg site was typical of many being used to avoid tax, and to cover up other illegal activity.
British Man’s Return of Benin Empire’s Stolen Art Re-Exposes How Monumental Wrong Is Still Not Right
In January 1897, seven British officials, including leader and acting Consul-General James Phillips, were ambushed and killed on their way to see Benin King Ovonramwen or Oba. The murders caused the U.K. to respond with 500 soldiers of their own in what is now understood as “the most-brutal massacre of the colonial era.” After deposing the King, soldiers pillaged and plundered the Benin Kingdom, stealing thousands of artifacts and artworks, with the majority of the spoils going to the British museum. However, Mark Walker (pictured below), recently decided to return two artifacts to the kingdom that were given to him by his grandfather, Captain Herbert Walker (pictured), re-exposing the fact that the British have still refused to return these priceless works. SEE ALSO: India’s Rich African History Extended Far Beyond Slavery & Trade
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The Benin Empire, which is located today in the southern region of present-day Nigeria, controlled trade between Europe and the Nigerian coast from the late 1400s to the end of the 1900s. Made out of brass, ivory, and coral, the art that came out of the Benin kingdom served a number of purposes: they were physical manifestations of the empire’s history and additionally expressed King Oba’s divinity and interactions with the supernatural. The art that came out of this kingdom reportedly dates back to at least 500 BCE. In 1897, when Phillips and his men were killed, the British answered back with a 500-strong force that used Maxim machine guns and rockets against the kingdom. Retired doctor Mark says of the bloodbath, “The British had much better weapons so it was something of an uneven battle.” Mark’s grandfather fought among the ranks and wrote the following about the massacre in his “To Benin & back” diary (pictured) that detailed what was officially called the Benin Punitive Expedition:
The city is the most gruesome sight I’ve ever seen,” wrote Herbert. “The whole pace is littered with sculls & corpses in various stages of decay, many of them fresh human sacrifices. Outside the king’s palace were two crucifixion trees, one for men & the other for women, with the victims on & around them. As we approached the city through the bush, we found bodies of slaves newly sacrificed & placed across the path to bring the Benis luck, while they lay in holes, or behind cover, & ‘sniped’ at us as we passed.
According to Captain Walker, both men and women were sacrificed that day in an effort to appease the gods and foil the British attack. Following the killing was the looting: More than 2,000 religious artifacts and artworks were stolen and taken to England. Of the stolen works, Herbert described how a fellow officer was “wandering round with chisel & hammer, knocking off brass figures & collecting all sorts of rubbish as loot.” In addition, all religious buildings and palaces were set on fire. To date, the British Museum has 800 artworks that came directly from the Benin Punitive Expedition.
King Oba
Meanwhile, King Oba was exiled to Calabar and by the time the monarchy was restored 17 years later, the Benin Kingdom was no more, and in its place was the newly colonized “Nigeria.” But Captain Walker didn’t come away empty handed either: He took an Oro bird, which is known as the bird of prophecy (pictured), and a bell (pictured) that was used to invoke the ancestors. And in 2013, Mark would inherit those items. “I was surprised, having coveted them for so many years that when I finally came in possession of them I found myself asking what their future was. “As you come in to your 60s, you realise you have got to start making preparations for moving away from this life. I was asking myself, What do I want them for? Possessions aren’t as important as I used to think when I was younger.” After speaking with his children and realizing that they did not care to have the artifacts, Mark wondered about how to return the items to their actual home. The BBC reports:
He came across the Richard Lander Society, an organisation that campaigns for the Benin artworks to be returned to the royal palace in Benin City. It helped him contact the right people and last year Walker travelled to Nigeria to hand the bronzes to the present Oba (pictured), the great-grandson of the King deposed by Herbert and his colleagues. “It was very humbling to be greeted with such enthusiasm and gratitude, for nothing really. I was just returning some art objects to a place where I feel they will be properly looked after,” says Mark.
Prince Edun Akenzua (left) met with Mark Walker in Benin City to receive the bronzes
Obviously, Mark’s bird of song and bell aren’t just “some art objects,” though. “Those things that were removed were chapters of our history book,” says Prince Edun Akenzua, a younger brother of the current Oba. “When they were made, the Benin people did not know how to write, so whatever happened, the Oba instructed the bronze casters to record it. “We saw the removal as a grave injustice and we are hoping that someday people will see why we are asking for these things back,” he says. Clearly, Mark’s contribution isn’t even the tip of the iceberg in regards to what was lost by the Benin Empire. Consequently, Prince Edun has been reportedly lobbying British Parliament to return all of the looted artworks and artifacts to Benin City. Prince Edun adds, “The English returned the Stone of Scone to Scotland some years ago. So why can’t they return our things? They mean so much to us but they mean nothing to the British.” Not surprisingly, there is resistance to returning the works, with some oddly arguing that sending them back to Nigeria would actually be putting them in danger. To that, Prince Edun quips, “It’s a bit like if someone were to steal my car in Benin City, and I found it in Lagos and could prove that it was mine. And the thief told me, ‘OK, you can have your car back if you can convince me that you’ve built an electronically controlled garage to keep the car. Until you do that, I will not return it to you.’” Meanwhile, at press time, the British Museum claims that they haven’t received any “recent” requests for the nearly 1,000 artworks and artifacts they possess from the Empire. In a statement, the museum added:
“As a museum of the world for the world the British Museum presents the Benin Bronzes in a global context alongside the stories of other cultures and makes these objects as available as possible to a global audience.”
400-Year-Old Books Stolen in Italy Are Found in California
Two stolen Italian books dating to the 17th century that were discovered in the San Francisco Bay Area and many other plundered ancient artifacts will be returned to their country of origin, federal officials say.
The books, "Stirpium Historiae" and "Rariorm Plantarum Historia Anno 1601," were taken from Italy's Historical National Library of Agriculture and sold to an antiquities dealer in Italy, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement. The Bay Area buyer willingly surrendered the books to investigators.
ICE's Homeland Security Investigations unit will return other cultural treasures to the Italian government this week, including a 17th century cannon, 5th century Greek pottery and items dating to 300-460 B.C.
The items were stolen in Italy and smuggled into the U.S. over the last several years. Their value was not released.
"The cultural and symbolic worth of these Italian treasures far surpasses any monetary value to the Italians," Tatum King, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Francisco said in the statement.
Agents also recovered four stolen artifacts reported missing in July 2012. Three Roman frescos dating to 63-79 A.D. and a piece of dog-figure pottery from the 4th century B.C. that were illegally pilfered from Pompeii were recovered from a private art collection in San Diego and will be returned to Italy.
Eleven investigations nationwide led to the recovery of the antiquities. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Rome's force for combatting art and antiquities crimes helped Homeland Security Investigations officials in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Miami, San Diego and San Francisco.
"This repatriation underscores the strong level of judicial cooperation between the U.S. and Italy, and the great attention that both countries assign to the protection of cultural heritage," said Claudio Bisogniero, Italy's ambassador to the U.S.
The U.S. government has returned more than 7,200 artifacts to 30 countries since 2007, including paintings from France, Germany, Poland and Austria; 15th to 18th century manuscripts from Italy and Peru; and items from China, Cambodia and Iraq, the statement says.
Burned-out vehicles are seen along the Avallon motorway on March 11, 2015, after a group of "battle-hardened" armed thieves attacked two heavily guarded vans carrying jewels at a French motorway toll in the dead of night, making off with a haul worth some nine million euros ($9.5 million), police said. -- PHOTO: AFP
Motorway thieves steal French jewels
Armed thieves have seized a reported €9m (£6m; $9.5m) euros' worth of jewels from two high security vans at a French motorway toll booth.
As many as 15 hooded attackers seized the vans at about midnight on Tuesday on the A6 motorway at Avallon, 220km (140 miles) south-east of Paris. The drivers were said to be unhurt and the vans were later found abandoned some distance away. The gang is reported to have fled in several vehicles towards Paris. The thieves were said to have waited for the security vans at the Avallon toll booth south-east of Auxerre, spraying gas at the drivers when they arrived. Local reports said the vans had been carrying a consignment of diamonds, other jewels and works of art between Paris and Besancon. The burnt-out vans were being investigated on Wednesday by forensic scientists in a field near Quenne, further north along the A6, just outside Auxerre. Police have been searching Yonne and neighbouring regions for the attackers.
PARIS — A police official says 15 armed assailants attacked two vans carrying millions of euros worth of jewels on a French highway, ejected the drivers and drove them away. Authorities are combing the Yonne region in Burgundy southeast of Paris and surrounding areas for the attackers. The police official says no one was injured in the attack early Wednesday, and the drivers of the two vans were left at the scene unharmed. The official says the two vans were found burned in a forest near the site of the attack, which happened on the A6 highway connecting Paris and Lyon. The jewels were not found. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be publicly named. No other details were immediately available.
Investigators suspicious from the start about gold heist on Interstate 95 in North Carolina
WILSON, N.C. — Details emerging from the theft of nearly $5 million in gold bars on an interstate highway indicate the heist was carefully planned and raise questions about who was involved other than the three armed robbers.
The robbers pulled up almost immediately after the drivers made an unscheduled stop on a dark stretch of highway in North Carolina, according to a warrant. When the crew got out of the truck, they left their firearms behind in violation of their employer’s security rules, the sheriff said. And while the workers told authorities they had to pull over because strong gasoline fumes were making at least one of them sick, a mechanic found no problems with the truck.
The circumstances led one detective to write that the heist on Sunday “could be an inside job,” though the sheriff declined to commit to that theory during a news conference Wednesday. One thing was clear, though: The heist was targeted and planned, down to the orange traffic cones the robbers put out while they unloaded 275 pounds of gold worth $4.8 million.
Asked to put the case into context, Wilson County Sheriff Calvin Woodard, who’s a native of the area, remarked: “It’s different.”
“We want to make sure that all the citizens, as well as those who live outside the county, feel safe when they travel that stretch of highway.”
On Wednesday, authorities released search warrants for the truck and the drivers’ cellphones filed the day after the heist in which detectives wrote of their suspicions.
“The fact that the truck was robbed immediately upon pulling over at an unannounced stop is suspicious in and of itself,” the warrants state, adding that the truck had no external markings betraying the cargo. The warrant said the suspects tried to steal the truck but could not get it started, indicating they did not know how to operate a commercial truck.
Woodard said the guards were still considered victims, not suspects, but that all possibilities were being investigated.
Asked to elaborate on the suspicions mentioned in the warrants, the sheriff said they were written in a hurry before the victims, who spoke little English, could be thoroughly interviewed in Spanish.
The strange scene unfolded around dusk Sunday in a rural area about 50 miles east of Raleigh.
Earlier in the day, the guards had stopped for gas in Dillon, South Carolina, near the North Carolina line. As they kept driving, one of them started to feel sick and said he smelled gas, Woodard said. A warrant says they pulled over so the man could vomit.
As soon as the guards stopped on the shoulder, three robbers drove up in a cargo van and confronted them at gunpoint, yelling “Policia!” and ordering the crew to lie on the ground.
The guards got out of the tractor-trailer without their guns, according to the sheriff, who said it was a company security violation to leave the truck without their weapons.
The robbers tied their hands behind their backs and marched them into nearby woods, authorities said. Woodard said the robbers cut a padlock, but there were no other security measures to stop them.
He said that after deputies arrived, a mechanic found no problems with the truck.
The heist happened hours after the truck left Miami for a town south of Boston.
Neither guard was injured, according to their employer, Miami-based Transvalue Inc., which specializes in transporting cash, precious metals, gems and jewelry. A Transvalue spokeswoman said she would seek comment from company’s executives about the details in the warrants.
The company has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. The company says its shipments are insured for up to $100 million.
One warrant says the owner of the cargo was Republic Metals Corp. of Opa-locka, Florida. An attorney for the company did not return a telephone call seeking comment late Wednesday.
After the thieves escaped with the gold, the guards were left stranded along Interstate 95 until they drew the attention of startled motorists. Several called 911 to report seeing uniformed men running into the highway with their hands bound, motioning for help.
“They’ve got their hands zip-tied behind their backs, and they’re out in the road to try to flag people down to call the police,” one caller said.
**** Gang use heavy cutting equipment to break into vault in Hatton Garden jewellery district and 'steal 300 safety deposit boxes after getting in through a lift shaft'
Robbery gang strike in London's Hatton Garden over the Easter weekend
It is thought gang entered through lift shaft after disabling alarm system
Detectives believe they used heavy cutting equipment to break into vault
Robbery gang targeted around 70 safety deposit boxes at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd over Easter weekend
Criminals abseiled down lift shaft and used cutting equipment to get through thick doors of underground vault
One diamond worth £500,000 thought to be among those taken as jewellers wait to hear what was stolen by thieves
Customer of premises raided claims security guard said he was called to the building but did not go inside the safe
Raiders used specialist cutting equipment to break into an underground vault in Britain's top jewellery district and emptied 300 safety deposit boxes.
The gang struck over the Easter weekend in London's Hatton Garden - famed worldwide as the centre of the country's diamond industry.
It is thought the robbers evaded security guards to access the vault through the lift shaft.
There were reports that the group had disabled a high-tech security system, however, reports emerged today of alarms going off over the weekend.
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A forensic officer, wearing a blue boiler suit, arrives at the safety deposit business armed with evidence bags
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A forensic scenes of crime officers pictured outside the firm in London's top jewellery district
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Raiders used heavy cutting equipment to targeted a vault at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd
A source told the Evening Standard that one went off over the weekend after a wall at the back of the building was knocked down.
A security guard attended the building but left as the front door appeared untouched, the source added.
Scotland Yard's Flying Squad were alerted to the sophisticated heist at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd when business opened at 8am this morning.
Sources said a 'significant' number of safety deposit boxes - usually used by the rich to store sensitive documents, cash and jewels - were understood to have been forced open.
Worried jewellers gathered outside the raided deposit store concerned that they may have lost millions of pounds in jewellery they kept there.
Norman Bean, who has a diamond ring and bracelets stored in one of the vaults, said the burglars are believed to have entered through a lift shaft on Friday afternoon and evaded detection by security guards.
He said: 'I came down and spoke to a security guard today. He said he came on Friday, the alarm was going off.
'He went downstairs, looked through the door, through the windows and couldn't see anything and came out again, that was it.
'I said well 'why didn't you open up and have a look in?' He told me he doesn't get paid enough.
'They could have been there all weekend, who knows? It's disgrace, it's like something out of a film. I can't believe it could happen.'
Mr Bean said detectives told him he will find out tomorrow afternoon if his valuables have been stolen.
'I'm incredibly concerned, I've got more than 40 years of stock in there and they won't tell me anything,' said one.
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Raiders were said to have emptied 300 safety deposit boxes at the firm founded in 1954
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On its website, Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd said it was founded in 1954 and says it is 'one of London's most successful and leading safe deposit company'
Diamond jewellery expert Lewis Malka said the haul was likely to amount to 'hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds'.
'From what I understand it happened over the weekend and it looked like they had come in through the lift shaft and gone into the basement where the safety deposit is.
'Most of the people who have got safety deposits there are people in the trade,' he said.
'I know for a fact that some of my work colleagues have got boxes down there and we are talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds in goods.'
Earlier Mr Malka tweeted: 'Quiet day in the office and then I find out one of my client's antique bracelets was stolen in the Hatton Garden robbery.'
Jewellery designer Thelma West said: 'Robbery at one of the biggest safe deposits in Hatton Garden over the Easter weekend. The loss is HUGE.'
She added: 'A lot of jewellers & dealers put their stock in safe deposits over holiday periods. Easter & pesach meant very quiet Hatton Garden.'
Jewellers who use safety deposit boxes often don't have their stock insured and may have lost millions of pounds in the Easter weekend raid.
Police said: 'The Flying Squad is investigating and detectives are currently at the scene.
'It appears that heavy cutting equipment has been used to get into a vault at the address, and a number of safety deposit boxes have been broken into.
'Enquiries are ongoing.'
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Crime scene investigators have started the forensic examination of the scene
On its website, Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd said it was founded in 1954 'making it one of the first companies in the UK to offer safe deposit boxes.'
It claims it is 'currently one of London's most successful and leading safe deposit company aiming to provide our clients a secure and cost-effective solution to store and protect important and irreplaceable personal belongings.'
HATTON GARDEN HAS BEEN THE CENTRE OF LONDON'S JEWELLERY TRADE SINCE MEDIEVAL TIMES
The old city of London was said to have had certain streets, or quarters, dedicated to different businesses and Hatton Garden became the centre for jewellers.
There are now almost 300 businesses and 55 shops representing the industry in Hatton Garden and the surrounding area.
This makes it the largest jewellery retail cluster in the UK.
The largest of the companies is De Beers, who has its headquarters and a complex of offices and warehouse just behind the main shopping street.
There are also a large number of family and independently run businesses.
It is open five days a week 'to ensure our clients have freedom and convenience to access their safes with minimal hassle throughout the day.'
It also promises it can guarantee clients safety.
And safe deposit box renters 'will benefit from our vast experience in this business which enables us to cater to various needs of different individuals, namely long or short term rentals and various safe sizes, and along with flexible access and modern technological security it is obvious why we are the only choice for all our existing clients.'
This is not the first time that a safety deposit business has been targeted in a raid.
Cash and valuables worth an estimated £1.5m were stolen in 2003 after a suspect emptied safety deposit boxes at the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Co while posing as a customer.
The Knightsbridge Safe Deposit Centre suffered what is thought to be one of the largest robberies in history in July 1987.
Two armed robbers asked to rent a safe deposit box and, after being shown into the vault, produced hand guns and made off with an estimated hoard of £60 million.
Valerio Viccei, the Italian mastermind behind the heist, was arrested as he returned to England to ship his Ferrari Testarrosa to Latin Amerca and sentenced to 22 years.
Museum raids: Man admits role in thefts across England
Officers from 26 forces took part in raids in September 2013
A man has admitted his role in a series of thefts of high-value artefacts from museums and auction houses.
Robert Gilbert Smith, 27, of no fixed address admitted conspiracy to steal at Birmingham Crown Court on Friday.
Eleven others from Cambridgeshire, London, the West Midlands, Essex and Northern Ireland, denied the charge.
The charges relate to thefts of items including Chinese jade and rhino horn in Durham, Norwich, Cambridge, Kent and East Sussex.
A number of the defendants were arrested during a series of co-ordinated raids by officers from 26 forces and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) in September 2013.
The 40 raids were made in connection with a series of crimes over a four-month period in 2012.
Items from various Chinese dynasties were taken in Cambridge in April 2012
There were two thefts and an attempted theft at Durham University Oriental Museum as well as further incidents at Gorringes Auction House in Lewes, East Sussex; Norwich Castle Museum, the Powell Cotton Museum near Margate, Kent, and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, police said.
The men who denied the charge are expected to stand trial on 11 May and 21 September.
They are:
Ashley Alan Dad, 34, of Crowther Road, Wolverhampton
Danny Flynn, 44, Michael Hegarty, 42, Daniel O'Brien, 44 and John O'Brian, 25, all of Orchard Drive, Smithy Fen, Cottenham, Cambridgeshire
Terrence McNamara, 46, of Marquis Street, Belfast
John O'Brien, 67, of Fifth Avenue, Wolverhampton
Richard O'Brien, 30, of Dale Farm, Oak Lane, Billericay, Essex
Paul Pammen, 48, of Alton Gardens, Southend-on-Sea, Essex
Richard Sheridan, 46, of Water Lane, Smithy Fen, Cottenham, Cambridgeshire
Donald Chichong Wong, 55, of Clapham Common South Side, Lambeth, London
Two others, Alan Clarke, 36 and Patrick Clarke, 32, both of Melbourne Road, Newham, London, also charged with conspiracy to steal have not yet entered a plea.
Police Confiscate $16 Million Picasso From Framer Who Claims It Was A Gift
The Rome resident told police investigators that the $16 million painting was given to him in 1978 by a grieving widower. The alleged gift was made by the elderly man after the framer had replaced the glass on a picture of the bereaved man's late wife for free.
The framer says the widower gave him no indication of the painting's value or significance. He maintains that it was only last year that he had realized the oil on canvas in his possession was a Picasso.
The Cubist artwork, which depicts a violin and a bottle of Bass beer, was authenticated by police experts as a 1912 work by the Spanish artist. An investigation is currently underway to establish the painting's true owner.
The Cubist painting La Coiffeuse by Pablo Picasso recently recovered by US Customs officers was considered missing for over a decade.
An attempt by Sotheby's to secure a state authorization to export the painting last year–with a declared estimate value of €1.4 million ($1.51 million)–triggered the police investigation.
Two other major seizures were made last Friday by the specialist police unit dealing with crimes related to art works and cultural artifacts. In addition to the painting, a Roman sculpture dating from the second or third century and estimated at €8 million ($8.71 million) was also recovered in the raid.
Police also seized an invaluable oil painting of St Mark's Square in Venice by noted Italian landscape painter Luca Carlevarijs (1665-1731) from the suspected ring of smugglers.
Mystery Surrounds Offer to Sell Michelangelo Documents Stolen From the Vatican
ROME — The man approached Cardinal Angelo Comastri, prefect of the Fabric of St. Peter, with an odd proposition: Would the cardinal be interested in two documents written by the hand of Michelangelo, the Renaissance master?
Not only were the documents of historical significance, the man noted, they had also been reported stolen in 1997 from an archive in St. Peter’s Basilica, behind the high walls of the Vatican itself. Now the documents could be returned — for a price.
The cardinal refused. The Swiss Guards were notified. An investigation was begun.
“Clearly,” declared Il Messaggero, the Italian newspaper that broke the story on Sunday, “it was someone who had inside knowledge of the place.”
In fact, not much is clear. Cardinal Comastri declined to comment. Officials at the Vatican archive also demurred. And while Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, confirmed the basic facts of the case, he refrained from discussing the most intriguing details:
Who is the mystery man who approached the cardinal? Is he a former Vatican employee, as Il Messaggero reported? What should be deduced from the reported asking price of 100,000 euros (about $109,000)? Why did the documents suddenly emerge 18 years after disappearing?
And, of course, has Pope Francis been informed about the case?
“The pope does read the papers, so he might have read the news in the paper,” Father Lombardi said, “but I don’t think we need to get him involved in these things.”
The Vatican, besides being the world’s smallest sovereign state and the administrative and spiritual center of the Roman Catholic Church, is also in possession of one of the world’s greatest art collections and largest troves of historical documents.
The archival documents span 12 centuries and are stored in shelves that, if placed in a single line, would stretch for more than 50 miles.
The missing Michelangelo documents were stored inside a smaller archive, housed in St. Peter’s Basilica, under the supervision of the Fabric of St. Peter, the Vatican office that oversees the basilica. Many of the documents in this archive were collected from the different artists and architects involved in the construction of the basilica, which began in 1506 and was completed in 1626.
Michelangelo, the passionate Tuscan whose creative genius helped define Renaissance art, is widely known for painting the astonishing frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. But he played a much wider role at St. Peter’s, working as chief architect of the construction project during the final years of his life and playing a significant role in erecting the basilica’s famed dome.
It is unclear which of Michelangelo’s documents were stolen. One is a letter written by the artist, but neither the recipient nor the contents of the note are known. The other is a document that bears his signature.
Asked if the stolen artifacts were planning documents for the basilica, Father Lombardi said, “It would be logical, given the collection of documents on the basilica’s construction, but I have not seen the documents myself.”
Francesco Caglioti, a Renaissance specialist, said the Fabric of St. Peter archive contains letters, drawings of the basilica and technical studies, “which are precious from an engineering point of view.” He scoffed at the desire of collectors to possess such documents and said it would be difficult to put a price tag on the letters without knowing their exact nature.
“It’s one thing if it’s a handwritten letter to Pope Paul III Farnese,” he said, “quite another if it’s a scribble on a stonecutter’s statement.”
Carmen Bambach, a Renaissance expert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, estimated that hundreds of Michelangelo’s documents are housed at the Fabric of St. Peter archive, each easily recognizable from his distinctive handwriting, and each carefully recorded. Any attempt to sell such documents on the private market would be extremely difficult, she said.
“It would be flushed out,” said Ms. Bambach, curator of the Met’s department of drawings and prints.
In 1995, a professor from Ohio State University was caught trying to sell pages that he had taken from a medieval manuscript inside the Vatican archives. The manuscript had once belonged to Petrarch, the Renaissance poet and early humanist.
The two Michelangelo documents were first reported missing in 1997 by Sister Teresa Todaro, then the archivist for Fabric of St. Peter. It is unclear if the theft occurred the same year or earlier.
It is also unclear whether, as the years passed, the succession of cardinals who ran the Vatican office were made aware that documents were missing.
The Italian police confirmed that the Vatican filed a theft report on Saturday.
Pierre Soulages victim of theft
The French painter Pierre Soulages, at the age of 95, was the victim of a theft on the morning of 1 April 2015, at his home in Sète. Two men dressed as police officers arrived and entered his home, pretending to be enquiring about the recent theft which took place at the artist’s home. After taking an inventory of the goods of the Soulages, they stole an envelope containing €35,000 in cash. However, the painter quickly discovered the theft, and quickly told the police. The criminals were arrested, and the money given back to its owner. Pierre Soulages, born on 24 December 1919 in Rodez, in the Aveyron region of France, is a French painter and print-maker, who since the end of the 1940s has been associated with abstract art. He is one of the most important figures in the “peinture informelle” movement. There is a museum dedicated to him in his hometown.
Whilst everyone is focused on a traditional Diamond Heist, what if... Diamonds were not the only target, but more importantly Top Secret Material, documents, photographs, voice recordings, DVD's, and possibly a stolen Pantex Nuclear Pit device. Intelligence agencies will be scrambling to find out what could have been taken and what potential fallout there could be.
Did the Nuclear Snake Eaters swoop in last week? All or part of the above could be true, so things are not always as presented.
The thieves scaled down the lift shaft with military precision and then broke through to the vault, military style precision, indicating special forces involvement perhaps?
Once inside, out of 999 safety Deposit boxes available, they ransacked a total of only 72 safety deposit boxes, although five were empty at the time. A further 11 were due to be "drilled out" due to non-payment of fees, meaning detectives are attempting to contact a total of 56 box holders.
What are the odds of opening five empty boxes out of 999 and also eleven boxes that had unpaid fees?
This indicates the thieves knew exactly what boxes to target and beggars belief that having four days to open the safety deposit boxes, they only managed 72 out of 999.
CCTV of alleged Hatton Garden thieves, linked below, taken over four days which denotes they knew Police would not respond to alarm:
There is whole lot of mis-information being put out to cover the real reasons behind this raid.
To paraphrase Ben Franklin, "Hatton Garden Safety Deposit Raid, like fish, smells after three days", in this case, stinks to high heaven. There is something rotten in the State of Hatton Garden.
An alarm was triggered on the Friday, but Police failed to respond
Scotland Yard have admitted receiving a call from a burglar alarm at the Hatton Garden jewellers raided over the Easter bank holiday weekend.
In an official statement, the Metropolitan Police said they received a call at 00:21am on Friday April 3 from the Southern Monitoring Alarm Company. This call was recorded and transferred to the police’s computer system, which graded the seriousness of the request for help. However, the call was given a grade which required no police response.
The Met said it was now investigating why the call was given the grade in the first place, but maintained it was “too early to say” if the heist could have been prevented had the call been graded differently.
Someone, in a position of authority graded this call to prevent a Police response. Otherwise Lady Luck was certainly on the side of the thieves, time and time again !!
In 2008 police raided three safe deposit box centres in London as part of an investigation into claims that criminal networks were using them to store the proceeds of crime. Inside 3,497 boxes, officers found more than £50m in cash as well as five handguns, cannabis, heroin and crack, gold bars, child abuse images, three paintings by 17th Century Dutch artists, jewellery and fake passports. The owner of the centres was jailed for four and a half years in 2011.
However, if the thieves were traditional Ordinary Decent Criminals, then they might have gotten more than they bargained for, and be in possession of very Top Secret sensitive material, documents relating to wrongdoing by powerful elite figures, radioactive material that could prove fatal to those exposed.
Much, much better than just a traditional Diamond Heist don't you agree?
Sophisticated Fire Points To Govt Security Services Involvement
A major underground fire in Holborn which caused days of disruption could have been deliberately started by burglars who were responsible for the Hatton Garden jewel heist, a former senior police officer has said.
John O’Connor, former head of Scotland Yard's Flying Squad, said the blaze, which sparked a huge power cut in central London last week, could be linked to the robbery over the Easter weekend. Speaking to LBC today, he said the fire could have been deliberately started in order to create a power outage, leaving the vaults at the Hatton Garden Safety Deposit Ltd easier to access.
Mr O'Connor told LBC he thought last week's fire in Kingsway was part of the plot to raid the business.
He said: "Yeah, I think that probably was deliberate. I've never heard of an outage of electricity like that causing a fire that lasted as long as that. That seems to me too much of a coincidence." He went on to say that he suspected someone with "inside information" about the layout of the business is likely to have helped the burglars.
He said: "[Police] are also going to be looking for where the inside information came from. If you know how to bypass all of the security devices, you're gonna have to have a detailed layout of the whole of the business. So clearly they got that from somebody on the inside."
He continued: "If I was a betting man, I would say they would arrest a handful of people that were involved in the actual obtaining of the diamonds - I doubt if they'll get the diamonds back."
Doubt the architects of the raid will be arrested because they are Foxes guarding the Hen-House, meaning, Govt Spooks !!
He added he thought between five to eight people were likely to have been involved in the heist. Mr O'Connor said: "There was a lot of work that went into that. There was a lot of material to be moved. There was a lot of hard work. You need people who are fit."
Have We Been Here Before?
How MI5 raided a bank to get pictures of Princess Margaret
In the heady days of the 1960s and 70s, the Caribbean island of Mustique was the exotic playground where Princess Margaret held court. It was on its shores that she was famously pictured with her lover Roddy Llewellyn. And, it seems, it could also have been the scene of an even more intriguing photographic scandal, kept firmly under wraps. A film purporting to be based on fact will suggest that sexually compromising photographs of the princess taken on the island were at the centre of a bank robbery in 1971.
It will claim that the £500,000 raid on Lloyds Bank in Baker Street, London, was, in fact, aimed at securing the steamy snaps. The Bank Job, has the photographs being placed in the bank for safe-keeping by Michael X, a well-known criminal originally from the Caribbean. The £500,000 raid - worth £5million in today's money - made the headlines in September 1971. It became known as the 'walkie-talkie bank job' because of a fluke tip-off from a member of the public who overheard the robbers talking on a two-way radio. But then mysteriously a government gagging order, a D notice, was imposed to prevent further coverage.
Four men were jailed in 1973 for the raid and Michael X was hanged for murder in Trinidad in 1975. The film, written by Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais, will claim it was the non-monetary contents of the safety deposit boxes which spurred the raid. "What happens in the film is that the raid on Lloyds is set up by MI5," said producer Steven Chasman. "They knew that a box owned by Michael X with those photographs was inside the bank vaults," he told the Sunday Times. Figures from the security services are said to have called on minor gangland contacts to initiate the raid, who in turn tipped off criminals who knew the bank would be easy to break into. The writers of the film claim to have spoken to figures who were directly involved with the robbery, who separately claimed that it was aimed at getting hold of the photographs. And while the film does not detail what is exactly in the pictures and Princess Margaret is not referred to directly, Mr Chasman said: "We are pretty clear who we are talking about." Whether there ever were 'incriminating' photographs of the princess is of course open to conjecture. Margaret adored Mustique, the sub-tropical paradise where she could let her hair down away from prying eyes and cameras. Her love affair with the island began in 1960 when she was given a plot of land as a wedding present by her former escort Colin Tennant, later Lord Glenconner. By the time of the raid, her marriage to Lord Snowdon was in its final rocky stages and she retreated to the island with Llewellyn, a landscape gardener 17 years her junior. The wild parties on the island, also home to Margaret's photographer cousin, Lord Lichfield were the stuff of legend. Story has it that once Llewellyn, Colin Tennant and Nicholas Courtney all stripped naked on the beach to be photographed by Margaret. As for whether she allowed risque pictures to be taken of herself, it is unclear. Asked whether he thought pictures might have existed, Lord Snowdon said: "I would have thought it unlikely." He added he had never heard of the bank robbery-MI5 'plot'. Rumours about Margaret's 'colourful' life have long abounded. She was rumoured to have had affairs with lovers including Peter Sellers and, more improbably, Dusty Springfield. It has also been suggested she had an affair with late tough-guy actor and gangster John Bindon, boyfriend of baronet's daughter Vicki Hodge, an actress and model. He was a favourite of the princess and once boasted that he impressed her with his party trick of balancing five half-pint beer mugs on his manhood. One recent book suggested that they conducted a six-month affair which had the authorities so concerned that MI5 was brought in to keep it under wraps.
PRINCESS MARGARET, AN MI6 DIRECTOR FORCED TO RESIGN AND A SECRET THAT COULD HAVE BROUGHT DOWN THE ROYAL FAMILY
John Binden with Princess Margaret
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- In 1973, Princess Margaret was introduced to Roddy Llewellyn, who at 26 was 17 years younger. They frequently spent time together on Mustique, where they became quite close. Her marriage to Snowdon came to an end when pictures of her and Roddy were splashed in the tabloids. A formal separation wasn’t announced until 1976, and the couple were divorced in 1978. Snowdon remarried immediately to Lucy Lindsay-Hogg, the television producer he was having an affair with. Her relationship with Roddy ended soon after when he informed her that he was getting married. But Princess Margaret will also be remembered for a major government scandal that was kept so quiet that all newspaper proprietors received D Notices to ensure nothing was printed. In the heady days of the 1960s and 70s, the Caribbean island of Mustique was the exotic playground where Princess Margaret held court. It was on its shores that she was famously pictured with her lover Roddy Llewellyn. And, it seems, it could also have been the scene of an even more intriguing photographic scandal, kept firmly under wraps.
A purported £500,000 raid on Lloyds Bank in Baker Street, London, was, in fact, aimed at securing steamy snaps said to be of Princess Margaret and “her lover.”
Until now the photographs of the ‘lovers’ were thought to be either Llewellyn, John Binden or a host of other names that were regular escorts of the Princess. The recovery of the photos was an MI6 controlled task and included the active participation of Lord Mountbatten. Inside the safety deposit box in the vaults of Lloyds Bank were letters and photos from a high ranking member of the Royal Family to Princess Margaret. The £500,000 raid - worth £5million in today's money - made the headlines in September 1971. It became known as the 'walkie-talkie bank job' because of a fluke tip-off from a member of the public who overheard the robbers talking on a two-way radio. But then mysteriously a Government gagging order, a D notice, was imposed to prevent further coverage. Four men were jailed in 1973 for the raid and Michael X was hanged for murder in Trinidad in 1975. He was hanged because he knew too much. Three of these men were named as: Anthony Gavin a photographer from Dalston, Thomas Stephens, a car dealer from Islington and Reginald Tucker, a Company Director from Hackney. Three pleaded guilty and were sentenced to twelve years imprisonment. The fourth man, Benjamin Wolfe, 66, a fancy goods dealer from East Dulwich pleaded not guilty was convicted and incredibly received eight years imprisonment one third less than the three who pleaded guilty. Two other men accused of handling banknotes from the robbery were found not guilty.
The mastermind was never found because he was an MI6 agent.
The raid on Lloyds Bank was set up not by MI5 but MI6 because the Palace feared MI5 contained elements that would use the contents against the Royal Family. The box owned by Michael X with those photographs and letters was inside the bank vaults.
Figures from the security services called on minor gangland contacts to initiate the raid, who in turn tipped off criminals who knew the Bank would be easy to break into.
A radio ham, Robert Rowlands, heard the robbers as he randomly twisted the dial of his set before going to bed one night at his flat in Wimpole Street, central London. Two voices argued about whether some cutting work should stop or go on all night. The men were covertly working on a tunnel which, it turned out, led to the Bank basement.
Excited and alarmed, Rowlands called the local police station in Marylebone and told an Officer the Police should search all the local banks. The Officer simply told him to tape the conversation. The resulting tape, which was transcribed and broadcasted on national radio at the time, gives a rare insight into the minds of a gang in the middle of a major crime.
It would be a far cry later when he was warned by the Police not to give interviews and even threatened with prosecution for operating an unlicensed radio. This was to be kept quiet and so it was.
The letters that dated back to 1948 which Princess Margaret had kept photographs that could have brought down the Royal Family in what would have been a ‘tsunami scandal’ were recovered and kept by Sir John Rennie the then Director of MI6. He was not happy at keeping the documents and was in favour in December 1972 of disclosing such directly to HM The Queen.
On 15 January 1973, Rennie's son was arrested for an alleged involvement in the importation of large quantities of heroin from Hong Kong. The Director General resigned immediately. The letters and photographs remained highly secret and scandal kept quiet.
Princess Margaret breathed a sigh of relief after Lord Mountbatten had told her that the contents of Malcolm X safety deposit box were in the hands of MI6.
Not even a Director General of MI6 is exempt from political persuasion. John Rennie died in 1983. He never spoke about the contents of the safety deposit box to anyone other than a field MI6 agent in 1980. "John Rennie was an honest Director General within a morally and ehtically dishonest political regime," said the MI6 agent.
In her later years, she was plagued by constant ill-health. In 1984, she had an operation on her lungs, and in 1998, she suffered a mild stroke. Later that year, the Princess severely scalded her feet in a bathroom accident. The accident severely restricted her mobility, forcing her to use a wheelchair on occasion. Although she eventually quit smoking, the damage to her health was already done. In 2000, and 2001 she suffered another series of strokes. Princess Margaret passed away on February 9, 2002 at the age of 71, after suffering a massive stroke. Ironically her funeral was held on the 50th anniversary of her father’s funeral. Unlike most Royals, Princess Margaret requested that she be cremated; her ashes placed in the tomb of her parents King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who only survived a few months after the death of her daughter. Her good friend Gore Vidal wrote of her, "She was far too intelligent for her station in life." He recalled a conversation he had with the Princess, in which she discussed her public notoriety, saying, "It was inevitable: when there are two sisters and one is the Queen, who must be the source of honor and all that is good, while the other must be the focus of the most creative malice, the evil sister.”
The Pink Panther gang, The Troll, cross-dressing thieves and lasers - Europe's biggest heists have seen £750m in jewels stolen.
Graff robbers: Solomun Beyene, Clinton Mogg, Aman Kassaye and Thomas Thomas
As detectives hunt those who raided around 70 safety deposit boxes in London - potentially making off with millions of pounds of diamonds - we take a look at some of the most notorious European heists of recent years.
:: Carlton Hotel, Cannes - £88m, July 2013 A lone gunman enters the hotel in the luxury French resort in broad daylight and less than a minute later escapes on foot with a suitcase full of jewels that were on show in the lobby. The stash included pink and yellow diamonds, emerald and sapphires.
The Carlton Hotel robber fled on foot after snatching jewels in the lobby
It is one of many robberies blamed on the "Pink Panther" gang, who Interpol say have snatched jewels worth more than £280m since 1999. The gang is thought to be a loosely-affiliated group of several hundred criminals from the former Yugoslavia. :: Cannes Film Festival - £2m, May 2013 Thieves make off with a £1.7m necklace during a celebrity party attended by the likes of Sharon Stone and Paris Hilton. A week earlier, £660,000 of Chopard jewels had also been stolen when a safe was ripped from a hotel wall. :: Brussels Airport - £30m, February 2013 Dressed as police and armed with machine guns, eight men cut through fences and hold up a plane packed with 120 boxes of uncut diamonds. Some of the robbers stand in front of the passenger aircraft with their laser sights pointing at the pilots. Passengers waiting to take off have no idea the robbery is taking place - it lasts barely 10 minutes. Thirty-three people were arrested in connection with the robbery in May 2013.
The Graff robbers posed as legitimate customers before drawing their guns
:: Diarsa, Madrid - £19.5m, December 2012 The gang - whose ringleader was known as The Troll - use laser equipment to break into the Spanish store and help themselves to a massive haul of more than 1,700 luxury watches without setting off any alarms. They later tried to sell the watches on the Chinese black market. :: Graff jewellers, London - £40m, August 2009 Wearing make-up and suits to pose as legitimate customers, the gang carries out Britain's biggest jewellery raid in just two minutes. Once inside the Mayfair store they pull guns on unsuspecting staff. The group's ringleader takes a shop assistant hostage and fires at a security guard as he makes his escape. Police eventually tracked down the gang of four and they were jailed for up to 23 years. :: Harry Winston jewellers, Paris - £74m, December 2008 With two of the gang dressed as women and wearing wigs, the exclusive Champs-Elysees store is stripped of rings, necklaces and watches.
Loot from Harry Winston's was later found in a Paris drain
The window display and back room storage are both cleaned out as it is raided for the second time in a year. Several employees are coshed over the head with handguns as robbers refer to them by name. Millions of pounds of the loot was found in a drain in a Paris suburb in 2011, but most remains missing. Eight men were finally jailed for the robbery this year. :: Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam - £76m, February 2005 Thought to be the biggest diamond heist ever, two men in stolen KLM airline uniforms hijack a truck laden with uncut diamonds on the airport tarmac. The drivers are forced out at gunpoint and made to lie on the ground before the pair speed off.
Antwerp in Belgium is the centre of the world diamond trade
The vehicle was later found abandoned but the diamonds and suspects were long gone - the crime is still unsolved but police suspect an inside job. :: Antwerp Diamond Centre, Belgium - £70m, February 2003 An Italian group known as the The School of Turin pulls off a diamond robbery said to be four years in the planning and described as the "heist of the century". The haul was so large the gang could not carry all the stones and left the floor littered with jewels. No alarms were tripped, despite security including infrared heat detectors, a seismic detector and a lock with more than 100 million combinations. Guards did not realise until the following day. A half-eaten sandwich discarded during the getaway provided DNA evidence that led to the group's ringleader - but the diamonds were never recovered. :: O2, London - £350m, November 2000 - The foiled plot The gang barge through gates using a JCB digger and let off smoke bombs as they try to smash display cases with sledgehammers and a nail gun.
The Millennium Star - target of the failed raid on the O2 in London
Their target - 12 diamonds, including De Beers' flawless 203-carat Millennium Star stone. It could have been the world's biggest robbery but police were tipped off about the audacious plan and had swapped the jewels with imitations. Armed police disguised as cleaners helped round up the gang, who were planning to make their getaway on the River Thames on a speedboat.
Hatton Garden heist: Did gang break into German bank vault two years ago?
Unsolved heist in Berlin in January 2013 in which 300 safety deposit boxes were cleared of £8million of jewellery bears striking similarities with the Easter weekend London raid
Hatton Gardens and Volksbank Old school crooks who carried out one of the country's biggest heists at Hatton Garden may be responsible for another brazen raid in Germany two years ago. The unsolved burglary of bank vaults in Berlin in January 2013 has striking similarities with the Easter raid in London's jewellery quarter, the Times as reported.
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Late: A police officer emerges from a Hatton Garden safe deposit centre The gang responsible for breaking into Hatton Garden Safety Deposit Ltd was described by Scotland Yard detectives as “highly audacious”. They wore construction workers' clothes as cover and struck after the business closed for the Easter break. After hiding in offices until security left a lift was disabled before they abseiled down the lift shaft into the vault and cut through a metal door.
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Way in: The entrance to a 45m long tunnel built for a bank robbery into a branch of the Berliner Volksbank in January 2013
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Unsolved: Berliner Volksbank, safety deposit boxes remain open in the vault of the Steglitz district bank shortly after police investigators finished searching for clues following a robbery They then drilled bore holes into the reinforced two-metre thick concrete wall and disabled a lift to get into the vault containing 70 safety deposit boxes. In the 2013 German raid a 45m-long tunnel was dug by those responsible and almost a metre of concrete reinforced wall was drilled through to reach 300 boxes containing jewellery worth more than £8million. In both crimes, the crooks started work after businesses closed for the weekend, also wearing construction worker disguises, and alarms to security and police that were triggered were ignored for a number of days.
Daily Mirror
Brazen: Another crook at work on the London job German police got DNA samples of some of the men involved and released video footage and artist’s impressions of the thieves, but never arrested anyone. They reportedly suspected a group of eastern Europeans as being behind the heist as wooden boards used to construct a tunnel to the Volksbank came from Poland, while bottles of Polish beer were left behind.In Germany, private security guards were to blame for ignoring an alarm going off in the Volksbank’s vaults two days before the crime was discovered.
Hampstead antiques dealer hit by dramatic £200k vintage watch heist
Simon Drachman at his store. Picture: Nigel Sutton.
A Hampstead antiques dealer is offering a large cash reward to anyone who can help trace thieves who made off with £200,000 worth of vintage collector’s pocket watches.
One of the stolen watches, a unique item dating back to 1910 worth £12,500.
More than 120 watches, dating back to the early 1700s, were stolen from the Vintage Watch Store, based in the Hampstead Antique & Craft Emporium, in Heath Street, on Saturday around 9.30am. The store’s owner Simon Drachman, 53, said the heist had all the hallmarks of a “burglary to order” and drew parallels with the Hatton Gardens Safety Deposit robbery earlier this month when burglars made off with £200million worth of jewels by drilling into a basement vault containing safe deposit boxes. “They came in through the air conditioning system,” said Mr Drachman. “One of them undid the outer casing of the old air conditioning system and forced his way through the disused ventilation shaft to get into the building. “I think it’s a copycat of the Hatton Gardens heist.”
One of the stolen watches, dating back to 1799 and worth £9,000.
CCTV footage from the store shows a hooded man crawling along the floor – to avoid triggering infra-red security beams – and then unpicking locks to cabinets containing the vintage watches. The thief targeted a specific selection of historic pocket watches, leaving behind around 600 watches, including Rolex, Breitling and Omega wrist watches. “You might call this burglary to order,” said Mr Drachman. “It was a tailored, audited burglary. It has to be when you have very valuable watches like Rolexes and Breitlings left behind. “He was obviously told what to take. You don’t do that unless you have instructions.”
One of the stolen watches, dating back to 1776 and worth £5,000.
The theft lasted about eight minutes in total, with the security alarm going off throughout, before the burglar made off in a waiting getaway car. “It’s not possible to insure that kind of stuff which is why we are offering a substantial reward for any information,” said Mr Drachman.
£22,000 of watches and jewellery stolen from Shropshire antiques fair
Watches and jewellery worth £22,000 have been stolen from an antiques fair in Shropshire.
The thieves struck overnight at Oswestry Showground taking four cabinets worth of goods from one seller who had left his products at the showground overnight. The seller, who did not wish to be named, but described himself as an "antique horologist" said he was "gutted" by the theft. He said: "I attended the three-day show as a seller and on the Friday night I left everything locked up as usual. "On my return on the Saturday morning four cabinets had been raided and approximately 80 watches and a cabinet of different jewellery had been taken. "To be honest I am absolutely gutted and I would appeal for anybody who has been offered anything like this to come forward and call the police."
Is this the world's most valuable bag snatch? Woman claims stolen handbag contained £4m worth of jewellery
The German woman, who has not been named, said she was targeted while travelling in a taxi in Paris yesterday afternoon
Heist: The lady says the jewels were snatched as she was travelling to the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris
An art collector has claimed she was robbed of more than £4 million worth of jewellery during a designer handbag snatch in a notorious motorway tunnel in Paris. The German woman, who has not been named, was in a taxi which was stuck in traffic shortly after arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport on Wednesday afternoon. Three thieves are said to have ‘appeared from nowhere’ and smashed a rear window of the car, making off with the bag. It included numerous valuable items including a single ring worth close to £1m pounds, as well as around 12 other valuable pieces. Today the victim told police that all of the items, which also included watches, bracelets, and rings were worth well over £4m pounds. The ‘extremely rich’ German, who is part Taiwanese, was on her way to loan some of the jewels to the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, according sources close to the case. But, in a mysterious twist, the museum later denied knowing anything about the intended delivery. Detectives were today trying to work out whether the thieves had inside knowledge, or had simply ‘got lucky’, said an investigating source. Rather than escaping on a motorbike – which is usual – the thieves in this case ran away on foot, scrambling up a sharp motorway embankment.
Destination: The jewels were on their way to the Museum of Modern Art at the Centre George Pompidou in Paris. The items are all listed and numbered because of their high value – something which will make them very hard to sell on. The heist took place in the Landy Tunnel, which is just under a mile long and notorious for smash-and-grabs. Youths living in local housing estates often follow passengers on mopeds, and then attack the cars they are travelling in. In February 2010, Christina Chernovetska, the daughter of the then mayor of Kiev, lost some £4m pounds worth of jewels in similar circumstances. And Saudi Arabian Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Fahd had £200,000 pounds taken, along with diplomatic papers, in a raid on a convoy he was travelling in close to the airport last August.
Gardai renew appeal for help in tracing three stolen paintings
Gardai investigating the theft of three paintings by famous Irish artists from a house in Donard have once again appealed for help from the public.
The world-renowned paintings are by Sir. John Lavery, Paul Henry and Jack B. Yeats.
The paintings are "Portrait of a Lady" by Sir John Lavery (around 65cm x 30cm), "Landscape with Cottage" by Paul Henry (around 40cm x 50cm), and "The Fern in the Area" by Jack B.Yeats (around 40cm x 50cm).
The burglary took place on the evening of Wednesday, October 22, 2014.
It wasn't until Thursday, October 23, that the theft came to light when a neighbour of the Donard home realised the house had been broken into.
Gardai believe the paintings were the sole target of the criminals involved as no other items from the house were stolen.
A Garda spokesperson had said: 'the paintings are extremely valuable and would be very well-known, both in Ireland and in worldwide terms. This would make them difficult enough to move on. Any art expert worth their salt would recognise the paintings immediately. We suspect the culprits knew the paintings were located at the house as nothing else was stolen.'
Once gardaí arrived at the house, the scene of the burglary was preserved and a technical examination was completed.
Jewellery thief given 48 hours to leave State or face jail
Jan Grabowski (56) pleads guilty to stealing €20,000 worth of goods from antiques shop
Jan Grabowski (56) has been given 48 hours to leave the country or face jail after pleading guilty to the theft of €20,000 worth of jewellery from Courtville Antiques in the Powerscourt Centre, Dublin. Photograph: Collins Courts
A cafe owner who stole almost €20,000 worth of jewellery during a distraction theft from a Dublin antiques shop has been given 48 hours to leave the country or face jail.
Jan Grabowski (56), from Poland, pleaded guilty to stealing one set of diamond and pearl earrings and a brooch from Courtville Antiques in the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre.
Det Garda Des Rogers told Judge Michael Walsh at Dublin District Court that Grabowski went into the shop and said he wanted to buy something.
When the shop assistant displayed some items to him, Grabowski distracted her and took the brooch and earrings. He was later arrested on Grafton Street after gardaí viewed CCTV footage. Mr Rogers said that while Grabowski did not have the stolen jewellery on him when he was stopped, he was co-operative and assisted gardaí in retrieving the items. The stolen goods were still in a saleable condition.
Well-planned
The judge said the incident had all the hallmarks of being well-thought out and well-planned. He said he had no doubt Grabowski, “entered [the] shop with sole intention of stealing items from the shop”.
The judge said that gardaí must be complimented for their excellent attention to the case and for bringing prosecution without delay.
The judge imposed a €500 fine and a six-month sentence which he said will be suspended if Grabowski leaves Ireland within two days.
Defence solicitor Phillip Hannon asked the court to note that Grabowski suffered from depression and there had been several bereavements in his family.
Mr Hannon said the 56-year-old father worked in the building trade for most of his life but then tried to establish a cafe, which had folded six months ago.
The defence solicitor said that Grabowski had to repay money he borrowed to set up the cafe but had not been able to find any suitable employment. He had come to Dublin as his son was living here.
Remorseful
Mr Hannon said Grabowski thought the offence “would be the answer to his problems”, and that he is remorseful and plans to return to Poland.
The judge noted that Grabowski had pleaded guilty, which had saved time and costs, and he gave him credit for his admission and co-operation.
The auction house Christie’s has removed over £1.2 million worth of ancient artefacts after an academic from a Scottish university identified them as being linked to criminal networks in Europe The Scotsman reports. Dr Christos Tsirogiannis (pictured), a research assistant at the University of Glasgow’s Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research warned Christie’s was failing to carry out checks after he found images of the stolen artefacts in archives taken from Italian art dealers convicted of art trafficking offences. The treasures were meant to be sold at auction in London tomorrow but have been removed after Dr Tsirogiannis informed Interpol as well as Italian authorities. Christie’s said last night that the auction house will work with Scotland Yardto determine the provenance of the lots. Dr Tsirogiannis found the lots recorded in the seized archives of Giancomo Medici and Gianfranco Becchina and said Christie’s was failing to undertake proper due diligence. Mr Medici was sentenced in 2004 to ten years’ imprisonment after being found guilty of conspiracy to traffic antiquities. Mr Becchina, an antiquities dealer from Sicily, was convicted in Rome in 2011 of trafficking in stolen artefacts. The items date to 540BC and include an Attic black-figured amphora as well as an Estruscan terracotta antefix. In total, their value is about £100,000. This is the second time Dr Tsirogiannis has exposed plundered items in Christie’s portfolio. The total value of the eight withdrawn lots is over £1.2 million. He said: “Christie’s continues to include in its sales antiquities depicted in confiscated archives of convicted art dealers. Sometimes they sell the lots but nearly every time they withdraw them. “I don’t understand why they can’t do due diligence beforehand. Clearly, it’s not taking place. Christie’s say they don’t have access to these archives which is not true. “Every auction house, dealer and museum should refer to Italian and Greek authorities, who would check for free before the sales.” Dr Donna Yates, of Trafficking Culture, added: “Do they contact antiquities trafficking experts before their auctions? No, never. “Do they make public whatever provenance documents they have for a particular piece? No, never. I can only conclude that they don’t take this particularly seriously.” A spokesperson for Christie’s said: “We have withdrawn four lots from our upcoming antiquities sale as it was brought to our attention that there is a question mark over their provenance, namely, that they are similar to items recorded in the Medici and Becchina archives. “We will now work with Scotland Yard’s art and antiques unit to discover whether or not there is a basis for concerns expressed over the provenance.” They added: “Christie’s would never sell anything we know or have reason to believe has been stolen, and we devote considerable time and money to investigating the objects in our care. “We consult academic, police, civil, national and international lists of stolen works and when we publish our catalogues, we welcome scrutiny to help us ensure our information is correct. “However, there are a few databases containing relevant information which are not made available to auction houses. So we are prevented from incorporating a search of these databases into our due diligence, and are only made aware of any concerns after our catalogues are published. “In this case, although we have no reason to doubt our information, we are happy to conduct further research. “We call on those with access to the Becchina and Medici archive to make them freely available to auction houses so that we can check them as part of our pre-catalogue due diligence process.” The spokesperson said the Carabinieri – Italy’s national military police – have not responded in the past but that Christie’s is currently in touch with both the Greek and Italian authorities. The spokesperson said: “However, to be clear what we are asking is access and full transparency for us but also for the art market as a whole. We would like to see a copy of the Becchina and Medici databases (and indeed any other official database or record of objects believed to have been stolen or looted) be provided to the ALR and/or added to the Interpol database of stolen cultural works. “This is a very transparent and effective way of ensuring that the world is on notice of objects which are alleged to have been looted or stolen. It is how all other governments and police organisations register stolen cultural property. We do not understand why this has not been done.”
Christie’s theft – man jailed but no recovery
A career criminal who stole more than £700,000 worth of Fabergé items and sold them to a crack dealer for just £100 has been jailed for 28 months.
None of the stolen items has been recovered. Richard Tobin, 45, binged on two bottles of vodka before snatching the items from Christie's King Street on December 7 last year. Tobin took a £125,000 Fabergé jewelled gold clock made in St Petersburg in 1899 and one of the maker's famous flower still lives, a silver gilt and rock crystal study of jasmine blossom. He also stole an aquamarine necklace and hardstone animal carvings made by the court jewellers of Imperial Russia. Christie's had held a sale of Russian art the previous month. Tobin had broken into the offices of credit asset managers Muzinich & Co in Mayfair, two nights earlier, taking a rucksack and headphones. The Glaswegian, of no fixed address, was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on April 8. He had admitted two counts of burglary at an earlier hearing, appearing at court via videolink from HMP Wandsworth. Jack Talbot, for Tobin, said: "He accepts he took the items. It may be that I put before the court that he wasn't aware of the value, but that is an entirely different matter." In the earlier hearing Judge Owen Davies QC warned Tobin he was facing a long prison sentence. He added: "What has happened to the property will be uppermost in the court's mind - as to whether it has been recovered."
Antiques valued at £10,000 stolen in Hove burglary
Detectives are seeking thieves who broke into a central Hove house and stole 23 valuable items, inlcluding vases, statues and china believed to be worth at least £10,000. In the early hours of Saturday (28 March) the items were taken whilst the man was asleep at the address in Pembroke Crescent, Hove. Detective Constable Jane Kemp of the Brighton Priority Crime Team said; "These are very individual and distinctive items and we are sure anyone who is offered them for sale will realise this. "We are also making enquiries in the Lewes and Arundel areas where it is felt some of the items may turn up.
List of property; 1) Large heavy Lalique crystal glass statue of Madonna and Child with 'Lalique Crystal' silver label on front and on a heavy black glass base. 2) Large heavy Crystal Lalique 'Sylvie' vase in the form of two doves with stylised asymmetric glass wings and 'Lalique Crystal' silver label on front 3) Clarice Cliff 'Bizarre Ware' Stamford shaped teapot (classic1930s Art Deco shape with curved handle and shape to one side and square shape to the other side) and very bold pink and blue 'splashed' daisy flower decoration on body of the teapot ( rare Delecia pattern and Stamford shape) 4) Clarice Cliff tall 'Bizarre Ware' Bon Jour shape (again classic 1930s Art Deco curved shape) jug with posy of flowers design on the front. 5) Clarice Cliff barrel shaped 'Bizarre Ware' Autumn Crocus mainly orange coloured Jam pot with lid and typical orange crocus design. 6) Identical jam pot to the above. (no photo) 7) Very fine quality Japanese Satsuma Ware 'Moon Vase' (circular shaped like the moon, with handle incorporated into the design) with very fine Satsuma gold enamelling decoration of Japanese gardens and landscapes and with red 'Imperial' impressed Japanese glazed mark on the base. 8) Tall and heavy Art Deco 1930s solid bronze dancing female figure with one foot raised in the air and on a heavy black marble plinth. Signed 'Philip' and 'Reveil' and impressed 'Bronze Garanti Paris Deposee' foundry Mark on base. 9) Large and heavy Art Deco solid bronze bison/buffalo/wildebeest heavily/finely textured statue/figure on 4 legs and heavy black marble base signed 'Milo' and impressed 'Bronze garanti Paris Deposee' foundry Mark on base. 10) Moorcroft Vase, ovoid shape 'Oberon' vase 6.5 inches high with cream, green and black flower 'tube lined' design on body. Signed 'Moorcroft' on bottom. 11) Moorcroft vase, 'Foxglove' design of pink flowers. 10inches tall, balloon shape and signed Moorcroft on bottom. 12) Moorcroft Vase. As above (same Foxglove colour/design) but smaller 8, inches tall and 'trumpet' shaped. 13) Moorcroft 'Mediterranean Figs' double handled vase signed Moorcroft on the bottom. 14) Moorcroft small squarer shaped 'Colours Of Kiribati' vase, with distinctive turquoise abstract pattern design. 15) Moorcroft medium sized and 'balloon' or urn shaped 'Cherries' vase with bold cherries design on the body and signed 'Moorcroft' on the bottom. 16) Tall brass 19th Century Regency urn shaped vase with original glass insert and double square handles on the top, with impressed swirl design on sides. 17) Pair of Royal Doulton 8 inch tall 'Lambeth Ware' balloon shaped vases with 'tube lined' flower motifs in pink and blue and with Royal Doulton impressed Mark on the base. 18) A large Art Nouveau style clear glass vase with gold, red and green 'swirled' design inlaid and 'stained' into the top part of the glass and 'dripping' down into the lower half. 19) Tall Art Nouveau style/shaped Glass claret jug with silver plate - patterned top/lid 20) Clarice Cliff large pink jug with flower decoration with handle and 'Clarice Cliff Newport Pottery' Mark to base. 21) Clarice Cliff salt and pepper pots - blue Chi design 22) R. Lalique 'coquilles' Plate cica 1924 23) Amethyst crystal glass chalice/tazza with gilt and enamel decorated designed by Kanenicky senov glass school and made by Hermann Eiselt (1925).
Durham detectives investigating after haul of antiques stolen from elderly woman's home
Police said the items are of 'huge sentimental value' and want to speak to a man and woman in their mid-20s to 30s seen in the Gilesgate area
Antiques stolen from an elderly woman in Gilesgate, Durham, on March 20 Detectives are investigating after a haul of antiques were stolen from a Durham woman’s home. Police said a man and woman in their mid-20s to late-30s entered the house of an elderly woman in Gilesgate on March 20. The items stolen include a bronze Nepalese lion, a Priscilla Han cold cast bronze horse, a blue glass and sterling silver sugar pot and a red glass, double-ended scent bottle. Two matching Doulton blue and green vases, one of which is pictured, were removed from the mantelpiece. They are described as having long slender necks and bear applique medallions on which are Roman emperors’ heads. All of the items pictured as a collection were stolen, with the exception of the candlesticks. Police said the items have great sentimental value to the woman.Billionaire Victim Of Art Crime Gang
A planned strike
A band of thieves plundered the villa of a businesswoman
Among the many works he had stolen reliefs Dalí
The house has a security system that did not work
A luxurious collection of art and painting valued at more than two million euros was stolen last Easter at home in a Madrid illustrious antiquarian who lives in a cottage Fuencarral and owns several businesses of Art in the capital. Thieves valuable paintings and sculptures, among which there are reliefs of Dalí, famous painters and also other parts classified as unique carried. Some of them can be worth more than 300,000 euros. The Judicial Police has taken over the investigation and suspects behind the theft is a specialized plunder artworks, which then have a tough out in the market because they are unique pieces that automatically and are listed as stolen bases group data. The thieves had planned the coup before and knew how to disable the sophisticated alarm system that was inside, according to the findings. The owner of the house and his family were absent several days and returned to their home last Holy Thursday. Arriving outside the home they were surprised to see that the garage door was open and damaged. When entered everything was choppy, empty walls, some empty shelves and central alarm torn and thrown in a bucket in the kitchen. At first, the victims came to suspect that the thieves might still be in one of the upper rooms and decided to quickly alert the police. The agents of the police station immediately Fuencarral presented and verified that no thief was already in the house. All rooms were disordered and the living room walls and other main rooms were not the pictures that decorate. In addition, criminals tried unsuccessfully to open a safe in one of the rooms of the house. Inside the villa there were several runs and sculptures on the floor works, making researchers suspect that the robbers fled precipitately to hear something strange or think that tenants were about to enter the house.
Research
The agents of the Judicial Police of Madrid began the investigation last week. But given the scale of the theft and the characteristics of the works will probably add to inquiries policemen Heritage Brigade, attached to the Central Police Services. The investigation clearly indicate that the band acted knew exactly where he committed theft and what he wanted. In fact, the thieves despised very expensive electronic and audiovisual material in the house and only the most precious works were carried. It is believed that the thieves entered the villa first jumping the perimeter fence and then climbed to the first floor to enter the house through a window, which was broken glass and blind.
The booty
The most valuable pieces were those that took first place thieves, according to initial inquiries. They stopped for a second possible trip less expensive. But something went wrong. Hence in the driveway rolls are ground and found him several works, sculptures, tables and figures (some valued at 60,000 euros). It is also believed that the thieves did not find the remote to open the door and put a car or van in the garden. Thus they opened the door abruptly and forcing one of the stops. Police have questioned several neighbors and owners of adjoining houses in search of clues that could shed light on the case. It is also believed that due to the size of some work could hire a van to take the pieces.
The alarm did not work
Agents are also investigating how authors theft could disconnect the alarm and the fact that the security center does not receive any notice at the time the signal was cut from the house. The first appraisal of what was stolen two million euros. But that estimate could stay small because days after the owners have discovered that more works and missing pieces in the house. The family has been the victim of looting are frightened, for he had never been robbed, even in its art shops.
Hatton Garden heist: First pictures from INSIDE the vault hit in £60m gem raid
Hole in the wall: The gap the raiders crawled through to access the vault
These are the extraordinary scenes inside the ransacked vaults of the safe deposit company targeted in the £60 million Hatton Garden gems heist.
Scotland Yard today released dramatic images of the interior of the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit firm after a gang tunnelled into a vault to ransack security boxes. They include pictures of the holes 45 cm wide and 25 cm high which the gang drilled through the concrete wall of the vault. The images also show the vault’s floor piled high with 72 ransacked safe deposit boxes after the robbery over the Easter Bank holiday weekend. Police say the vault was covered in dust and debris and the floor was strewn with discarded safety deposit boxes and numerous power tools, including an angle grinder, concrete drills and crowbars. Heavy duty: the vault door inside the safety deposit firm Detectives say there was no sign of a forced entry into the building but members of the gang are believed to have been let into the building through a side door in Greville Street . The thieves disabled the communal lift on the second floor of the communal building and then used the lift shaft to climb down into the basement. Police earlier issued CCTV showing the gang carrying out the raid The images show a security shutter outside the lift had been levered up by the gang and bars on a door leading to the vault had also been forced open. Once inside the vault’s exterior room, the gang used a specialist diamond tipped Hilti drill to tunnel through the 50 cm deep concrete walls next to the giant vault locks. Flying Squad detectives said today they had not completed a major forensic examination of the scene. The vault strewn with empty boxes after the gang cleared it out Detective Superintendent Craig Turner, head of the Flying Squad said : “The hours of forensic work and inquiries have been vital in order to ensure we are able to exploit all investigative opportunities to their fullest extent and assist us in identifying those individuals responsible. The gang prised up iron bars to get inside “We appreciate that this situation has been frustrating for those affected by this crime and thank those individuals for their ongoing patience and support. “Those safety deposit boxes not opened by the thieves during the burglary have been left secured as they were found throughout the examination. Tool kit: The Hilti DD 350 drill “Of the 72 boxes opened during the burglary, we have only been unable to make contact with six people who we believe have been a victim of crime. We continue to make efforts to trace them. ” They used heavy duty cutting gear and a diamond tipped drill to cut their way in Police say the forensic team has recorded, packaged and recovered about 400 exhibits, including items for DNA profiling, fingerprints and other evidence. Digital forensic specialists have recovered thousands of hours of CCTV footage and officers are continuing to examine the material. Another CCTV shot of one of the gang in hard hat and hiz vis vest Specialist forensic photographers have mapped out the crime scene and utilised digital techniques to record the inside of the premises. Police said they had made no arrests. Police released the astonishing images today showing the inside of the vault The new development came after police released CCTV footage showing the raiders spent two nights drilling through the reinforced concrete wall to get into the vault.
The gang escaped with gems and cash worth an estimated £60million which they stuffed into wheelie bins before loading them on to the back of a Ford Transit van. The CCTV appeared to show images of six gang members. It is feared the sophisticated gang, whose members we have nicknamed Mr Ginger, Mr Strong, Mr Montana, The Gent, The Tall Man and The Old Man, have already left the country.
Vital evidence was found by a worker based 50 feet away from scene who assumed police already had similar quality images
Detectives missed crucial CCTV footage that shows close details of the Hatton Garden jewel raiders – for a WEEK. Police seized the new “crystal clear” high-definition images only when a worker based 50 feet from the crime scene stumbled upon them. The employee dialled the 101 non-emergency number, assuming detectives already had similar images – and a team was scrambled to grab the tape. The Metropolitan Police refused to make the footage public – despite it showing the best view yet of the gang behind the £60million heist. A veteran trader in the London jewellery quarter said: “It is unreal it took this employee to bring these images to the attention of the police. The footage could be crucial in collaring the crooks. You would assume the officers had done everything to get CCTV footage. “People are baffled by this. We are talking about tens of millions of pounds and hard-working people being left out of pocket.” The footage was found by the worker last Monday – more than a week after a gang entered Hatton Garden Safe Deposit after workers shut up shop on the Thursday before Easter. A store worker said: “The police operation does not inspire confidence, that’s for sure.” A security firm had contacted the Metropolitan police about an intruder alert shortly after midnight on Good Friday but the call was graded in a way that meant no police response was required. It was not until Tuesday morning – four days later – that the well-planned raid was discovered. On Saturday last week, our sister paper the Daily Mirror published exclusive footage showing the gang disguised as builders but it is understood the new images seized last week are clearer. Meanwhile, a seven-strong search team emerged carrying two large plastic bags as the probe went on . One was marked “clinical waste” while a second clear bag bearing the initials “MP” was thought to contain possible evidence. Items on show included Costa coffee cups and mineral water and cola bottles, plus packaging from a Clairol Nice & Easy hair dye kit. It is thought officers were called in for a deep search of the site, including checks for evidence behind panels, under floorboards and in other hidden areas. The Sunday Peoplealso spotted a safe left near the crime scene. It was unclear why police left it behind. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “The Metropolitan Police has obtained and is examining a substantial amount of CCTV footage in relation to the burglary at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit. “This footage has come from many different places. We will not discuss the specifics of the CCTV we are examining and will release information in a timely manner for appeal purposes only. “Police continue to seize CCTV with assistance from members of the public as the investigation progresses.”
Footballers fear for SAUCY secrets that were locked inside Hatton Gardens LTD
SEX tapes and saucy snaps featuring top footballers may have been stolen in the Hatton Gardens heist.
Sources close to several players said the stars are terrified their secrets could fall into the wrong hands.
More than 70 safety deposit boxes were broken into when diamond thieves smashed their way inside a vault in London over the Easter bank holiday weekend.
Our source, who is linked to stars at a number of North-West clubs, told us: “It wasn’t just jewellery and money, a lot of people used the boxes to store personal things – very personal things.
“Some used them to keep items like old mobile phones which may contain saucy footage and pictures, as well as other confidential documents they wanted to keep private.
“There are a few footballers who are nervous because they had some private effects in the boxes. “Let’s just say it’s the sort of stuff they don’t want falling into the wrong hands.”
"Artnapping" Robbers Negotiate Ransom with Van Buuren Museum in Belgium
Kees van Dongen's La Penseuse (1907) was among the paintings stolen from the museum in 2013 Photo: Musée Van Buuren
In July 2013, robbers nimbly stole 10 paintings and two drawings in the course of two minutes from the Van Buuren Museum, located on the outskirts of Brussels.
Several of the works stolen are said to be of great value, including The Thinker (1907) by Dutch painter Kees van Dongen, estimated at a replacement value of €1.2 million.
Other works stolen included a painting by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, and James Ensor's Shrimps and Shells (1894). The thieves also nabbed a drawing titled Peasant Woman Pealing Potatoes that, although labelled as a Vincent van Gogh, is believed to be a fake.
Now, two years after the heist, the Van Buuren Museum is negotiating with the thieves to get its art back after paying a ransom, TV Brussels reports.
“It's a choice we have to make between two evils," said art expert Jacques Lust in an interview with TV Brussels. “Not negotiating would mean […] having little chance to see the artworks again one day."
On the other hand, “having contact with the robbers can lead to a solution—if we can come up with the money to pay them," he claimed.
The museum and the police cannot give out details concerning the case. But one thing is certain: Artnapping—the stealing of art for ransom—has reportedly gained popularity in the criminal world.
“It happens more and more," Lust explained. "Not all details make it to the media, of course. If a case is solved there's no mention of the amounts paid, nor of the works having been stolen. But there's been an increase in such cases," he said.
Three face charges over stolen Degas
Three men will appear before the Limassol Criminal Court on April 27 in connection with a stolen Edgar Degas painting said to be worth millions, police said on Tuesday. The two Greek Cypriots, aged 47 and 48, and a South African-Cypriot 53, face charges of robbery, conspiracy to commit felony, and burglary, in connection with the theft of the painting from the home of a 70-year-old in Apeshia village on September 29 last year. The painting, titled ‘Ballerina adjusting her slipper,’ approximately 47 cm by 61 cm in size, and dated late 19th century, is estimated to be worth around €6 million. Authorities believe that the suspects also stole a safe containing seven gold watches, three pairs of gold opera glasses, and 20 cufflinks, estimated to be worth around €162,000. The safe and the Degas painting have not been recovered. It was reported at the time that the Degas was not insured. Initially, there were some concerns that the painting could be a fake, but authorities have secured a statement from an expert confirming its authenticity. A police source told the Cyprus Mail that investigators have a statement from an appraiser in France verifying that the painting is an original. The 70-year-old owner had consulted the appraiser in the past. The source said that suspicion regarding the painting’s authenticity did not matter to them. “It doesn’t matter if the painting is an original or not. We have suspects in custody and we are taking them to court regardless of whether they stole an original or a copy,” the source said. The owner, who was in the process of selling his house along with some pieces of his art collection –not including the Degas- said he had inherited the painting from this grandmother who lived in Paris. On the day of the theft, the owner had been at a scheduled meeting to negotiate the sale of his house and part of his art collection. Police said a Russian man had shown interest in buying the art collector’s estate along with some of the paintings in his collection and that a viewing had been arranged two weeks before the painting was stolen. The 53-year-old South African is the person who had initially contacted the owner, ostensibly to mediate for the sale of the house and part of the art collection. The other two suspects, residents of Larnaca who had been known to police for past cases, were arrested after their mobile phone records indicated they had been in the area at the time of the robbery. It was also found that one of them had two telephone conversations with the 53-year-old during the robbery. An eyewitness also confirmed that they resembled two individuals approaching the 70-year-old’s house in a car shortly before the robbery. Witnesses also described the vehicle as one resembling the car owned by one of the two men.
Police release photos of two men wanted for questioning about art thefts at University of Toronto
Toronto Police ServiceTwo persons of interest in the theft of three pieces of art from the University of Toronto campus earlier this year.
The private dining room at Toronto’s Trinity College is tucked behind the main dining hall and across from the senior common room. It’s a small chamber — intimate even — scene of private meals and cozy events at the exclusive post-secondary school. Read more …
Toronto Police are seeking two “persons of interest” in a series of art thefts at the University of Toronto. Three paintings were cut from their frames around campus sometime between Jan. 30 and Feb. 10 in what police described as an art theft spree. Investigators released photos of two men taken from security camera footage. One is between 45 and 50 years old, last seen wearing a three-quarter length coat with grey hair underneath a snap-back hat. The other is between 27 and 35 years old with short, black hair, according to a Monday news release.
Toronto Police "Morning at Peggy's Cove" by William E. DeGarthe, which was also stolen in the art theft spree at University of Toronto.
The most peculiar of the three thefts involves a painting of a Venetian church that was taken from a private dining room at Trinity College. Staff there were puzzled because the door to the dining room is usually locked and there was no sign of forced entry. But, as the National Post reported in February, the most puzzling part of the case was the fact that the painting had already been stolen once before, in 1994. The thief was identified as Martin Swinton, who was convicted of stealing several other works, according to news reports at the time. And the little painting was returned to Trinity College, where it stayed until earlier this year.
Toronto Police"Credit River" by Yee Bon, which was one of three paintings stolen from Trinity College in an art theft spree.
It is of little monetary value, college archivist Sylvia Lassam told the Post after the second theft of the painting in February. Despite police reports, the piece is not by 18th-century painter Francesco Guardi — which would have put its value in the tens of millions of dollars. It is only in the style of Guardi. Toronto Police investigators were not available for comment on Monday afternoon. With files from Richard Warnica, National Post
Hatton Garden robbers left 'hundreds' of items including gold bars and jewels behind on vault floor and may have been hunting for one specific prize
Police reportedly told victims 'hundreds' of gold bars and jewels left behind
One victim questioned whether gang had been looking for a specific prize
Particularly as only 72 of 999 safe deposit boxes were opened in the raid
Met Police have not commented but speed of their investigation criticised
Hundreds of gold bars and jewels are rumoured to have been discarded on the vault floor in the Hatton Garden heist - sparking a suggestion the robbers were looking for a specific prize.
Detectives are said to have told at least three people whose safe deposit boxes were raided that items too heavy to carry, including gold bars, were left behind by the gang.
One victim, a gold dealer, has now questioned whether the six suspects were hunting for something specific - particularly as only 72 of the 999 boxes were opened despite the thieves having plenty of time to carry out the raid over the Easter weekend.
Heist: This picture shows the gaping hole suspects drilled through the wall of the vault during the Hatton Garden raid. Hundreds of gold bars and jewels are now rumoured to have been discarded on the vault floor
The exact number of items strewn across the floor is unclear, with one victim claiming he had been told by police that only half a dozen items had been found and another saying it was hundreds, according to the Times.
The gold dealer, aged in his 60s, did not want to be named but told how he lost gold and other items worth hundreds of thousands of pounds when his safe deposit box was looted.
He said: 'There are several theories. I mean, why so few boxes raided? Maybe they were looking for something in particular.'
The man said he, like a number of other victims, had been due to speak with detectives about what had been left behind to see whether any of the items belonged to them.
But, five weeks into the investigation, those talks are yet to take place - leading to a loss adjuster acting for the victims questioning the progress being made by Scotland Yard.
He said: 'All the victims have given statements but some have been invited back to look at what police found on the floor of the vault.
'Those meetings haven't happened yet. It could hold up insurance claims so they want them to hurry up.
Investigation: The Metropolitan police has previously released CCTV footage showing the suspects believed to be involved in the Hatton Garden heist over the Easter weekend
Little detail: No significant information has been released by detectives about the suspects caught on CCTV
Way in: How the raiders carried out the Hatton Garden heist by hiding in the offices, drilling into the lift shaft and abseiling into the basement
'One of my clients said that the police told him there were only half a dozen items found, another said hundreds, so the picture is unclear.'
No significant information has been released by detectives from the Flying Squad about the suspects caught on CCTV before stealing stones and cash worth tens of millions of pounds.
The only detailed appeal that has been put out by the Met is for the 'wives and girlfriends' of anyone who knows how to use heavy-duty drills to come forward if their partner had been behaving suspiciously.
The gang scaled down a lift shaft before drilling into the vault through a concrete wall using a Hilti DD350. Police decided not to respond to an alarm - which went off on Good Friday and could have led them to interrupt the multimillion-pound heist - something the loss adjuster also said traders were not happy about.
The scene: Detectives were faced with chaos (pictured left) when they entered the basement in London's diamond district. Pictured right is the forced door to the vault
Discarded: This image shows how thieves had strewn safety deposit boxes across the basement floor when police arrived. It has now been suggested hundreds of gold bars and jewels may have been left behind too
WHEN DID THE HEIST HAPPEN?
Thursday, April 2: Workers from businesses in the building go home for long Easter weekend. Some have claimed the thieves were already hiding inside the building waiting to be locked in.
Friday, April 3: Police have found no signs of forced entry at the premises, but an intruder alarm sounded at the safety deposit business in the basement at 00:21. No police car was sent. Traders have claimed a security guard attended the site but said he 'wasn't paid enough' to look inside the vaults.
Saturday, April 4, Sunday April 5 and Monday, April 6: The exact time of the raid has not been confirmed, but given the amount of time it would have taken to drill through the concrete wall and opened 72 safety deposit boxes, it is thought to have taken many hours.
Tuesday, April 7: At 8am, workers return to the building and finding 'scenes of chaos'. They call the police, who attend.
Dramatic images which revealed the daring methods used by thieves during the £60m Hatton Garden heist in central London were released by police last month.
They showed the gaping 50-cm deep hole which the suspects carefully drilled into the vault's concrete wall so they could access the goldmine of gems.
Scotland Yard also described how there was rubbish covering the Hatton Garden basement, while the wrought-iron cage door had been broken down. An angle grinder, concrete drills and crowbars were found amid the security boxes.
Officers in London said there was no sign of forced entry to the outside of the building, indicating that the thieves had a key or that someone had let them in from the inside.
The gang then appeared to have disabled the communal lift on the second floor, before using the lift shaft - which was also destroyed when police officers arrived at the scene - to climb down into the basement.
They then opened shutter doors into the basement, before boring holes into the vault wall.
Stolen LS Lowry paintings traded as 'currency' and 'collateral' by criminal gangs
Stolen paintings by Salford artist LS Lowry are being used as “currency” by criminal gangs, a gallery owner has claimed.
Works of art seized in a smash and grab raid nearly ten years ago at a Cheshire gallery are probably being passed between drug bosses as a form of “collateral”, he says. Three Lowry works, one of which would today be valued at around £400,000, were among a cache of 13 paintings stolen from the Clark Art gallery in Hale in 2006. The haul, worth around £500,000 at the time of the theft but now estimated at more than £1 million, has never been recovered. Gallery owner Bill Clark was told by a loss adjuster who came to investigate the theft that the paintings – in particular the highly sought-after Lowrys – were probably being used as “currency” and “collateral” in down payments for drugs. Stolen LS. Lowry, Two women and Children,1950“The loss adjuster said stolen Lowry paintings are used as collateral within the criminal underground,” Clark told The Independent. “They are traded against drugs and used as currency. Eventually the monetary value is realised and they sell them someone for cash.” He is offering a £25,000 reward to anyone with information that will lead to their recovery. “After this amount of time the thinking is that they will appear,” Clark said. “At the time we did a Crime Watch programme which got surprisingly little back. It was suggested to us that they might have been stolen to order by someone very high up in the criminal underworld. Someone people don’t want to mess with.” The theft took place just one week after the gallery opened at around 2am in September 2006. Other works stolen were all by artists from the North of England which Clark suggests points to the thieves being local. Stolen Lowry: Industrial Scene with Figure, 1949He believes the paintings were stolen to order – something supported by witnesses who saw men browsing through a catalogue outside the gallery in the early hours on the night they were stolen. Thieves are believed to have used a manhole cover stolen from a street a mile away to bash the windows of the gallery in before grabbing the paintings and escaping. Bill Clark of Clark Art gallery Police investigated at the time but Clark said he has heard nothing since. He remains “optimistic” that the paintings have not been destroyed and will eventually be recovered. “It does sound a bit sensational but it is true that stolen paintings are used as collateral in exchange for drugs, weapons and sometimes as what we call ‘get out of jail free cards’ to bargain with the police,” said Christopher A. Marinello of Art Recovery International. “We have been doing recovery work for a long time and have seen almost everything. Thieves sometimes contact us to ask about rewards. Since the creation of the ART Claim Database they have realised the world they operate in has got a lot smaller which sometimes frustrates their attempts to sell paintings quickly so they end up using them for bargaining purposes within the criminal underworld.”
Challenge for Bamber Gascoigne as thieves steal valuable auction items
Thieves steal antique garden statues Bamber Gascoigne planned to auction to raise money to restore a Grade I listed stately home inherited from the Duchess of Roxburghe
Bamber Gascoigne at West Horsley Place
Ambitious plans by the former University Challenge presenter Bamber Gascoigne to restore a grand stately home suffered a set-back after thieves stole valuable items from the Surrey property
Thieves took an early 18th century lead statue of Mercury from the grounds of West Horsley Place, a Grade 1 listed house near Guildford which dates back to the 11th century, along with other valuable objects.
The early 18th century lead statue of Mercury stolen from from the grounds of West Horsley Place
Mr Gascoigne, who presented the popular quiz for 25 years, had been planning to auction the statue as part of plans to raise £2 million to restore the building, described as one of the most remarkable homes in Britain.
He unexpectedly inherited West Horsley Place and its contents on the death of its owner, his aunt the Duchess of Roxburghe.
The crumbling home is described as “endangered” and close to ruin, with at least £4m required for its urgent restoration. The stolen items also included a 17th century bronze bell and a carved limestone and bronze sundial, each thought to be worth thousands of pounds. The statue of Mercury was due to be sold at auction by Sotheby’s at the end of this month as part of a sale of 700 items of furniture, works of art and household fittings discovered at the home. It was made by a member of the school of John Nost, a Flemish-born sculptor who workedin London during the second-half of the 17th century, and is worth an estimated £15,000. The thieves are understood to have broken into the grounds of West Horsley Place sometime between 4.10PM on Wednesday, April 29, and 10am on Thursday, April 30. The house - from which most of the valuable objects to be auctioned had already been removed - was not broken into and it appears the thieves chose to concentrate their attention on the items which remained in the gardens. Police say the thieves would have needed to use a vehicle to remove the haul, which also included two lead fountain figures by H. Crowther and Son. There are now fears the lead statues will be melted down for their scrap value and lost forever. There is also speculation the gang may have been alerted to the potential value of objects at the stately home by the recent publicity surrounding Mr Gascoigne’s plans to restore it. Surrey police appealed for the public to help track down the thieves and recover the items where there is still time. PC Jack Droy, who is investigating the thefts, said: “These items are distinctive, extremely heavy and are not the sort of items that are easily moved. I’m keen to hear from anyone who may have seen any suspicious activity in the area during the time period in which the offence took place.” He added: “Maybe there was a vehicle or an unusual number of people in the vicinity who looked out of place. Similarly, if you have been offered any of these items for sale or have spotted them on a website, in an antique dealer’s window or scrapyard please call police.” Mr Gascoigne, 80, said he was committed to ensuring the house “continues to stand as a monument of its remarkable past” Mr Gascoigne said: “There was an incident in the grounds of West Horsley Place and we are of course saddened by the theft. The house remained secure and the objects to be sold in order to raise funds to carry out essential work to secure the future of the historic house have been removed ahead of the pre-sale exhibition at Sotheby’s in London.” The theft is the second obstacle to Mr Gascoigne’s plans for West Horsley, following the removal of a number of items from the planned auction after their ownership was disputed by the current Duke of Roxburghe. The Duke, Guy Innes-Ker, reportedly demanded that a 'quantity' of items be withdrawn, insisting they were his family's property from his father, the 9th Duke, whose first wife was Bamber's great aunt. Mr Gascoigne had no idea he was to inherit West Horsley Place until he was contacted by a solicitor who informed him of the Duchess’s bequest. Inside the home – which he used to visit as a teenager- Mr Gascoigne found a treasure trove of antiques, paintings, jewellery, furniture and artefacts collected by the Duchess, who died in July last year, aged 99. These are being auctioned by Sotheby’s in London at the end of the month. Her collection of jewellery was being auctioned in Geneva on Tuesday evening. Among the items are the sumptuous jewels and tiaras used for high society balls, gifts from the Royal family, and the gown worn by the Duchess when she bore the train of Queen Elizabeth at the coronation of George VI. Bamber Gasgoigne has recently inherited West Horsley Place from his late aunt Many of the items were discovered in situ, behind shuttered windows of the house, after the death of the Duchess, while others were carefully packed away in trunks and forgotten for decades. Mr Gascoigne, 80, said he was committed to ensuring the house “continues to stand as a monument of its remarkable past”, and he hopes to eventually open it to the public. He said: “It was completely unexpected by me that I would be heir to her estate. She had expressed that, given the work required to restore the house, she expected I would sell it. “But it’s such an incredible place and we knew it well, so the idea of immediately selling it off seemed not only amazingly foolish but also missing the fun that was involved.” He added: “Having spent many memorable times with my godmother here, and knowing how special the house was to her and her family, together with my wife I decided to take up the challenge of carrying out the essential work to the house to ensure that can withstand what may lie ahead over the course of its future.”
Meet the Sherlock Holmes of the Art World
From Nazi-era art thefts to modern heists, Christopher Marinello, a lawyer-turned art detective, helps to solve crimes and put priceless paintings, sculptures and more back into their owner's hands.
Art detectives aren’t fictional characters that Hollywood movie writers make up. Real-life detective, Christopher Marinello seeks out and recovers stolen art on a truly grand scale. Marinello, born and raised in Brooklyn New York, started his career as a lawyer, specializing in art title disputes. He now travels the world, recovering millions of dollars’ worth of stolen art. As the founder of London-based Art Recovery International, Marinello has solved art mysteries and recovered works by some of history’s most notable artists. Along with modern-day art heists, he has found and brought back stolen World War II era works, taken by the Nazis.
Christopher Marinello with a stolen Matisse painting taken from a Swedish museum in 1987.How does Marinello solve these art mysteries? In some cases, tips help him to track down the missing works. In 2014 Marinello received a tip from a source calling himself ‘Darko’. The tip claimed that a Los Angeles art thief had stolen works by artists such as Diego Rivera and Mark Chagall. The LA police and FBI used the tip to jump-start an undercover sting. The result? Nine artworks with a total value of $10 million were recovered. Marinello doesn’t just solve the most current art crimes. He recovered a Braque almost four decades after its original theft. Some of his cases are even older. These often include Nazi-era thefts. After finding millions of dollars of paintings in home owned by the son of a Nazi art dealer, Marinello was able to facilitate the return of priceless pieces such as Henri Matisse’s 1921 Femme Assise.
Marinello with Nazi loot: Henri Matisse’s 1921 Femme Assise.Why are some of Marinello’s cases old and seemingly cold? It’s not from lack of work. Without detailed documentation, locating and verifying the works is often a challenge. Couple this with uncooperative ‘owners’ of the stolen works, and bringing home these priceless pieces is far from easy. One advantage that art detectives like Marinello have is technology. Art Recovery Group’s Art Claim website is the most technologically advanced privately-owned database of its kind on the planet. With high-definition image recognition software and the ability to use over 500 searchable fields, Art Claim (and their sleuthing experts) are helping put art back in its place. Art Recovery Group has helped rightful owners to recover works such as Paul Manship’s Central Figure of Day and Henri Martin’s impressionist Vue Generale de Saint Cirq Lapopie. With art theft on the rise, technology such as Art Claim and pros such as Marinello are becoming necessities. Marinello and his colleagues are helping to combat the growing number of criminal heists, forgeries and faked works that are becoming an increasing plague on the art world.
The owners of a stolen 13th-century painting will finally see some cash from its sale after a decades-long international battle that involved Interpol and US authorities, under a deal reached this week in Manhattan federal court. The rare $800,000 masterpiece, “Madonna and Child” by Italian master Duccio de Buoninsegna, was swiped by one of its owners from a safe deposit box in Switzerland in 1986, and he kept it hidden from the others until his widow put it up for auction at Sotheby’s in January 2014. “It’s thought she rather bided her time before putting it back on the open market,” Jerome Hasler, of London’s Art Recovery International (ARI), which maintains a database of stolen works, told The Post on Tuesday. The famed Upper East Side auction house — which was not accused of wrongdoing — discovered that the wood-panel oil painting was stolen during a check of the database. Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara’s office seized the painting until the rightful owners or their heirs could be tracked down. Under Monday’s settlement, the sole remaining living owner and the others’ heirs will each get a share when the work is auctioned off, said Douglas Kellner, the Manhattan lawyer who represented two of the heirs. “They’re looking forward to the sale of the painting. They’re very happy the settlement has been resolved,” he told The Post on Tuesday. The settlement ends nearly 30 years of litigation in the UK, Monaco, Switzerland, France and the US, according to ARI. The painting was originally owned by Marie Rose Aprosio and partner John Cunningham, who each held a 50 percent share. Aprosio died in 1980, leaving her share to two relatives. But Aprosio’s heirs believed that “Cunningham had also ceded a percentage of his interest in the painting to two other individuals, Michael Hennessy and John Ryan. “Hennessy and Ryan subsequently reported that Cunningham had removed the painting from the safe-deposit box to an account held at Lloyd’s Bank in Geneva and solely in Cunningham’s name,” court documents state. He and his wife kept the painting hidden over the decades, and Cunningham even did six months in a UK jail for refusing to tell a court where it was. Under the settlement, Aprosio’s heirs will get half while Cunningham’s widow and relatives of the two men who were swindled will get one-sixth each.
Oklahoma lawmakers call on school to return stolen Pissarro
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — More than two dozen Oklahoma legislators signed a resolution Monday calling for the University of Oklahoma to return a painting by Pissarro that was stolen by the Nazis during World War II and to research whether any of its other works may have been stolen. The resolution by state Rep. Paul Wesselhöft is the Moore Republican's latest action involving impressionist Camille Pissarro 1886 painting "Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep," which hangs in the university's Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art.
"It is simply shameful that the University of Oklahoma would choose to resist this attempt to right a wrong," Wesselhöft said. "These 26 authors who filed this resolution want to be on the right side of history." The university is enmeshed in a legal dispute with a French Holocaust survivor, Leone Meyer, who says she is the painting's rightful heir. She filed a federal lawsuit in New York seeking the painting's return, and the case was transferred last month to the U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City. The resolution, if approved, only expresses the will or intent of the Legislature and does not have the force and effect of law. It would have no bearing on the lawsuit. The painting was purchased in 1957 for $14,000, but is now worth between $500,000 and $700,000, said Pierre Ciric, Meyer's attorney. In a statement Monday, university officials contend that they have repeatedly tried to find a "mutually agreeable resolution" and had even agreed to meet with Meyer and her representatives in Paris. "While that offer has not yet been accepted, our goal continues to be to seek a mutually acceptable resolution to Plaintiff's claim or, if she prefers, to continue with the legal process and abide by the results," the officials said. Ciric met with Oklahoma lawmakers last month during a private screening of "Woman in Gold," a film starring Helen Mirren about an elderly Jewish woman's attempt to reclaim artwork stolen by the Nazis. "My client only wants one thing — it's the painting back," Ciric told The Associated Press on Monday. "She's not looking for any financial settlement or anything like this. She wants her painting back before she dies." Oklahoma oil tycoon Aaron Weitzenhoffer and his wife, Clara, bought the painting from a New York gallery in 1957. When Clara Weitzenhoffer died in 2000, the Pissarro painting was among more than 30 works valued at about $50 million that she donated to the university. The university does not dispute that the painting was stolen by the Nazis, but it maintains that the full history of its ownership history is not yet known. The school cites a 1953 Swiss court ruling that the painting's post-war owners had properly established ownership and claims that the Weitnzenhoffer family purchased the painting in good faith from an art dealer "with legitimate and verified title consistent with the Swiss court decision." "Simply transferring the painting, which was properly acquired, without first knowing all the facts would, among other things, set a very poor precedent and risk disgracing all prior good-faith purchasers and owners of the painting," the university said in its statement. Ciric says the Swiss lawsuit was the result of litigation between Meyer's father, Raoul Meyer, and Christoph Bernoulli, an art dealer who sold the painting after World War II. In that case, Raoul Meyer was unsuccessful because he could not prove Bernoulli's bad faith in acquiring the painting, which Ciric says was the legal standard in place at the time. But Ciric says a number of experts have widely recognized "that the legal system in Switzerland after World War II was not a fair forum for Holocaust survivors filing art claims."
Man Arrested in Spain for Stealing Art From Swedish Churches
Police in Spain have arrested a 63-year-old Spaniard for allegedly stealing dozens of artworks from Swedish churches.
A National Police statement Monday said the man was arrested on the Canary island of Tenerife. He had previously served a five-year prison sentence in Sweden for similar offences.
Police said they found more than 40 pieces of art including an 18th-century bible, four 15th-century wood engravings, candelabrums and trays.
It said the man also had a warehouse in Denmark where he stored other pieces of art allegedly stolen from Swedish churches.
It said four engravings that had been auctioned in Madrid were also recovered.
Swedish police tipped off Spanish police that the man was a prime suspect in recent investigations of stolen art.
ART worth around £20,000 have been stolen from an Isle of Wight house. Police believe burglars targeted the property in Love Lane, Bembridge, for the pictures as nothing else was taken. They included a painting by Michelle Cadbury in a gilt frame worth around £4,000, an oil abstract by Heath Hearn worth around £3,500 and a poster print of Modighano worth around £30. The other paintings included ones by artists Jim Neville and Victoria Ashe. A photograph of a fisherman by photographer Piers Bertwhistle worth around £500 was also taken. The burglary happened between April 20 and 21 and detectives are appealing for anyone who knows the whereabouts of the paintings or has any information about the theft. People should contact the Isle of Wight CID office on 101 or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Cape Town - A Gauteng man is desperately looking for his “girl” who was stolen from his house at the weekend - she’s small, naked, attached to a piece of wood and happens to be a painting very special to him. The 55-year-old Roodepoort man says he does not want to be named because he feels vulnerable after burglars gained entry to his house at the weekend and smashed his glass front door. They took two flatscreen TVs, a camera, a laptop and jewellery, but the loss most keenly felt was his prized possession displayed in the foyer - a small oil painting aptly named How Fragile We Are by Cape Town artist Lizelle Kruger. “It’s a very unique piece and I wouldn’t expect thieves to steal something like that. I am so surprised it is gone now and I was in love with that painting. “I am very upset because it was the one thing which really spoke to me… it was my girl. My wife didn’t understand because she didn’t like it that much, but it was really something special.” The 50cm by 28cm painting shows a nude woman lying in a foetal position on lichen-covered earth, her back and buttocks exposed and a white Voortrekker cap covering her head. Kruger used an old piece of wood from a farm in the Karoo as a base and papier-mâchéd a part of it to provide a canvas to paint on. The artwork forms part of Kruger’s Karoo Kado’tjies series. A similar painting in the series, showing the same nude walking towards a windmill, caused some controversy in 2010 when it appeared on the cover of the art magazine Pomp, which was advertised on the NG Kerk’s website Kerkbode. An anonymous woman launched a campaign after branding it “pornography”. The man told News24 that he initially had his eye on the windmill painting, but it was too expensive and he settled on the next best. “At the time, in 2010, I bought it for R18 000 and it’s now worth around R36 000,” he said. “I am not some rich art collector. I would be prepared to offer a reward if I get information leading to the recovery of the painting, but I don’t want to mention an amount.” Kruger seemed equally devastated by the disappearance of the painting. Sitting on a couch with her hands clasped tight, she softly said: “I feel like I’ve lost a child. Each painting you do, especially like that one where you spend a lot of time on it, feels like you are giving birth to something new.” “I feel fragile and exposed, like someone has been taken away.”
How Thieves Stole The Most Expensive Watch In The World: An Excerpt From Marie Antoinette’s Watch
The following is a long excerpt from my new book, Marie Antoinette’s Watch: Adultery, Larceny, & Perpetual MotionIt details a 1983 break-in at the L.A. Mayer Museum in Jerusalem where some of the rarest, most expensive, and most striking watches ever built were on display. The rarest of all – the Marie Antoinette by Abraham-Louis Breguet, was lost in the theft… until twenty years later. The watch, which featured over 20 “complications” – mechanical tricks like a thermometer and stopwatch – was the Apple Watch of its day.
Ephraim Mizrakhi woke Zadok Cohen at 10:00 a.m. on April 16, 1983, the Sabbath. It had been a long night, with a new moon, and Ephraim had found it hard to stay awake while making his rounds. He had just patrolled the entire L.A. Mayer Museum, strolling past the vases and rugs, the darkened halls and the locked doors that kept the museum’s more valuable pieces safe. Then he went for a quick walk around the outside of the building, checking for unwanted visitors, but he saw nothing amiss. Soon it would be time for Zadok to open the doors, and for both of them finish their shifts. They would run through one final patrol at 10:30, twelve hours after their last night patrol, and then unlock the doors at 11 a.m.
Zadok stretched in his chair and yawned, glancing at the clock on the wall. The museum had closed at two the previous afternoon, in time for Shabbat, and they had been free to do as they pleased. Through the night, on a small television in the guard station, he and Ephraim had watched the Robert Redford film Jeremiah Johnson, about a hermit in the Rocky Mountains who fights against an onslaught of Crow Indians. The museum was quiet, an oasis high above the tumult of Jerusalem’s Old City; they usually did one or two rounds and then dozed in the office, confident that no intruder would disturb their sleep. Now, Zadok walked past the staircase leading to the lower level and moved toward the family gallery, the room full of old clocks. Most mornings, he could hear them ticking, their strong springs still going after a night’s work. He knew that the family gallery held hundreds of horological marvels, and that most were in perfect condition. Sometimes they were a bit off, depending on the weather, but he could usually set his watch by them. The collection, people whispered, was estimated to be worth about $7.5 million. As Zadok paused outside the gallery, he craned his head to listen. Silence. Maybe they had wound down. He stood there a few more minutes. No ticking. He put his key into the lock and turned. The heavy bolts slid back, and the door swung open. He caught a whiff of fresh air that gusted from the open window above the shattered glass cabinets and broken display tables. He rushed back up the stairs to the guard post, calling for Ephraim to contact Rachel Hasson, the museum curator. Ephraim, after taking in the scene for himself, described it over the phone to Hasson: locks broken, trash scattered on the floor. The guard couldn’t say exactly what was missing, but it was clearly most of the collection. Hasson, “shocked” by what she heard, asked about the queen, the most important watch in the group. Zadok re-created the scene in his head, but he couldn’t remember seeing the watch amid the jumble of glass and wood. Hasson phoned the keeper of the watches, Ohannes Markarian, then drove the few kilometers from her home in Rehavia, north of the museum. The then thirty-nine-year-old Hasson had started working at the museum in 1967, while it was still under construction, but even after all these years, her familiarity with the family gallery was limited. Her background was in Islamic art, and her mission was to bring Arab art to Israel. The watches, to her, had always been an afterthought. When she arrived, Markarian was already in the family gallery, running a tally of the missing pieces. He hid his eyes, for as they swept across the broken expanse of empty exhibits, they began to tear up. If Breguet had been reincarnated, it might have been as Ohannes Markarian, the portly, bespectacled watchmaker who had maintained the L.A. Mayer collection for a decade before losing it on that morning in April. In Armenian, Markarian’s language of birth, he was called a hanchar, a word that translated to “a genius who took great care of the talent that God gave him.” In Israel, for at least twenty-five years, he was considered the one man who could fix a timepiece and never have it break, a claim that his many satisfied customers repeated after leaving Jerusalem with their newly cleaned and tightly wound watches. He was born in Istanbul in 1923. His family had survived the Armenian genocide, and after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Markarians left Turkey. They settled in Jerusalem when Ohannes was four. At fifteen, he began his training in Old Jaffa, where he learned the prerequisites for watchmaking from a “very old man” who taught him carpentry, goldsmithing, and toolmaking. As he grew older and became more established in the watchmaking world, he realized that all of the ancillary techniques he learned from his master helped in his craft. Carpentry helped him rebuild broken clock cases, while goldsmithing taught him to be scrupulous with his materials. He learned to make very small things and very large things, and also learned to create his own tools when there were none to be found in the impoverished Old City. He was talented at math and science and maintained high enough marks so that when he graduated he could have studied to become a doctor. But that type of training would have required him to leave the country. His grandfather, however, still bore the mental scars of the Armenian Genocide and said, “I have lost one family in Turkey. I’m not losing this one in Jerusalem.” Ohannes stayed put, instead becoming a doctor to old clocks. At seventeen, he moved to Jerusalem’s Old City and apprenticed with a series of watchmakers who still kept stalls there. The winding passages of the ancient neighborhood were, like Breguet’s Place Dauphin, chock full of experts in every field. Markarian was able to refine his craft by working on ancient clockwork and modern wristwatches alike. There were two other watchmakers in the Old City at the time and they guarded their business jealously, an attitude still encountered there today. When I wandered into a watch repair shop by the Tower of David one summer afternoon to ask about Markarian’s old shop, the proprietor pretended not to know the location and then said “I’m the only Markarian you need,” as if the name of the master watchmaker now described a profession in itself. As a teenager, Markarian turned his love of clockwork into a paid position with the British High Command, where he maintained office clocks and other delicate mechanical instruments used by the British authorities in Palestine. During World War II he worked for the British Army repairing naval and artillery instruments. At twenty-five, he opened his own store in the Old City, on Christian Quarter Road, in a small, rounded stall with a large front room, a 10-by-20-foot rear storage area, and a small corner containing a restroom. Here he cared for and maintained a number of ancient clocks and watches brought to him by distraught curators. And here he kept his replacement parts – a collection that would soon engulf the entire shop – as well as all of his notes. He was a bookworm and meticulous note-taker, examining each piece of a watch and noting its design and problems in a series of notebooks. This habit helped him rebuild the watch when it was time to put all of the pieces together, and it also gave him an intimate understanding of every gear and cog in some of the greatest watches ever made.
He also helped maintain the bronze artifacts at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and recorded, in his head, a rich history of Jerusalem that he would expound upon from his small shop or over long lunches with friends and admirers. He amassed a personal collection that ran from thirteenth-century carriage clocks to modern quartz pieces. He began wearing a ring of watch keys on his belt, and as his business – and belly – grew he added more and more keys, resulting in a jingling, heavy collection that he carried with him at all times. The two rival watchmakers in the Christian Quarter tried to keep up with Ohannes, but “everyone realized he was better than them,” said his daughter. Markarian became known as a horological miracle worker. A relative claimed that “when he fixed a watch once, it never needed repairs again,” and he was considered a master of mathematics, engineering and art. Those skills, coupled with his experience in metalwork, enamel and woodwork, encompassed everything he needed to know to be a master watchmaker. His reputation expanded from his little shop and into the wider world. Slowly, business trickled in from Paris and London, then America and Asia. He was very protective of his watches, treating them like tiny, broken birds requiring a calm, careful hand. When he received a new watch for repair, he would spend hours – if not days – brooding over his bench. He sometimes brought his work home with him, but often left priceless horological masterpieces in his little shop. He trusted his neighbors implicitly, and knew they would deal quickly with anyone attempting to steal his broken treasures. When he finished with a watch, he would say, simply, “I made it tick again.” He said this thousands of times over his long career. When nearby shopkeepers came in to swap stories and gossip, if they saw him working at his bench they would quickly scamper off rather than risk his wrath at being disturbed. In 1970, Vera Salomons hired him to prepare her father’s watch collection for viewing at the L.A. Mayer Museum, and from its opening in 1974, Markarian presided over the family gallery, maintaining watches so precious and delicate that he was often loath to wind them. But he visited at least twice weekly to wind, oil, and dust off the specimens. Many of them, Markarian said, kept time as well as a “brand new Seiko.” With the esteemed Breguet expert George Daniels, Markarian created a color catalog of the Salomons Collection. Published in 1980 in West Germany, the 318-page book featured notes and images for every item, from the mechanical “Singing-bird in a cage,” a nearly life-sized bird that twittered and tweeted with the turn of a clockwork key, to the crown jewel, the watch they called the Queen. On the morning of the theft, Markarian arrived at 11:39 — he was characteristically precise in noting when events transpired — as the sun was high over the pale stone of the museum. He ran to the family gallery and was horrified. The room had been ransacked, but he was surprised by how orderly it still was, even amid the chaos. There was little broken glass, just pita-sized circles cut out from the vitrines and placed carefully on the floor. Some empty food wrappers, Coke cans, and cigarette butts lay there, too, along with something that looked like a blanket, but nothing else was amiss. It was as if someone had come in, made very specific choices about what to take, and then calmly departed with the haul of a lifetime and one of the biggest watch heists in world history. He saw where a line of modeling clay had been placed along the inside edge of the room’s door to prevent the guards from seeing light inside. The clay was devoid of fingerprints. A piece of black cardboard lay below a window that was slightly ajar. A seventeenth-century French table had been broken, probably when the thief dropped a bag onto it as he jumped down into the room from the window. The damage was limited but the theft complete. Markarian could hardly believe it; a large portion of the contents of the family museum, which had survived undisturbed for nearly a century, had vanished overnight. He walked wistfully past the holes and stands that once held the watches and clocks he had maintained for over a decade. He brushed his hand over the empty spaces and idly thumbed the curatorial notes that remained. Moments later, the head of the museum board, Dr. Gavriel Moriah, arrived and surveyed the damage. Right away, he saw that the most magnificent pieces were gone: A singing bird gun (a clockwork novelty by the Roche Brothers, which played a jaunty tune on tiny whistles when wound and fired); a Swiss-made automaton of a walking woman; and almost all of the Breguet timepieces, including the Sympathetique, which used a main clock to wind and set a perfectly matched pocket watch, and, most devastatingly, the Queen. In all, the thief had taken one hundred watches, four oil paintings, and three antique books. The police had been called, and the first officers on the scene found leftover strips of cloth that had apparently been used to bind the clocks for packing. The officers were amazed that anyone could have gotten the clocks out through the window, let alone that a human being could have slid through the tiny opening undetected. “Only people with a thin build could enter that narrow window,” an officer reported later, matter-of-factly. An air mattress lay unfurled on the floor, probably used to cushion the fall of the equipment pushed through the small window. A can of Coca-Cola and a bag of sandwiches lay unfinished near one of the cases, and a bag nearby contained long-handled pliers and a heavy hammer. A rope ladder, probably a spare, was still in its original packaging. By the size of the job, it looked to the police as if at least three men had been involved. That they were able to make off with over half of the collection in the course of an evening suggested that they had gathered all of the clocks together first, then quickly moved them out through the window. One man would have been inside, pushing the bags out, another outside, grabbing them, and a third one sitting in the car waiting for the getaway. Felix Saban, Deputy Commander of the Jerusalem police, soon arrived with a mobile forensics van. His team traced the thieves’ steps from the side of the museum, where they must have parked, to the bent bars in the fence, to the climb through the thin window leading into the clock room. They began dusting for fingerprints, but this effort quickly proved fruitless — the room was already full of prints, and the thief had been unusually careful. The police were also surprised to find a listening device: a microphone by the door, attached to a wire running to an amplifier and a pair of headphones that the thief used to listen for the sound of footsteps through the door; there were some prints on the cable, but they were too fragmentary to be useful. Later, as the legend of the theft grew, some police officers would report seeing a half-eaten ham-and-cheese sandwich on the floor, seemingly a taunting gesture given the location and heritage of the museum. In truth, it was quite difficult, if not impossible, to get sliced ham in Jerusalem. “This theft was more daring than sophisticated,” Ezekial McCarthy, the spokesperson for the Jerusalem police, told a Sunday newspaper. “The burglars knew the place well and did not leave themselves open to surprise. It is possible that they visited the exhibit several times and they may have also walked in with a catalog in hand and took only what was ordered by their higher-ups. They chose an amazing collection of watches and left a number of uninteresting ones, which suggests a selective knowledge.” Another clue came from the tags stolen. Most of the watches and clocks had English and Hebrew curatorial notes, but the thieves had taken only a few, leaving behind the notes for paintings they took and some of the clockwork. This led police to believe it was a planned job, probably commissioned by a dealer in Europe. “They stole what was on their list, and would have been expecting payment for those items,” said a police officer. “The extra stuff [like the paintings] was, well, extra.” On further investigation, the police discovered that, almost ten years after the museum’s opening, its directors were still bickering over what kind of security system to install. As a result, there was almost no security at all. The Jerusalem Post reported that “there was a single alarm for the entire building and this had never worked from the day it was installed.” Without the alarm active, the museum had security “about equivalent to that of a medium-sized kindergarten in an old neighborhood,” as one investigator said.
News of the theft spread quickly through the watch world and beyond. The Swiss watch industry was already suffering a major downturn and consolidation. Japanese quartz watches had decimated the market for low-cost mechanical watches. Smaller houses like Breguet, which had been in continuous business for two centuries, were out of money, and investors were swooping in to buy them in what amounted to a fire sale. Stories about the break-in appeared in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune. Watchmakers were put on high alert; Interpol scrambled to monitor all prominent collectors moving in and out of Israel. Gavriel Moriah, the museum board chairman, was certain that the thieves could not be working for a collector. “There’s no such thing as a collector who keeps his most prized possessions in a safe and never shows them to anybody,” he said. “A collector collects for gratification, and part of that gratification is to be able to show them off.” An Associated Press story, which appeared the week after the theft, pegged the stolen collection’s value at $5 million and mentioned the most famous of the missing watches only in passing, describing it as built of “gold, crystal and glass.” Ohannes returned home on Sunday after almost twenty-four hours of nonstop work. He fell, exhausted, into one of the kitchen chairs. His wife, after hearing the story of the break-in, stood quietly looking at her husband. “You won’t have a job, now,” she said, finally. “What will you do?” He shook his head. “They’re accusing me of the theft,” he said. The police had taken every staffer’s fingerprints, including his, but, for obvious reasons, his were the prints that showed up the most in the family gallery. His daughter, Araxi, remembers the weekend vividly. “He was very, very upset. I didn’t understand at the time, because I was too young. Nobody spoke to him in the house,” she said. Mrs. Markarian told the children to play quietly. “Keep away from your daddy, he is very upset. The watches and the clocks have been stolen and they think he stole them,” she told them. Araxi’s sister Silva laughed. “Why would he ever steal them? He’s the one who loves them the most!” After the theft, Markarian did the best he could with the remaining timepieces, continuing to visit weekly to wind them. The museum loaned two of the clocks, one made by Hinton Brown of England in 1770, to the presidential palace, where they would presumably be safer. Markarian gave tours of the remaining collection by appointment only, and one visitor remembers him sighing when he pulled open a drawer containing the boxes that once held some of horology’s most beloved masterpieces. He ran his hand along the indentations in the soft red silk where the watches once lay and then shut the drawer firmly, as if trying to forget the loss of his beautiful charges. He missed all of the watches but the watch that pained him the most, the watch that would later be valued at $11 million dollars and hold the world, for a time, in a thrall, was the Queen, the eighteenth century’s most complex artifact, a watch of such beauty and precision and freighted with such tragedy that it would later become known simply as the Marie-Antoinette.
Kenneth Noye In The Frame As Hatton Garden Heist Mastermind
Police are desperately trying to link Kenneth Noye, of 1983 Brinks Mat Gold Heist infamy, to the Hatton Garden Heist, organising the Hatton Garden Heist from prison.
Kenneth Noye has served fifteen years in jail for the murder of Stephen Cameron.
Kenneth Noye is now in a lower category jail and has been a model inmate for the last decade.
Kenneth Noye is now eligible for parole and is due for release later this year if his parole hearing, due this month, is successful. Not sure if the parole hearing has already happened, but it was due for May 2015 according to media sources.
Establishment Dark Forces are so desperate that Kenneth Noye be kept in jail they will offer all kinds of immunity to the Hatton Garden accused if one of them will testify Kenneth Noye was the mastermind behind the Hatton Garden Heist.
Police have been checking all visitors to Kenneth Noye whilst in jail, anything to implicate him in the Hatton Garden Heist.
Whether Kenneth Noye was involved in the Hatton Garden Heist or not is of no concern to some elements of the establishment.
The mission for some Dark Forces is to is stitch him up, fit him up, stop him getting parole, get him indicted and jailed for the Hatton Garden Heist.
Police arrest suspect number ten as a 42 yr old Essex man detained this morning. More arrests to follow, not least the Postman who is alleged to be in Portugal.
Terry Perkins, 67, of Heene Road, Enfield
John Collins, 74, of Bletsoe Walk, north London
Daniel Jones, 58, of Park Avenue, Enfield
Hugh Doyle, 48, of Riverside Gardens, Enfield
William Lincoln, 59, of Winkley Street, Enfield
Brian Reader, 76, of Dartford Road, Dartford
Paul Reader, 50, of Dartford Road, Dartford
Carl Wood, 58, of Elderbeck Close, Cheshunt
John Harbinson, 42, of Beresford Gardens, Benfleet, Essex
at their first court appearance linked to the £60million Hatton Garden heist Plumber Hugh Doyle
Daniel Jones, 58
Carl Wood, 58
Daniel Jones
John Collins, 74
Brian Reader
Paul Reader
All of the above faced the same charge of conspiracy to burgle.
They were accused of conspiring to enter as a trespasser the Hatton Garden Safety deposit at 88-90 Hatton Gardens with intent to steal between 1 April and 19 May.
Prosecutor Edmund Hall said a vault containing 73 safety deposit boxes had been raided and that, while the total value of the goods stolen was not yet known, it ran "in excess of £10m".
District Judge Tan Ikram remanded the men in custody, saying they faced a "serious" allegation and are next due to appear at Southwark crown court on 4 June.
A ninth man has been charged with conspiracy to burgle in relation to the Hatton Garden jewellery raid last month.
John Harbinson, 42, of Beresford Gardens, Benfleet, Essex will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Friday, a day after being arrested.
Hatton Garden raid: Eight men charged over burglary heist
Eight men have been charged with plotting the Hatton Garden jewellery heist, Scotland Yard has said.
Detectives from the Met's Flying Squad charged the men, aged between 48 and 76, with conspiracy to burgle on Wednesday evening. They have been remanded in custody to appear before Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday. A ninth man who was also arrested has been released on bail pending further enquiries, police said. The contents of 56 safe deposit boxes were taken during the raid in London's jewellery district over Easter weekend. The full list of those charged:
Terry Perkins, 67, of Heene Road, Enfield
John Collins, 74, of Bletsoe Walk, north London
Daniel Jones, 58, of Park Avenue, Enfield
Hugh Doyle, 48, of Riverside Gardens, Enfield
William Lincoln, 59, of Winkley Street, Enfield
Brian Reader, 76, of Dartford Road, Dartford
Paul Reader, 50, of Dartford Road, Dartford
Carl Wood, 58, of Elderbeck Close, Cheshunt
John Harbinson, 42, of Benfleet, Essex
Two of the men charged are believed to be father and son. Brian Reader, 76, and Paul Reader, 50, who is also known as Brian, were both arrested at an address in Dartford, Kent.
Detectives believe they have caught the “mastermind” of the Hatton Garden heist following a tip-off from an underworld supergrass.
The man suspected of orchestrating the daring £60million raid is described by insiders as a “great strategist” who has a “brilliant mind”.
Flying Squad detectives are understood to have arrested him on Tuesday following intelligence from a gangland figure who is a registered police informant.
The architect of the raid is believed to have had substantial criminal knowledge and was able to draw on a team with sophisticated skills, able to overcome the alarm and penetrate the vault’s wall.
Three pensioners, aged 76, 74, and 67, and five other men between the ages of 43 and 59 were arrested in simultaneous raids across London and Kent on Tuesday.
Their combined age is 533.
The suspects are still being questioned at a London police station on suspicion of conspiracy to burgle.
A source said: “The suspected mastermind is regarded by those who know him as a brilliant mind and a great strategist.
"He was arrested using intelligence from an inside man.”
Detectives searching one of the addresses raided on Tuesday have recovered a box belonging to a the same make of drill used in the raid.
Officers searching a detached bungalow in Enfield, north London, were seen removing a dozen evidence bags including one containing a box for a Hilti drill.
Although it is unclear if it is exactly the same type of drill used in the burglary.
The gang used a specialist Hilti DD350 diamond coring drill to bore holes through the concrete walls of the Hatton Garden vault before breaking in and forcing open 72 safety deposit boxes.
The latest revelations came as concerns were raised that much of the stolen loot will never be returned to its rightful owners.
Detectives believe they have recovered most of the property stolen in the raid six weeks ago.
But a source said: “We are talking about thousands of diamonds and other jewels mixed up together and some of it was already stolen when it was stolen.
"There is no inventory of what was in the vault and not all the owners of the boxes have come forward so working out who owns what will be a huge headache.
"Some will undoubtedly remain unclaimed.”
The arrests came just over six weeks after a gang of thieves broke into the vault at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit company over the Easter weekend in London’s jewellery quarter.
They climbed down a lift shaft before using the diamond tipped industrial drills to tunnel into the company vault.
The Met is appealing to the public for information about a white Ford Transit van that was seen in the area around the time of the raid
Brinks Mat Link To Hatton Garden Raid
One of the men arrested today is Brian Reader, 76, who was convicted of handling some of the Brinks Mat gold back in the 1980's and was sentenced to nine years jailtime. Brian Reader, nicknamed "Doggy Syrup", was arrested along with his son also called Brian but known as Paul.
Brian "Doggy Syrup" Reader, sporting a Scouse Moustache
The £1 million Brian Reader Home in Dartford, Kent
Calm, down, calm, down, Govt Secret Service Spooks recruited the Brinks Mat Boys to pull off the Hatton Garden raid because they could be relied upon to pass the secret, sensitive material held in the Hatton Garden safety Deposit centre back to the Govt Secret service architects of the Hatton Garden Raid.
O'h, de do, doh, don't dey, as they say in Liverpool !!
She was only the Plumber's daughter, but she knew what Over-Flo meant !!
Plumber, Hugh Doyle
Sadly, the Brinks Mat Boys failed to get all the Top Secret Sensitive material on the first attempt and had to return to the Hatton Garden Deposit centre on the Saturday evening. Having got the Mother load of sensitive material they left and handed over the Top Secret material to Govt Secret Service Spooks.
Why were the thieves so confident and made mistakes, such as keeping the haul around them, leaving forensic eveidence etc?
The reason was they thought, assumed they were being protected by Govt Secret Services and in any case, some of the haul was already stolen and belonged to other criminals.
It was the sensitive, secret material that was the prize, (well, for the Govt security services) and because of this, it led to a false sense of secuirty which ultimately, could be their downfall. Double cross, triple cross.
The Scotland Yard Flying Squad discovered Govt Secret Service Spooks were involved and a power struggle commenced. Over the last six weeks there has been many top level Govt meetings and a deal was struck whereby the Brinks Mat Boys would be served up by their Govt Secret Service Spook masters to the Scotland Yard Flying Squad.
So, expect to hear in the future a defence of:
"being employed by Govt Secret Service Spooks"
by the Hatton Garden accused.
Detectives investigating the gang that pulled off the Hatton Garden heist believe they have now recovered most of the valuables stolen during the audacious raid. The majority of the valuables linked to the theft were found at one of at least 12 addresses searched on Tuesday, stashed in bags. Police were trying to establish who owned the property they recovered. Covert officers staked out various addresses before a phalanx of 200 police swooped on Tuesday morning. Armed officers were at some of the raids but were not deployed to actually enter any of the homes.
Biggin Hill born Brian Perry, 63, a friend of M25 killer Kenneth Noye, was shot dead in November 2001 as he was walking into his minicab firm in south-east London.
He had acted as an agent to two of the men involved in what was then Britain's biggest heist, Brian Robinson and Michael McAvoy, who doused security guards in petrol and threatened to set them alight unless they revealed the vault combinations. The thieves had expected to find £3 million in cash but once inside found gold bars worth £25 million of which only £11 million has ever been recovered. Spanning the 26 years since the legendary heist, those involved have been blighted with what's known as the Brinks Mat curse, with some being vengefully murdered and double-crossed and others receiving life sentences. McAvoy was arrested shortly after the robbery and asked Perry to look after his share of the bullion, who in turn enlisted Bexleyheath-born Kenny Noye to help smelt it down, depositing £10 million into Barclays bank within five weeks. When McAvoy and Robinson were jailed for 25 years each in 1984, McAvoy tried to cut a deal, a shorter sentence in return for handing his share of the profits back, but by then his bullion had all but disappeared. He called in close friend and notorious gangster, The Fox, to find out where his money had gone. The Fox repeatedly told him that Perry refused to give it back but this has been called into question - in fact it is alleged that it was The Fox who had siphoned off McAvoy's cash. Perry was arrested in 1992 and jailed for nine years and while inside he managed to convince McAvoy he wasn't responsible for stealing his share. When he was released from jail, he told friends he wanted nothing to do with the criminal underworld anymore and went back to managing his cab firm. He wasn't under police protection and didn't seem to be aware that anyone held a grudge against him so it was a shock when he was gunned down by hitmen, shot three times in the back of the head. In April 2006, Joseph Pitkin and Bilal Akhtar were cleared of his murder and nobody has ever been charged since. THE ROBBERY When: November 26, 1983 Where: Brinks Mat warehouse at Heathrow Airport What: The robbers thought they would steal £3 million in cash but found three tonnes of gold bullion worth £26 million. Most of the gold has never been recovered and at least £10 million is unaccounted for. It has been reported that anyone wearing gold bought after 1983 is probably wearing Brinks Mat. Who: Gang leader Michael McAvoy and Brian Robinson - who helped conceive the raid and got into the warehouse thanks to his security guard brother-in-law Anthony Black. McAvoy and Robinson were sentenced to 25 years in prison, Black got six years. While in prison, McAvoy entrusted his share of the bullion to Brian Perry, from Biggin Hill, and George Francis, whose wife lives in Beckenham, but when he was released in 2000, found £5 million of the loot to be missing. He is believed to have been questioned following the murder of Francis in 2003. Perry hired Kenneth Noye (right) to dispose of the gold. Perry was sentenced to nine years in 1992 and was shot outside his Bermondsey minicab firm in 2001. While being investigated for his part in laundering Brinks Mat gold, Noye was accused of stabbing police officer John Fordham who was observing him in his garden. He was acquitted of murder on the grounds of self-defence, but was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 1986 for handling stolen gold. He was released from prison in 1994, having served eight years of his sentence. Two years later, in 1996, Noye stabbed 21-year-old motorist Stephen Cameron on the Swanley junction of the M25 which was falsely reported as a 'road rage' incident but has been reported to be a dispute over a drug deal. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Tommy and Terry Adams, members of the Islington crime family, were also connected to the case. Tommy was filmed with Noye handling the gold and was later convicted of cannabis smuggling and jailed for seven-and-a-half years in 1998. Terry escaped prosecution for years until he was caught in a money laundering sting and jailed for seven years. Tony White stood trial along with McAvoy and Robinson but was cleared. Insurers forced him to pay back almost £28 million, plus more than £2 million in compensation. In 1997 he was jailed for 11 years for his part in a £65 million drug smuggling ring. Brian Reader, friend to Noye, was at his house when DC Fordham was killed. He was also convicted of handling stolen gold from the Brinks Mat raid and jailed for nine years. Solicitor Michael Relton was jailed for 12 years for laundering £7.8 million invested in Docklands property. John 'Goldfinger' Palmer is widely credited with being the brains behind the robbery but has never been convicted of an offence in connection with the raid. He was jailed for eight years for persuading timeshare owners to buy a new property by falsely claiming he would sell their old one. He travels everywhere with armed guards after threats on his life were made over the Brinks Mat profits. THE CURSE -1985: DC John Fordham (above) was stabbed to death with a pitchfork in the grounds of Kenneth Noye's mansion in Kent after he caught the attention of his guard dogs. -1990: An associate of Noye, car dealer Nick Whiting, went missing from his Kent showroom in 1990. His body was found on Rainham Marshes, Essex. No-one has ever been charged. -1995: Essex drug dealer Pat Tate, who befriended Noye in prison during his Brinks Mat sentence, was shot dead with two other men in a Range Rover. -September 1996: Close friend of Noye, builder Keith Hedley, 57, was shot dead as he holidayed on his yacht in Corfu. - March 1998: Feared enforcer for the notorious Adams family, Gilbert Wynter, disappears. It is said his body was buried in concrete and is propping up the Millennium Dome. Another account of his suspected death asserts that he was killed on the orders of noted London gangster Mickey Green. -November 1998: Hatton Garden jeweller Solly Nahome, who had helped melt down hundreds of gold bars on behalf of the notorious Adams family, was shot dead outside his home. -November 2001: Brian Perry, 63, shot dead outside his minicab firm. Joseph Pitkin, 31, and Bilal Akhtar, 22, were put on trial for Perry's murder in March 2006 but walked free after the prosecution case against them collapsed. No one else has ever been charged. -May 2003: George Francis, also 63, shot a few hundred yards from where Perry was killed outside his courier business. McAvoy is believed to have been questioned over the death of Francis following claims from informants that the dead man owed him more than £5 million worth of gold.
Plumber with pilot's licence arrested over Hatton Garden heist
Hatton Garden raid: Hugh Doyle, a 48-year-old plumber from Enfield, is among the nine men held
Hugh Doyle of Associated Response Heating and PlumbingPhoto: Facebook
A 48-year-old plumber with a passion for flying and yachting is among the nine men arrested on suspicion of involvement in the Hatton Garden heist
Hugh Doyle, who is originally from Ireland, now runs a plumbing business from his home in Enfield, north London.
The married father of two was held by police who raided 12 addresses across London and Kent on Tuesday morning.
A team of specialist search police officers investigate in an address in Enfield, north London (National News/Isabel Infantes)
His arrest stunned neighbours who described him as a popular, helpful and friendly man.
One elderly neighbour, who asked not to be named, said she had been shocked to hear that Mr Doyle was among those being questioned in connection with the £35 million raid on the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company. Passion for flying: Hugh Doyle (Facebook) She said: “Everyone knows him. The local pub knows him very well. He was not a bad man, he was a helpful person always willing to lend a hand. “I am just very surprised. We are shocked that this has happened to us. He has two lovely kids and I am so sorry for his wife.” Another neighbour, who gave her name as Theresa added: “We had him here in the house to do a plumbing job up in the loft. But it wasn't very well done. The water started coming through. (Facebook) “He said somebody else would come but nobody came. That was a bit disappointing. He was friendly - over friendly, the sort of things people get away with sometimes” She went on: “I am more shocked than anything else. He had so much work to do with his vans always coming and going.” Mr Doyle is understood to run a heating and plumbing business, Associated Response and a high powered motorcycle, bearing the firm’s livery was parked outside the house, where police continued to carry out searches. A Facebook page linked to the firm shows Mr Doyle in happier times piloting a variety of small aircraft and also crewing a yacht with friends. (Facebook)
Duke of Buccleuch was 'an actor' in Yarnwinder probe
A Scottish aristocrat has told a court that he became "an actor" in an undercover police operation to secure the return of a stolen masterpiece.
Richard Scott, the 10th Duke of Buccleuch, gave evidence at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, where he is challenging a £4.25m legal action. Marshall Ronald claims the duke owes him the sum for recovering the artwork. Madonna of the Yardwinder was taken from the duke's family home, Drumlanrig Castle, near Thornhill, in 2003. The Leonardo Da Vinci painting was recovered in 2007 after Mr Ronald, of Upholland, Lancashire, sent a message to an undercover officer stating: "The Lady is coming home". Three years later the former lawyer was cleared of conspiring to extort money for its return at the High Court in Edinburgh. Mr Ronald claims in the civil action that the duke provided a letter of authority confirming that the officer, known as John Craig, acted as his agent in the recovery of the painting and was authorised to conduct negotiations.
He contends that the £4.25m was the amount agreed to be paid to him for his role in securing the return of the masterpiece and that the agreement was made by Craig acting on behalf of the Duke. The duke maintained in the action that Craig had no actual authority to enter any agreement or negotiate on his behalf. It is said the letter of authority was requested by the police as part of their undercover operation and was designed to support John Craig's undercover persona. Giving evidence in court, the duke said he first became aware of an undercover operation mounted by the police in 2006. He said he was informed that a man by the name of Brown had convinced the police that he had seen the painting and possibly had access to it. He said he was asked by an officer to have a phone conversation with him which he did. "I knew I had to act out a role," he said. He added: "I was an actor in a process which they were devising and creating." The judge, Lord Brailsford, reserved his decision in the case.
Below, the Actual Authority Issued by the then Earl of Dalkeith, now Duke of Buccleuch, Which was withheld illegally by the Prosecution at the 2010 trial of the Da Vinci Madonna accused. If it had been disclosed there would not have been any grounds for arrest and indictments, let alone a criminal trial. This document was only discoverd post trial and there is an enquiry into why the prosecution withheld it from the Defence at the criminal trial.
1.This is a self-proving document.When a document is subscribed by its granter, or granters, signed by one witness and contains a statement of the latter’s name and address, the authenticity of the granter’s signature is presumed.[1]
[1]Requirements of Writing (Scotland) Act 1995 Act S3 (1)(b)
The terms of the letter could hardly be clearer. No-one reading the letter could doubt that the defender had appointed John Craig as his agent.
OUTER HOUSE, COURT OF SESSION
[2014] CSOH 101
A460/12
OPINION OF LORD GLENNIE
in the cause
MARSHALL NEIL CRAIG RONALD
Pursuer;
against
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH
Defender:
________________
Pursuer: Party
Defender: A Young, QC; Anderson Strathern LLP
19 June 2014
Introduction
[1] On 27 August 2003 a valuable painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, known as “Madonna of the Yarnwinder”, owned by the ninth Duke of Buccleuch, was stolen from his home at Drumlanrig Castle.
[2] A criminal investigation was launched together with attempts by the police, insurers and others to recover the painting. This was known as “Operation Drumlanrig”. The operation involvedthe use of undercover police officers, including one who posed as a risk management expertunder the assumed name “John Craig”. It is alleged by the pursuer that the defender, who became the tenth Duke of Buccleuch on his father’s death early in September 2007, participated to some extent in this operation, by holding one or more telephone conversations with one of the then suspects, by preparing written documentation showing a willingness to pay monies in exchange for the safe return of the painting and, of particular relevance for present purposes, by providing an undated written letter of authority, addressed “To whom it may concern”, confirming that John Craig acted as his agent in the recovery of the painting and expressly authorising John Craig on his behalf to conduct any lawful negotiation or transaction in relation to the matter.
[3] The pursuer avers that on 10 August 2007 he wrote to the loss adjuster offering to facilitate the return of the painting. After contacting the senior investigating officer, the loss adjuster put him in touch with the undercover officers. On 21 August 2007 John Craig contacted the pursuer, stating that he was acting on the defender’s behalf. On 29 August 2007 the pursuer and John Craig entered into an agreement whereby the defender would pay him £2 million to secure the return of the painting. A few days later, this figure was increased to £4.25 million. That is said by the pursuer to be less than 10% of the value of the painting.
[4] The pursuer admits that, at the time of that agreement, he knew that the painting was stolen. He says that it was being held by persons whose identities were not known to him. He was in contact with two intermediaries, RG and JD, who were in contact with those in possession of the painting, and had agreed to pay them £700,000 to enable them to secure the release of the painting to them.
[5] The pursuer avers that, on 3 October 2007, he paid £500,000, being part of that £700,000, to RG. RG handed over that money at a pre-arranged location and later that day was advised of the whereabouts of the painting. That evening RG informed the pursuer that the painting had been safely recovered and that he was proceeding with it to Glasgow. The pursuer notified John Craig, using the phrase: “the Lady is coming home”. On the next day, 4 October 2007, the pursuer attended at the offices of an Edinburgh firm of solicitors where he met, amongst others, John Craig. RG and JD arrived at about 11 am and handed over the painting.
[6] The reward of £4.25 million has not been paid to the pursuer. A number of criminal prosecutions followed the recovery of the painting. In particular, the pursuer was charged with extortion, or attempted extortion. He was indicted in the High Court and the case went to trial. The jury brought in a verdict of not proven and the pursuer was acquitted.
The pursuer’s case
[7] The pursuer sues for the sum of £4.25 million. His case is simple. That was the sum agreed to be paid to him for his part in securing the return of the painting. The agreement was made by John Craig acting on behalf of the defender. John Craig had actual authority from the defender to make that agreement, as evidenced in particular by the “To whom it may concern” letter. Having been instrumental in securing the return of the painting, he is entitled to be paid the agreed sum.
The defender’s case
[8] The defender advances two main lines of defence to the claim. The first is that John Craig had no actual authority to enter into any such agreement on his behalf. The second is that the agreement relied upon by the pursuer in support of his claim is tainted by illegality and/or is contrary to public policy and should not be enforced. I shall explain what is said by the defender in more detail below. But it is to be noted that the defender does not make any case in these proceedings that the pursuer was in any way involved in the theft of the painting or its retention pending its recovery.
Discussion on the Procedure Roll
[9] The case came before me for discussion on the Procedure Roll. The defender insisted on his first plea in law, a general plea to relevancy and specification. He sought dismissal of the action.
[10] The discussion was conducted under reference to the well-known principles set out in Jamieson v Jamieson 1952 SC (HL) 44, to the effect that the pursuer’s case will only be dismissed if the court is satisfied that the action is bound to fail even if he succeeds in proving everything which he offers in his pleadings to prove. However, the defender’s argument was somewhat unusual in that it sought to gain support from averments made in the answers and from the fact that, as he contended, the pursuer’s averments in response were lacking in candour.
[11] I propose to deal separately with the arguments concerning lack of authority and illegality.
Lack of actual authority
[12] The defender’s case in summary is this. The “To whom it may concern” letter was written by the defender on the instructions of the police as part of their undercover operation in order to deceive the pursuer, and possibly others, into believing that John Craig was his agent when in fact he had no actual authority to agree any deal which would bind him. In those circumstances, he says, it is clear that the letter did not in fact clothe John Craig with authority to act on his behalf. He avers that the pursuer knows this to be the case, because it was made clear in the evidence led by the Crown at his trial. This is set out in the answers, and is met by a bald “Not known and not admitted”. That response is lacking in candour and should be disregarded. In consequence, the defender’s averments on this point should be treated as admitted. Furthermore, it is inherently improbable that John Craig, a serving police officer, would undertake a dual role, acting both as a law enforcement officer and also as a private commercial agent for a member of the public. It would require very detailed and specific averments by the pursuer to explain how such an unusual and potentially contradictory arrangement could arise, but the pursuer makes no such averments. In those circumstances it is clear that the pursuer’s case on actual authority must inevitably fail.
[13] I cannot accept this argument, for three main reasons. First, I accept that there have been cases where a lack of candour in the defender’s answers has been held to be a basis for treating those answers as irrelevant and granting decree de plano, and I would accept that the same approach could, if valid, be adopted mutatis mutandis in respect of a lack of candour in the pursuer’s pleadings. But that approach has not generally found favour; and I do not consider that in general it is legitimate to treat a denial or non-admission, however bald, as amounting to an admission. Generally a party is entitled to put the other party to proof of his averments. The problem of dilatory defences, defences designed simply to delay by not admitting what must obviously be known to be true, is well-known. That was the reason why the provisions for summary decree were introduced in Rule of Court 21: see Henderson v 3052775 Nova Scotia Ltd 2006 SC (HL) 85 per Lord Rodger of Earlsferry at para [13]. But the rules for summary decree apply only to the case of a pursuer moving for decree on his claim and that of a defender moving for decree on his counterclaim. They do not apply to a defender seeking dismissal of a claim made against him. There is no “reverse summary decree”. This may be a gap in the rules which ought to be addressed, but that is not for me. In that situation, where the Rules of Court have been altered to provide an answer to the problem caused by a lack of candour in a party’s pleadings, but those rules do not apply to the present case, I do not consider that it would be proper to seek to plug that gap by holding that decree of dismissal is available where a pursuer fails candidly to answer averments made by the defender in his answers.
[14] My second reason for rejecting this argument is straightforward. The defender’s case is based upon evidence which will be called by the defender and which is similar in nature to that called by the Crown in the criminal trial. The pursuer is under no obligation to accept that evidence as true. He is entitled to put the defender to proof. This is not a case where his denial or non-admission is of something within his own knowledge which he knows or must know to be true. Just because he knows that that evidence will be called, and just because he may not have a positive case to advance in answer to it, does not mean that he has to accept it. In the circumstances of the present case it is perfectly proper to answer the defender’s averments relating to the police operation, the circumstances in which the letter came to be written and the alleged intention of those who were party to it with a simple “not known and not admitted”.
[15] My third reason for rejecting the defender’s argument on this issue is equally straightforward. It is, to my mind, by no means obvious that the fact, assuming it to be a fact, that the “To whom it may concern” letter was written by the defender on the instructions of the police as part of the police operation to recover the painting necessarily means that it is not to be taken at face value. It is by no means impossible to conceive of a case where, as part of a police operation to recover a painting, a reward is offered to someone who may be in a position to facilitate its recovery, and the reward is paid to that person when the painting is in fact recovered. If, in all such cases, the offer of a reward is to be regarded as a pretence, because made without the authority of those on whose behalf it was purportedly made, then I doubt whether it would often lead to the recovery of a stolen painting. I accept that it is no doubt also possible to conceive of a situation where the offer of a reward is not intended to be genuine, and the letter granting authority to the intermediary to make that offer on behalf of the owner of the painting is indeed intended as a sham. Much will depend upon the precise circumstances and the intentions of the parties as revealed by the evidence. Even if the pursuer were to be taken to have admitted everything in the defender’s pleadings about the offer having been made as part of the police undercover operation, that would not necessarily mean that his case must fail. Although the burden of proof lies on the pursuer to establish that the agreement under which he sues was made with the authority of the defender, the evidential burden of showing that the letter purporting to have given John Craig authority to make that agreement on behalf of the defender is not to be taken at face value lies with the defender.
[16] I should add this, in case it may be thought that the existence of the “To whom it may concern” letter gives rise to a case of ostensible authority and therefore makes the arguments about actual authority irrelevant. The pursuer does not in his pleadings advance any case of ostensible authority. So far as the letter is concerned, he only became aware of that at a much later date. So he cannot rely on that letter for any representation made by the defender upon which he relied so as to give rise to a contention that at the time the agreement was made John Craig had ostensible authority to act on behalf of the defender. Whether he could rely upon any other representation made to him by John Craig as giving rise to ostensible authority is not a matter before me, and, as I have said, there are no pleadings raising such a case.
Illegality/ public policy
[17] The defender’s second line of defence is that the agreement upon which the pursuer sues is illegal and contrary to public policy. A number of arguments were advanced.
[18] It was said that it would be contrary to public policy to render a party liable on a contract which was purportedly entered into by him as a ruse on the part of an undercover police officer in order to recover stolen property. I cannot accept that, at this stage at least. Assuming the contract to have been made with the authority of the defender, an issue which will have to be resolved at proof, I can see nothing in the fact that on the defender’s part it was entered into as part of the police undercover operation and as a ruse to recover stolen property which would make enforcement of it contrary to public policy.
[19] It was also argued that the pursuer cannot seek to enforce a contract which would result in him receiving many millions of pounds for the return of a stolen painting which was secured from criminal sources for £500,000. I cannot see why not. It is not for this court to determine what a person may be willing to pay, or should be allowed to pay, to recover property which is of a particular monetary or sentimental value. That would be to remake the bargain struck between the parties. How is the court to judge what would be an appropriate reward to the pursuer for his part in the recovery of the painting?
[20] It was also suggested that other adminicles of evidence might be relevant. For example, there are averments that the pursuer did not want the police involved. But I cannot see why this should necessarily make any difference. There may be many reasons, some more respectable than others, why a person seeking to assist in the recovery of stolen painting should think it sensible to involve the police.
[21] In developing his argument on behalf of the defender, Mr Young QC focused on the submission that what the pursuer was seeking to do amounted to extortion. He submitted, under reference to Black v Carmichael 1992 SCCR 709 at 717A-B and 718B-C, that it is the crime of extortion in Scotland if a person seeks to obtain money from the rightful owner of property in order to release or return that property to its rightful owner. He submitted that, on his own averments, the pursuer knew that the painting had been stolen and that the possessors of it had no legal right to retain it. On that basis, he submitted, the pursuer had no legal right to retain or deal with the property, and his actions were no different in law from the unknown persons who only released the stolen painting in return for £500,000. That amounted to extortion.
[22] I do not accept this argument. It is, to my mind, a fallacy to equate the position of the pursuer with that of a person who is in possession of the stolen property and refuses to return it except upon payment of a large sum of money. That might well be extortion. But the position as shown on the pursuer’s pleadings is quite different. On his pleadings the agreement was made at a time when he was not in possession of the stolen painting and did not know who was. He had ascertained that certain others, JD and RG, were in a position to contact the people who held the painting and to procure its release to them upon payment of a sum of money. On this account the pursuer neither had the painting in his possession nor had the power to procure its release. The best that can be said is that he was in a position in which he had the opportunity, through others, to pay money in the hope of procuring its release. If this is the true picture, I can see no basis upon which it can be said that his negotiation of an agreement to be paid a handsome reward for his part in procuring the release of the painting amounts to extortion. It might be quite different if he himself had possession of the painting or it was within his control; but that is not what is presently averred either by the pursuer or even by the defender.
[23] One additional point made by the defender was that the pursuer, who was a solicitor at the time, funded the payment to RG by illegally removing monies from various client accounts, as a consequence of which he was struck off. Mr Young QC confirmed to me that he did not seek to rely upon this as a separate ground of illegality making the agreement unenforceable. It was put forward, as I understand it, in conjunction with other matters such as the request that the police should not be involved, essentially to present a picture of dishonest dealing by the pursuer colouring his whole involvement in the matter. I do not consider that it is of any assistance, at least at this stage. The defender makes no averment that the pursuer was involved in the theft or was a party to the withholding of the painting thereafter. If such an allegation were made and proved, that would put a very different gloss on the whole matter.
[24] As matters stand, I do not accept that the pursuer’s case is bound to fail on grounds of illegality or public policy.
Disposal
[25] For these reasons, I shall allow a proof before answer, leaving the defender’s preliminary plea outstanding. I shall reserve all questions of expenses.
Duke rejects £4.25 million claim over return of stolen da Vinci
The Duke of Buccleuch appears in court to dispute a claim he agreed to pay a former solicitor millions of pounds for the return of the Madonna of the Yarnwinder.
The Duke of Buccleuch outside Drumlanrig Castle.
One of Britain’s wealthiest aristocrats is embroiled in a court battle over a claim he owes more than £4 million to a former solicitor for the return of a Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece stolen from his castle.
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Richard Scott, the 10th Duke of Buccleuch, rejected a claim by Marshall Ronald that he had agreed to pay the money for the return of the Madonna of the Yarnwinder.
Mr Ronald, of Upholland in Lancashire, was cleared along with others in 2010 following a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh of conspiring to extort money for its return.
But he then raised an action at the Court of Session, Scotland’s highest civil court, demanding £4.25 million that he insisted the duke agreed to pay.
Mr Ronald argued that the duke provided a letter of authority confirming that an undercover police officer, known as John Craig, acted as his agent in the recovery of the painting and was authorised to conduct negotiations.
He said that £4.25 million was the amount agreed to be paid to him for his role in securing the return of the masterpiece and that the agreement was made by Craig acting on behalf of the duke. But the duke, who is Scotland’s largest landowner, has submitted that Mr Craig had no authority to enter any agreement or negotiate on his behalf. His legal team also told the court that the agreement cited by Mr Ronald is tainted by illegality. They claimed the letter of authority was requested by the police as part of their undercover operation and was merely designed to support Mr Craig's undercover persona. The 'Madonna of the Yarnwinder' was stolen in 2003 and returned in 2007 The court heard yesterday how the masterpiece was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle, near Thornhill in Dumfriesshire, on August 27, 2003. Painted around 1500, it depicts the Virgin Mary in a landscape with the Christ child, who gazes at a yarn winder used to collect spun yarn.” The duke said yesterday that he was elsewhere on the estate when the theft occurred. However, his late father, who was then the duke, had been left “shocked and saddened” by the crime. He told the court he had first become aware in 2006 of the police’s undercover operation after he was informed that a man by the name of Brown had convinced investigating officers that he had had sight of the painting and possibly had access to it. The duke said he agreed to a police request to have a telephone conversation with the main, telling the court: "I knew I had to act out a role.” He was also asked to sign a "To whom it may concern" document which was drafted by police during the sting operation. The duke said that he had been asked to play a part in supporting the undercover officer in pursuing the investigation. However, he told the court that police had not mentioned a man called Marshall Ronald in the period up to the painting’s recovery. Marshall Ronald claims he struck a deal for the safe return of the painting The court heard how Mr Ronald had contacted a loss adjuster involved in the case in August 2007 and Mr Craig, the undercover officer, called him later that month. Mr Ronald told the court: "I believe I had a contract with John Craig and it had agreed the figure." But Andrew Young QC, the duke’s counsel, told the court that there was no discussion with the aristocrat about what Mr Craig could say in negotiations to try and recover the picture, which now hangs in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. He said Mr Ronald had failed to prove the police officer was acting as the duke’s action and his legal action must fail. The judge, Lord Brailsford, reserved his decision in the case, meaning he will issue it at a later date.
Bid to sue Duke of Buccleuch over Da Vinci art theft
Marshall Ronald has begun a bid to sue the Duke of Buccleuch for £4.25m
A man cleared of conspiracy and extortion charges over a stolen Leonardo Da Vinci masterpiece has begun a bid to sue its owner, the Duke of Buccleuch, for £4.25m.
Marshall Ronald, 58, is seeking the pay-out for his role in recovering the Madonna of the Yarnwinder in 2007. The painting was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle, four years earlier. He negotiated its return with an undercover police officer whom he thought represented the duke. In 2010 Mr Ronald, of Upholland, Lancashire, was cleared with others of conspiring to extort money for its return following a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh. In the damages action at the Court of Session in Edinburgh he claims that the duke provided a letter of authority confirming that the undercover officer, known as John Craig, acted as his agent in the recovery of the painting and was authorised to conduct negotiations. He contends that the £4.25m was the amount agreed to be paid to him for his role in securing the return of the masterpiece and that the agreement was made by Craig acting on behalf of the duke.
The Madonna of the Yarnwinder was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle in 2003 The 10th Duke of Buccleuch, who took the title after the death of his father in 2007, is contesting the claim. The court heard evidence from retired detective inspector Gary Coupland, who became involved in the investigation in 2006. He said the duke, who was then the Earl of Dalkeith, was asked to sign a document on headed notepaper because a man wanted "a letter of comfort" in case he was caught with the painting. Andrew Young QC, counsel for the duke, asked the former policeman if his client had any part to play in drafting the document. He replied: "None whatsoever." Mr Young asked the former detective if he had taken any instructions or directions from the duke or his family about how to approach negotiations with Mr Ronald or another man, Michael Brown. He said: "None whatsoever." He was asked why the duke had been kept in the dark about efforts to recover his painting. The ex-policeman said: "Operational security. People's lives may be at risk." The latest hearing, before judge Lord Brailsford, continues.
Hatton Garden heist: 'Join us at Belmarsh for tea,' defendant suggests to judge during court appearance
'Dad's Army': The defendants made their first appearance before magistrates last month
One of the men accused of carrying out the Hatton Garden heist today invited the judge to tea at Belmarsh during a court appearance.
A "Dad's Army" of nine men face allegations over the Easter raid in which losses are thought to have run in "excess of £10 million". Today Terry Perkins, 67, Daniel Jones, 58, and Hugh Doyle, 48, all of Enfield, north London; William Lincoln, 59, of Bethnal Green, east London; and John Collins, 74, of Islington, north London, all appeared via videolink from HMP Belmarsh at Southwark Crown Court. Also appearing were Brian Reader, 76, and Paul Reader, 50, both of Dartford Road, Dartford, Kent; Carl Wood, 58, of Elderbeck Close, Cheshunt, Herts, and taxi driver John Harbinson, 42, from Benfleet in Essex, who face the same charge of conspiracy to burgle between April 1 and April 7, this year. They are all also charged with conspiracy to conceal, disguise, convert or transfer criminal property between, namely a quantity of jewellery and other items, between April 1 and May 19. As the men waited more than 15 minutes for the videolink to connect properly, Perkins asked the clerk: "Can you ask the judge and yourselves to come down to Belmarsh so we can have tea together?" The raid over the Easter weekend saw thieves break into the vault at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company in London's jewellery quarter. Once inside, the thieves ransacked 73 safety deposit boxes, taking millions of pounds-worth of items. The nine men, who have been remanded in custody, are due to next appear at court on September 4 for a plea hearing.
The judgement below proves once and for all that no money will be paid for the recovery of stolen art and antiques. If ever there was any doubt, it has been confirmed by this judgement that anyone with information that leads to the recovery of stolen art and antiques will not get a single penny and any reward offer is not worth the paper it is written on. Anyone dealing with ex Police such as Dick Ellis and Art Loss Adjusters like Mark Dalrymple will be passed to Undercover Police where they will be set up and not paid for their efforts. Be warned, unless a person with information that leads to the recovery of stolen art and antiques is prepared to give that information free of charge, without any reward or fee, then they will be hounded, arrested and indicted. This case started as a letter to Mark Dalrymple, who was offering a public reward. The police intervened and then they rejected the reward offering instead a buyback. Later they claimed this was legitimate police deception. The unresolved legal question is whether the police have the right to interfere with a public offer of a reward. Can the state prevent a party claiming a legitimate reward offer and face no legal redress?
OUTER HOUSE, COURT OF SESSION [2015] CSOH 79 A460/12 OPINION OF LORD BRAILSFORD In the cause MARSHALL NEILL CRAIG RONALD Pursuer; against THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH Defender: Pursuer: Party Defender: A Young, QC; Anderson Strathern LLP 18 June 2015 [1] In this action the pursuer sues the defender for a sum of money said to be due as an “agreed payment” in terms of a “contract between the parties”. The pursuer at the times relevant to the dispute with which this action is concerned was an English solicitor resident and practising in that jurisdiction. The defender is the 10th Duke of Buccleuch. The defender inherited the title on the death of his late father, the 9th Duke, on 4 September 2007. Throughout most of the period within which the events with which this action is concerned occurred the defender occupied the title of and was known as the Earl of Dalkeith. [2] I heard a preliminary proof before answer on 4 and 5 June 2015. In terms of an interlocutor dated 11 November 2014 pronounced by Lord Pentland the preliminary proof 2 before answer was limited to the specific issue of “whether the defender gave authority to John Craig to enter into the contract which the pursuer seeks to enforce.” By a subsequent interlocutor dated 12 November 2014 pronounced by Lord Stewart the defender had been ordained to lead at the proof before answer. [3] At proof the defender adduced the evidence of four witnesses. These were three retired police officers who had all served with Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary; Gary Copeland, a retired detective inspector, Peter McAdam, a retired detective chief inspector and Michael Dalgleish, a retired detective superintendent. The fourth witness was the defender. The pursuer elected to lead no evidence. [4] The factual background to the matter at issue was not by the conclusion of the evidence the subject of material dispute. A clear and relatively concise narrative of the factual issues which are relevant to the matters raised for preliminary proof can be stated on the basis of averments in the pursuer’s pleadings which are admitted in the defender’s pleadings and from the undisputed evidence of the witnesses. [5] On 27 August 2003 a painting attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci and known as “The Madonna with the Yarnwinder” (“the painting”) was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle, Thornhill, a property owned by the defender’s family. At the date of the theft of the painting it was the property of the defender’s father, the 9th Duke. When the theft of the painting took place the defender was at another part of the Drumlanrig Castle Estate approximately 20 minutes’ drive from the Castle. He was informed of the theft shortly after it was discovered and immediately went to the Castle. On his arrival he found the police already in attendance. [6] The painting was insured by the 9th Duke. A claim was made against the insurers in respect of the theft. The underwriters of the insurance policy engaged the services of a firm 3 of loss adjusters, Tyler & Co and a loss adjuster, Mark Dalrymple employed by that firm became involved in attempts to recover the painting. [7] The investigations of the police and efforts of the loss adjuster Mark Dalrymple to attempt to recover the painting were apparently extensive and prolonged. In the period between the date of the theft and some time in about 2006 the police officer in charge of the investigation was Detective Chief Inspector Peter McAdam. Mr McAdam gave evidence that following the theft he made contact with a specialist art theft division of the Metropolitan Police in London for advice and assistance in relation to the investigation of the theft of the painting. The Metropolitan Police provided Mr McAdam with the services of two undercover police officers, an individual known to him as John Craig and a further individual who Mr McAdam thought was named David Restor. Mr McAdam said he never knew whether these were these individuals’ real names or not. In order to provide these undercover police officers with what he called a “legend” which would appear convincing to any persons they might have contact with in connection with the painting it was represented during the investigation that David Restor was an art expert and John Craig was a loss adjuster. On the basis of the evidence I heard it would appear that there was a degree of co-operation with and assistance from the genuine loss adjuster Mark Dalrymple in relation to the “legend” created for the undercover agent John Craig. Between about 2004 and early 2007, the evidence was very vague as to the end date, there was contact between the police and a man called “Mr Brown”. The evidence about this aspect of matters was, I think it is fair to say, fairly brief and lacking detail. I say this not as a criticism of the police officers who gave evidence. I can appreciate that for sound operational reasons they would disclose no more about police undercover activities than was necessary to discharge their obligation to the court. Moreover I do not consider that the precise details of the police 4 undercover operation in relation to the theft of the painting were either relevant to, or necessary for the resolution of the issues raised in the preliminary proof. Subject to that caveat the evidence I heard was to the effect that the individual known as Mr Brown represented to the undercover police officer John Craig that he either had information pertaining to the painting or could arrange for the return of the painting. His expressed aim was to obtain a payment in return for such assistance. The painting’s insurers had in fact offered a reward for information leading to the return of the painting and an advertisement to that effect had been placed in an art magazine. A copy of this advertisement was produced by the pursuer and comprised No 6/28 of process. The advertisement informed persons claiming to have any knowledge of the painting to contact either Detective Chief Superintendent Peter McAdam or Mr Mark Dalrymple, the loss adjuster. [8] At this point it is of some significance to note that in evidence which was unchallenged the defender said that he was not party to any offer of reward, had never seen the advertisement No 6/28 of process and was in fact unaware that a reward had been offered until after the recovery of the painting. It should further be noted that in or about 2004 the 9th Duke reached a settlement with his insurers in relation to the painting. The terms of the insurance settlement were not explained precisely in evidence, again they are not relevant to the issues in dispute. The evidence I did have was that payment under the terms of the insurance policy was made to the 9th Duke subject to an agreement in terms of which in the event of subsequent recovery of the painting the Duke reserved the right to purchase it from the underwriters on payment of a specified consideration. On completion of these arrangements, the 9th Duke by Deed of Gift passed his right of ownership in the painting and assigned his right under the agreement with the underwriters to a trust known as the Buccleuch Heritage Trust. 5 [9] The next development of significance was that a on date which was not precisely established in evidence but thought by the police officers to have been in 2006, the loss adjuster Mark Dalrymple appeared in a television programme called “The Heist” which appeared to have been a documentary relating to art theft. During this documentary it would seem that Mark Dalrymple disclosed that there was frequently police involvement, or at least knowledge, of negotiations conducted by loss adjusters involved with third parties in attempts to recover art work which had been stolen. After the screening of this documentary the police evidence was that their contact with “Mr Brown” ceased. [10] The police were anxious to attempt to restore communications with “Mr Brown”. To that end a tactic they adopted was to attempt to bolster or enhance the credibility of the “legend” they had created for the undercover agent John Craig. The police officers Mr Copeland and Mr Dalgleish who succeeded Mr McAdam following his retiral as the senior office on the case, decided to modify John Craig’s “legend” by representing that he no longer worked on behalf of Tyler & Co the loss adjusters but was working directly for the Duke. To further that purpose a number of documents were created to support this “legend”. These comprised, first, a letter purporting to come from the Earl of Dalkeith and addressed to Mark Dalrymple and purporting to be dated 31 July 2006 and a response thereto purportedly dated 4 August 2006. These letters were in fact created in May 2007. They are produced and comprised Nos 6/3 and 6/4 of process. The tenor of these letters was that it would be possible for a deal to be bartered between the Duke of Buccleuch and those holding the painting without involvement of the underwriters. Second, there was also produced at this time an open letter written on the Earl of Dalkeith’s notepaper addressed “to whom it may concern” purporting to come from the Earl and granting authority to Mr John Craig to act as his agent in the recovery of the painting. This letter is produced and 6 comprises No 6/7 of process. The circumstances of the creation of this document are as follows. Mr Copeland determined that it would assist his operation if John Craig could purport to be acting directly as the Duke of Buccleuch’s agent. To that end he conceived the idea of a letter of authority. He drafted the form of the document which comprises No 6/7 of process and at that stage discussed the matter with the defender. Mr Copeland said that without going into all the details of the operation, he requested the defender’s co-operation to the extent of signing the letter and thereby purporting to grant authority to the undercover police officer. This evidence coincided with the defender’s evidence. Both Mr Copeland and the defender were at one that the wording of the document 6/7 was Mr Copeland’s. The defender had no input into the drafting of the document and made no suggestions, or alterations to, the draft presented to him. At the time when these arrangements were put in place the defender was on business on the Island of Arran. From there he planned to travel by air to London and to accommodate this it was agreed that he would meet Mr Copeland at Glasgow Airport where he would sign the document which Mr Copeland would have prepared. Mr Copeland in fact took a draft of the document which he had prepared to the defender’s secretary at his office on the Estate where that person put the draft onto the defender’s headed notepaper. Mr Copeland then took the completed document to Glasgow Airport where it was signed by the defender. [11] It was after police contact with Mr Brown had ceased and after John Craig’s “legend” had been modified in the way described that the pursuer became involved. In 2007 the pursuer practised as a solicitor using the trading name “Marshalls” from premises in Upholland, Lancashire. By letter dated 10 August 2007 written on headed notepaper of the business Marshalls, the pursuer wrote to Mark Dalrymple purporting to act on behalf of unnamed clients “… who can assist in the recovery of the Da Vinci painting ‘Madonna of the 7 Yarnwinder’ (The Lansdowne Madonna) which was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle on 27 August 2003”. The letter went on to represent that “Our concern is to negotiate the safe repatriation of the painting and negotiate the reward/finder’s fee on behalf of our clients.” It was further represented that safe delivery of the painting could be effected within a 72 hour time frame. This letter was produced and comprises No 6/20 of process. [12] Mark Dalrymple contacted the police on receipt of this letter. Thereafter contact was made between the undercover officer John Craig and the pursuer. There were various communings between these persons, the details of which were not the subject of evidence. As a result of these communings, an arrangement was made between John Craig and the pursuer whereby it was agreed that the painting would be handed over to John Craig and in return certain payments totalling £4.25 million would be effected. To that end a meeting between those persons and a number of others was arranged to take place in the offices of HBJ Gateley Wareing, solicitors in Glasgow on 4 October 2007. At that meeting a painting was handed to John Craig. Shortly thereafter other police officers entered the premises and arrested the pursuer and a number of other persons. Until the point of his arrest the pursuer was proceeding in the belief that John Craig was a loss adjuster and, further, acting as the agent of the defender. [13] The narrative of the facts which I have summarised was not the subject of challenge at cross-examination. As I have already indicated, no evidence was adduced by the pursuer. In these circumstances I was able to proceed on the basis of the uncontested factual background I have rehearsed. [14] The pursuer’s case is based upon the proposition that there was an express contract of agency between the defender and John Craig in terms of which Mr Craig was authorised to negotiate the recovery of the painting on behalf of the defender. The pursuer’s averments 8 in support of this case are in the following terms. In article 16 of condescendence it is averred: “On 29 August 2007, a telephone discussion took place between the pursuer and John Craig regarding return of the painting. An initial figure of two million pounds was agreed to secure the return of the painting and once this figure was agreed a date for the return of the painting was fixed for the first week in October in order to accommodate the requirements of the defender’s agent John Craig. As a result of further discussions between the pursuer and John Craig, it was agreed that the total sum to be paid by the defender for return of the painting would be £4,250,000. During all of those discussions, John Craig represented to the pursuer that he was acting as the defender’s agent and that he had the defender’s authority to enter into a legally binding agreement on his behalf.” In article 15 of condescendence it is further averred: “… John Craig was an undercover police officer under explanation that, in addition, the defender had expressly authorised John Craig to act on his behalf.” Finally, in article 6 of condescendence it is averred: “In particular, the defender provided a written letter of authority confirming that John Craig acted as his agent in the recovery of the painting and expressly authorising John Craig to conduct any lawful negotiations or transactions in relation to this matter.” The letter referred to in article 10 of condescendence is said to be produced and founded upon for its terms. That letter is No 6/7 of process to which I have already referred. [15] On the basis of the foregoing the pursuer’s case is plainly one of an agent acting with the express and actual` authority of his principal. [16] Against this factual background the submission for the defender was that the essentials for the creation of a principal and agent relationship were as stated by Diplock LJ (as he then was) in Freeman & Lockyer v Buckhurst Properties (Mancal) Ltd [1964] QB 480 at page 502. In that passage Diplock LJ stated the law as follows: “It is necessary at the outset to distinguish between an ‘actual’ authority of an agent on the one hand, and an ‘apparent’ or ‘ostensible’ authority on the other. Actual authority and apparent authority are quite independent of one another. Generally they co-exist and coincide, but either may exist without the other and their respective 9 scopes may be different. As I shall endeavour to show, it is upon the apparent authority of the agent that the contractor normally relies in the ordinary course of business when entering into contract. An ‘actual’ authority is a legal arrangement between principal and agent created by a consensual agreement to which they alone are parties. Its scope is to be ascertained by applying ordinary principles of construction of contract …”. [17] In the present case it was submitted the pursuer’s position was entirely periled upon the existence of an actual authority. No other case was pled. Applying the facts as disclosed in the evidence it could not be said that there was any actual authority. The defender was not, as a matter of fact spoken to by witnesses and unchallenged in cross-examination, aware of the undercover operation at its commencement and only became aware of its existence when he was asked to provide assistance in relation to the bolstering of the undercover agent’s “legend” sometime in the earlier part of 2007. Whilst documents to that end were produced, and, most relevantly a document was produced which on its face appeared to evidence a relationship of principal and agent between the defender and John Craig, these documents did not, on the facts, represent consensus between the defender and John Craig to the creation of a relationship of agency. On the contrary, these documents were, as all the witnesses stated, no more than a sham or a pretence designed to support a police operation attempting to recover the stolen painting. Throughout all the events with which this action is concerned the person known as John Craig was a police officer acting on the instructions of his superior officers. Similarly the defender was not acting on his own behalf but was acting as a willing assistant in a police scheme aimed at the recovery of the painting. In these circumstances the defender’s position was, quite simply, that there was no evidential basis for the case the pursuer had pled. [18] The pursuer’s position was set forth in a written submission, which he supplemented by a number of assertions which were not, as a matter of fact, spoken to in evidence. No 10 objection was taken to the assertions by senior counsel for the defender. The assertions were, essentially, that the pursuer had not been convicted of any crime in relation to his dealings with the painting. He had acted throughout as an honest intermediary or broker seeking only to achieve the return of the painting to its lawful owner, the defender. Beyond these general assertions the pursuer’s position was that he wished to rely upon a written submission which he submitted and invited me to read. I have read the submission. The pursuer’s written submission was lengthy and detailed. The submissions were made available prior to the leading of evidence at the preliminary proof and had been lodged with supporting documentation before the proof commenced. In the written submission it was accepted that the pursuer’s case rested entirely on an actual authority existing between the individual known as John Craig and the defender. As it is stated in paragraph 18 of the submission: “The pursuer’s case is that the defender authorised John Craig to act as his agent. John Craig acted with actual authority and entered into an enforceable contractual agreement with the pursuer.” Beyond that proposition there was a lengthy discussion on various aspects of the law of agency, very little which appeared to have a direct relation to the facts as established in the evidence. In particular the submission did not address the central point of how a case of express or actual authority could be maintained in a position where the unchallenged evidence of all witnesses was that no such contract existed. The written submission entirely failed to address the issue of how an express contract of the sort narrated in the pleadings could exist where all the evidence available to the court was to an entirely contrary effect. [19] In my opinion the submissions made by senior counsel for the defender were correct. The only case pled by the pursuer was that there was actual authority granted by the defender to John Craig in terms of the letter 6/7 of process. That position, the pursuer’s only 11 case, was entirely inconsistent with the evidence I heard in this case. That evidence was clear and, significantly, entirely unchallenged by the pursuer. On the basis of that evidence there was no consensual agreement between the person known as John Craig and the defender of the type desiderated by the pursuer. On the contrary the arrangements were no more than a scheme designed and controlled by the police in an attempt to obtain the return of the stolen property. The test for the creation of authority between a principal and his agent as set forth by Diplock LJ in Freeman & Lockyer (supra) was not met. In these circumstances I consider that the question posed for preliminary proof before answer in the interlocutor of 11 November 2014 falls to be answered in the negative. In the result I will uphold the defender’s second plea-in-law and assoilzie him from the conclusions of the summons.
John 'Goldfinger' Palmer: Russian mafia hitmen could have been behind gangland murder
Police are investigating whether the timeshare crook was executed on orders of wealthy Russian client who feared he about to blab to authorities
Murdered: John Palmer was shot dead
Russian mafia hitmen could have been behind the gangland murder of John “Goldfinger” Palmer. Police are investigating whether the notorious money-launderer was executed on the orders of a wealthy Russian client who feared he was going to tell all to the authorities. Palmer, 64, was gunned down at his sprawling Essex home last week but it took six days before police realised he had been shot and launched a murder probe. The timeshare crook, once worth £300m, ran a sophisticated international money-laundering operation for decades but had particularly close links to major Russian criminals and oligarchs.
Murder scene: Palmer was gunned down at his sprawling Essex home
Some of Palmer’s former Russian clients are believed to now live in luxury in London and it is understood they feared he could reveal the secrets behind their illicit wealth. Palmer was facing trial in Spain for fraud and police are investigating whether he was targeted by a criminal associate or a former client to stop him striking a plea bargain deal. But a source told the Mirror that many in the criminal underworld believed that Palmer turned supergrass a dozen years ago. There were suspicions that he had struck a deal with the authorities in 2003 when an administrative “blunder” in a confiscation order allow him to keep his £33m proceeds of crime. He was sentenced to eight years in jail for defrauding nearly 20,000 timeshare victims in 2001 and after his release Palmer retired to a remote mansion in South Weald, Essex.
Notorious: John Palmer, pictured with his wife Marnie in Tenerife A source told the Mirror: “There were a lot of eyebrows raised when Palmer managed to keep hold of his millions. Whether rightly or wrongly, a lot of people lost faith in him. There was always this nagging suspicion that he had turned grass. “He’s a man who knows a lot of people’s secrets. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had laundered a billion pounds during his career for people in many different countries. “But Russians were his main clients and he travelled there many times at the height of his empire in the 1990s. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone from that community tried to silence him. He wasn’t short of enemies.” Another theory is that Palmer was killed because of connections to the Hatton Gardens heist which netted £10m earlier this year. Essex Police has referred itself to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) over delays in identifying Palmer’s death as a possible murder. Police initially recorded his death as not suspicious, believing it was the result of complications following a recent heart operation. But a post-mortem examination carried out on Tuesday determined the cause of death was gunshot wounds to the chest.
Crime: Palmer was a convicted fraudster Palmer was cleared of handling proceeds from the £26 million Brink’s-Mat bullion raid at Heathrow in 1983, but his alleged involvement earned him the nickname “Goldfinger”. He had spent the last eight years on bail following his arrest in Tenerife in 2007, where he was charged with fraud, firearm possession and money laundering.
Palmer’s family said they were left devastated by his death and appealed for anyone with information to come forward to police. A spokesman for the family said: “We are still in shock and trying to come to terms with the enormity of John’s death.
Probe: Detectives have launched murder investigation “To lose someone you care about and who is a key part of your family so suddenly is traumatic and completely overwhelming. “If anyone knows anything about John’s death which could help police please get in touch with them so we can find some answers.” DCI Simon Werrett, from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said: “Any information people may have about any possible suspicious people or vehicles in the area at that time may help us.”
Bronze horses, made for Adolf Hitler by Josef Thorak, on May 21 in Bad Duerkheim, Germany.Credit Uwe Anspach/European Pressphoto Agency
BERLIN — The recent startling recovery of long-lost artworks made for Adolf Hitler and his chief architect, Albert Speer, began with a telephone call to a Berlin art dealer.
Two large and imposing bronze horses by Josef Thorak — missing from a Soviet military base outside Berlin since some point in communism’s collapse — were available. Was the dealer, Traude Sauer, interested?
Ms. Sauer, 76, who by her own estimation is a dealer of distinction, has long been a police informant. Realizing that the Nazi-era sculptures might be classified as stolen state property, she turned to René Allonge, a chief investigator with the Berlin police.
That was in September 2013. Last month, those tips culminated in one of the more sensational police raids in recent memory in Germany. The authorities descended on 10 properties nationwide, uncovering dozens of missing pieces of Nazi art and throwing rare light on the secretive market where such works are traded.
It is legal to possess art commissioned by the Nazis, but it can remain in private hands only if the state has no direct claim on it. That is almost certainly not the case with several of the recovered works.
A bronze Wehrmacht statue, which may be the original by Arno Breker, a sculptor favored by Hitler.Credit Roger-Viollet/Ullstein Bild
The discovery of the horses, and of several sculptures and reliefs created by another Hitler favorite, Arno Breker, stunned researchers who had long lamented their disappearance.
“Excited? Of course,” said Christian Fuhrmeister, an expert on Nazi art at the Central Institute for Art History in Munich. “Art history is a science of objects. We really need the original work.” Especially, he added, given the paucity of surviving artworks commissioned by Hitler and his cronies. Art historians currently know much more about the art that Hitler did not like, he noted, than about works that the Nazis favored.
The path to the missing works involved a cast of characters that could have come out of the board game Clue: the diminutive Ms. Sauer, a bag of art books always at her side; a private detective in Amsterdam who traces looted and stolen art; a fictitious Texan millionaire; a Belgian middleman; and a group of aging Germans still so intrigued by Hitler that at least one of them kept a Nazi-era tank on his rambling property, together with a long-lost statue, or its copy, depicting a Wehrmacht soldier as a hero.
The horses, which adorned a courtyard in Hitler’s chancellery, were apparently so precious to the Führer that they were evacuated by 1943, when the first Allied bombs fell on Berlin.
The Nazis took Thorak’s steeds to the town of Wriezen, Germany, and stored them there in Breker’s studio. In 1946, the Soviet forces who occupied eastern Germany apparently took several Breker pieces — and probably Thorak’s horses as well — to military barracks in nearby Eberswalde. There they remained until Communist rule started to crumble in East Germany.
Sometime from mid-1988, when a group of West Berlin art historians took photographs of them, to 1991, when the Soviets began their retreat from East Germany, the horses disappeared.
Their discovery was a shock for Arthur Brand, the private detective based in Amsterdam.
“They came out of the sky,” he said. “Everybody thought they had been destroyed.”
Mr. Brand entered the investigation in January 2014, when one of his Dutch informants reported that he, like Ms. Sauer, had been offered the Thorak horses, in his case by a Belgian middleman.
But it was not until early this year that Mr. Brand and the Berlin police detective, Mr. Allonge, joined forces. Accompanied by a journalist from Der Spiegel, the pair sought to track down the sellers of the steeds.
By that time, Mr. Brand had invented a Mr. Moss, a Texas oil millionaire who was, he told the Belgian middleman, interested in the Nazi works. He said he made up the character on the fly, borrowing heavily from the persona of J. R. Ewing on the television show “Dallas.”
“In the end, I started to believe that Mr. Moss really existed,” he said by telephone from Amsterdam.
Mr. Brand used the Moss character to lure the Belgian middleman to meetings, where he wore a camera disguised as a button to record what he hoped was the location of the horses and their owner.
When the middleman kept stalling, Mr. Brand and Mr. Allonge turned to other leads, including a tip from the redoubtable Ms. Sauer.
The first would-be dealer to contact her regarding the horses — a onetime car salesman named Johannes von Senkowski — had let slip that the sculptures were in the possession of a Rainer Wolf, a businessman from Bad Dürkheim, a town of about 19,000 in the bucolic Rhineland region of western Germany.
And it was there that the startled police found the giant bronzes — and other works — on property apparently rented by Mr. Wolf. Based on some of their other leads, the police raided nine other locations in four other German states that same day, May 20. Together, about 30 artworks were seized, said the Berlin state prosecutor Susann Wettley.
Asked why nobody apparently noticed the giant sculptures — measuring more than 11 feet tall — when they were transported or stored, Ms. Wettley said that Mr. Wolf could have wrapped them in thick plastic and told truckers that they were heavy blocks of sandstone.
“For the normal citizen,” she said, “it is not clear that it is a Breker statue, or horses, made for Adolf Hitler, for the Speer project” to create a glorious new capital for the Nazis’ Thousand Year Reich.
Ms. Sauer said it was evident that the works had been stolen. “The Russians just left them standing,” she said. “And overnight, they disappeared. Excuse me, but you can’t just stick them in your pocket!”
Mr. Allonge, the lead Berlin investigator, has declined to comment because the investigation is continuing.
The raids led investigators to eight German men, ages 61 to 79, Ms. Wettley said. None have been charged yet. Besides Mr. Wolf, who is over 70, attention has fallen on Klaus-Dieter Flick, 78, who keeps his sizable collection of Nazi paraphernalia, including a tank and possibly various historical guns, in an underground storeroom on his large property near the northern German city of Kiel.
Mr. Brand, the Dutch detective, said he believed that the collection included the Wehrmacht statue by Breker and claimed to have spotted it when looking at satellite pictures of Mr. Flick’s property.
Mr. Flick said the statue was a copy. In a telephone interview, he affirmed that he had been collecting artifacts from for almost 60 years.
“For me, art is independent of a political dimension,” he said.
In a strange twist, Mr. Flick said Thorak’s horses had resided on his property for two years in the 1990s, when they served as collateral, he said, for a 300,000 German mark loan he had made to Mr. Wolf. That would add two more long journeys for the horses.
Mr. Wolf has declined to talk to reporters, but he released a statement through his lawyer two days after the raid. “The art objects were lawfully acquired more than 25 years ago from the Russian Army and the earlier producers,” it said, referring presumably to workers in Thorak’s studio.
Mr. Flick had a more colorful account, claiming that Mr. Wolf had told him that either Russian soldiers or the East Germans — Mr. Flick cannot remember which — had cut up the bronzes and effectively sold the works as scrap metal to Mr. Wolf, who had them reassembled.
Experts are debating why the works came to light now.
“Perhaps someone thought so much time has passed, these statues won’t be recognized,” said Ralph Paschke, one of the West Berlin experts who saw the horses and other works at the Soviet base in Eberswalde in 1988.
Mr. Brand suggested that repugnance for the Nazis, as well as the Soviets, lay behind the attempt to sell.
The owners’ heirs “threaten to destroy the works with dynamite,” Mr. Brand said. “They do not want anything to do with them.”
Until recently, most of the art world believed The Art Loss Register (ALR) had a reliable and thorough database that listed lost and stolen art works, antiques, and collectibles, but that no longer is the case.
According to London’s Sunday Times, The New York Times and other sources, the London-based ALR has made major errors handing out certificates that gave stolen artworks clear provenance status.
The ALR works with auction houses, museums, fairs, collectors, estates, and law enforcement agencies providing certificates that state works have clear title and are free from claim. Because they did little to no research on certain pieces, they allegedly gave certificates for stolen art.
How could that happen? The Times reports that the ALR admits the more a client pays in fees, the more thorough its research. Often working as a bounty hunter, the ALR charges up to 20 percent of a painting’s worth to disclose its whereabouts.
Any claim that a provenance or history is clear from liens or encumbrances for a famous artwork (or one that is hundreds of years old) needs to be accompanied by an enormous amount of sale slips, exhibition records, court documents, expert opinions, conservation reports and more. If it’s a significant work of art, many databases should be scrutinized, especially those tracing Nazi loot.
No one can protect themselves against lawsuits or confiscations of art, if the professionals they trust are not accurate and meticulous with their assessments.
Art Net News reported in its article “The Art Loss Register is Entangled in 3 Major Art Disputes” the ALR admits it often took as truth whatever some clients told them about provenance and did not challenge their data. That’s a naïve, irresponsible approach to doing research! James Ratcliffe, ALR's general counsel and director of recoveries, confessed provenances given by clients are “taken in trust.” Really? What if the client is a thief?
Certified appraisers who abide by ethical standards do not take as fact data a client provides nor do they form final judgments from the client’s information without completing further research. They are expected to do due diligence, conduct proper research of all databases and other entities (such as museum and auction files) to form reliable, trustworthy conclusions that establish credible provenances and histories.
The ALR should have proven statements clients made were accurate before it handed out bogus certificates. When millions of dollars are at stake, research should be painstakingly thorough. The ALR has taken the stand: If an item isn’t already in its database of stolen or missing works, it has clear title. That assumption is negligent and immature.
London’s Sunday Times reported in August 2014 that ALR founder Julian Radcliffe admitted his firm paid thieves to recover stolen art in a dozen cases and is described as a “fence” by senior European law enforcement officials. By this admission, the ALR gave clearing certificates to many looters and thieves.
World Press reported in August 2013, in an article titled “Chasing Aphrodite,” that Christie’s sold ALR-cleared antiquities that were fenced by well-known loot dealers Giacomo Medici, Robin Symes, and Gianfranco Becchina, most of which were cleared by the ALR.
Much of the art world pretends to vet ancient art, trying to prove it was not illegally excavated, but many museums and collectors worldwide accept questionable paperwork so that they can purchase what they know is stolen, hoping not to get caught.
World Press claims most ALR certificates merely state “at the date that the search was made the item had not been registered as stolen,” but that doesn’t mean an item is not stolen. Many dealers and curators now realize that an ALR certificate is shabby, at best, and it does not protect anyone.
The National Gallery of Australia paid $5,000,000 for a stolen ancient Shiva bronze after receiving an ALR search certificate from now-incarcerated antiquities dealer Subhash Kapoor, who provided no provenance on the piece.
The museum should have realized that any antiquity without a provenance is a warning signal that it could be stolen. Looters and thieves count on that kind of irrational, emotional behavior.
Even worse, the ALR admits it rarely asked dealers for provenance information, which shows how shabby the firm’s research is.
Patricia Jobe Pierce is a freelance writer, art historian, art dealer-consultant, certified AAA appraiser, public speaker, photographer and American art authenticator for museums, auction houses and collectors. She graduated from Boston University with a BFA in 1965, is owner and director of Pierce Galleries, Inc. in Nantucket and Hingham, Mass., and is author of many works, including "Art Collecting & Investing: The Inner Workings and the Underbelly of the Art World." For more of her submissions, Click Here Now.
Ex-business partners hunting ability of art dealer Michel van Rijn
Two former business partners of art collector Michel van Rijn hunt down a portion of the assets of the eccentric art connoisseur. The duo claimed that Van Rijn them - and several others - for 'definitely a ton "is highlighted.
Former assistant Arthur Fire and international recruiter Ard van Beek have to prove that the art dealer recent months in the Italian Livorno made a handful of people cheat money. Ard van Beek claiming themselves to be duped and seeks to unify the group of victims now. There are Dutch people who reclaim money. Van Beek bought himself at the insistence of Van Rijn painting of € 20,000, but the picture turned out to be worth nothing at closer inspection. After much nagging, received the HR boss € 5,000 back. "But that is not enough. Van Rijn has to pay back everything. This is a matter of principle. He made abuse of our friendship. That painting I bought to serve him. " This week came the amateur sleuth in his own words on more sinister deals of the art dealer. Van Beek studied the practices of Van Rijn in the Italian port of Livorno where the art dealer spent the last months. He found the spot that Filipino assistant to Van Rijn has been given two months not been paid and that a Chinese man, who art dealer provided include food, € 20,000 lent to Van Rijn and money in all probability lost. There is also the story of the Amsterdam art courier Jonas' Pablo "Paul still € 3,500 claims at Van Rijn. Jonas Paul vouched for the relocation of Van Rijn to Livorno. "This man must be stopped, because he is incorrigible. He takes you in, get dressed and when you are no longer of value, it throws your way. A devil is! "Says Van Beek to Quote." I'm glad Arthur Fire assist me. " Brand: "There are a lot more people." Van Beek Van Rijn learned a few years ago when they know together in a luxury rehab clinic in Barcelona were interned. On the intercession of the art dealer who Interpol and Mossad helped stolen art to detect, Van Beek bought a plot and paid € 20,000 to Van Rijn. That money, he would recover. The painting gold as collateral. "All bullshit talks were. That painting he had just bought something on the market. It was not worth more than a few hundred dollars! " Then it goes wrong between the two withdrawal friends. After Van Beek, who had to transfer the money to the account of one of the college sons, again demanded his money, follow threats he tells Quote."If you do not cooperate, you get visit of tough guys, was the threat" he says. "And I'm really not the only one this has happened." Iran also Untalan, Filipino assistant to Van Rijn, is insulted and even accused of theft when he asks about his overdue salary. In an email to son Floris van Rijn Untalan ask themselves where he earned this dastardly treatment. "Why your dad is doing this to me? One of my friend call me on phone That your dad making That story That I steal money from him? I help your dad with all sacrifice ... I do the best I can to borrow money from Filipinos here to medicine and vodka bought his cigarettes. He even think my situation, he do not pay my 2 months salary. " Van Beek: "It's really terrible. That Filipino boy worked for € 500 per month, but even that was not paid. When he complained Van Rijn threatened to give him as illegal by the police, "says Van Beek. In an email conversation that goes on this issue at son Floris van Rijn apologizes for the behavior of his father, but a solution is not offered. "I know my father hasnt leg the best with you lately." Art Courier Paul Jonas has the same unpleasant experiences. Quote to let the art transporter Van Rijn that he has moved to Italy and the contents of his son to Leiden transported. Jonas also paid a hotel stay for Van Rijn in the Netherlands who was sick. In total he yielded € 5,500 for services, he calculates, but he got paid nothing. As a result of money problems, he had to temporarily suspend its business. "Can you please tel me the wrong That I did for you. To ruin me like this. coming wednesday theywill come Come To close my business Because I am there months behind "the art courier writes in an urgent e-mail to Van Rijn. After several desperate mails will be paid € 1,000 in the end through an account of one of his sons. "What can I do?" The art courier asks in despair to Quote. Van Beek, who has a good job at the Swiss technology giant ABB, rest only until the money is returned. "This is a matter of principle for me. It takes a lot of time, but I sure about, "he says. Van Rijn is currently in Netherlands Quote spoke to him in recent days, by e-mail -. He has no phone - and once on a terrace at the Amsterdam Marie Heineken in front of his son Floris. Van Rijn believes that a smear campaign against him is conducted by his former aide Arthur Fire is aware of the issues and Van Beek information whispers. The quarrel between Brand and Van Rijn has a long history and is the result of a corporate divorce battle, about six years ago. They seemed such a nice couple. Van Rijn and Fire grew to Sherlock Holmes and John Watson tackled art swindlers. Meanwhile, they each vowed archenemies where all dirt to anyone who will listen is peddled, to private-mails to it. Van Rijn believes that his former assistant butter on his head. " Van Rijn claims that Brand himself also acted in false works. "Arthur Fire has offered a distorted picture in Berlin at the museum and now plays the nice gentleman." It would also be a former assistant to the internationally wanted art swindler Leonardo Patterson betrayed by declaring in front of the German justice a collection of stolen art treasures of a South American Indian tribe. Brand is held one of the witnesses against the Costa Rican in a process in Munich. Van Rijn: "He worked seven months for Patterson to help him refute all the nonsense stories about him. Then he switched to justice. " Fire ignites in anger when confronted with this reading. "I wrong? Man! Van Rijn by Patterson bribed to tell his side of the story. Did he received for € 70,000. I never received a penny. " The art sleuth want nothing more to do with his former boss. Also, he was visited by goons when he refused the false piece of the Berlin museum Van Rijn give back. "It did not seem so convenient me. When Van Rijn has a famous Amsterdam criminal graduated me to recall that counterfeit image that he let me offer nota bene myself and where I later found out it was false. The man was then given the command to save me apart. Fortunately that did not happen, because I could explain it. " (This famous Mokumse tough guy will not comment on the incident, but confirmed that Van Rijn approached him for a incassoklussie). Brand, the former protégé, wants Van Rijn trapped. "This time I let but not to sit there. He now goes straight into the bin. Someone this piece of garbage should just stop once and I'm willing to do that. I spent years Michel psychological support and have always been there for his children, but obviously looking gentleman fighting again and this time it's my turn. "
Famous Stolen Painting Sent Detroit Mob Power Horseface Pete To Twilight Prison Term
Deceased Detroit mob underboss Peter (Horseface Pete) Licavoli did a year in prison for trying to move a historically-significant piece of artwork on the black market in the years before his death in the early 1980s – it was his fourth and final trip to the clink. Licavoli, a titan in underworld circles around the country dating back to the Prohibition Era, was indicted in 1976 in Arizona federal court and eventually convicted at trial in 1978 of receiving and the attempted sale of stolen property, tied to charges of attempting to sell the world-famous “Lucretia,” a 500-year old painting, to an undercover FBI agent. The Lucretia was painted by Rembrandt in the 16th century and recently sold at an auction for five million dollars.
The then-75 year old Licavoli earned a reputation as a killer and a huge money maker during the 1920s as founder and leader of the River Gang bootlegging syndicate in Detroit – his arrest record boasted nearly 40 collars. When the Motor City’s various bootlegging factions came under one umbrella with the creation of La Cosa Nostra (the American mafia) in 1931, Horseface Pete was tapped a capo and given a large series of in-state and out-of-state rackets to run on behalf of Michigan mob administrators. By the 1940s, he had relocated to Arizona, watching over his rackets in the Midwest via his main lieutenants in Detroit, specifically men like Joseph (Scarface Joe) Bommarito, Joseph (Joe Misery) Moceri, Matthew (Mike the Enforcer) Rubino and Max (Big Maxie) Stern. Licavoli was promoted from capo to the organization’s underboss role in 1969. “Pete Licavoli lived out of town, however he was still able to keep his presence felt in Detroit through a series of intermediaries, guys we knew very well and were almost equally as juiced-in as he was,” retired FBI agent Oscar Westerfield recalled. “They spoke for him and that voice spoke loud, even if he was out in the Arizona desert. He could touch anyone he wanted from thousands of miles away and people back in Michigan were still ungodly scared of him.” Westerfield was the head of the FBI OC Division in Detroit during parts of the 1970s and 80s, finishing his mob-busting exploits as head of Tampa’s OC Division into the 1990s. “Licavoli had as much respect and say as most bosses in the U.S. at his height,” Westerfield said. “He wasn’t a don, he might as well have been though with the reverence he was afforded in Detroit circles and well beyond.” Scarface Joe Bommarito was the crime family’s first street boss until he was forced into retirement due to sickness in 1960 (he died in Florida from MS in 1965). He and Licavoli grew up together in St. Louis prior to surfacing as a tandem of terrors on the streets of Detroit and making their initial fortune in smuggling and selling illegal booze. Joe Misery, a Licavoli first cousin, numbers whiz and River Gang co-founder, ran his own crew, but frequently shuffled messages back and forth between the powers that be in Michigan and Horseface Pete in Tucson (he was killed in 1968). Mike Rubino was Licavoli’s bodyguard as a young River Ganger and served as acting capo of his Detroit crew – upon his death in 1971 of natural causes, Joseph (Joe the Whip) Triglia took over those duties, being aided by Horseface Pete’s baby brother Dominick. Big Maxie Stern was another protégé of Licavoli’s and the syndicate’s overseer of all Jewish gambling rackets until he died of a heart attack in the early 1970s. Arriving in Arizona on a permanent basis in around 1944, Horseface Pete built the picturesque, opulent and state-of-the-art, 75-acre Grace Ranch, an estate in Tucson that housed his residence as well as several other buildings, such as an art gallery, bowling alley, nine-hole golf course, airplane and helicopter landing strips and quite appropriately a shooting range. Grace Ranch was named after Licavoli’s wife, Grace, the sister of Joseph (Long Joe) Bommarito, another Detroit gangland figure who came out west himself to be in charge of the crime family’s interests in Las Vegas. It was activity occurring on the Grace Ranch property in the 1970s that Licavoli’s last arrest sprouted from and landed him back behind bars (his prior stints were for bribery, contempt and tax evasion). Informants were telling the FBI that Horseface Pete was using his art gallery as a waystation for fenced merchandise, such as jewelry and precious stones, resulting in the feds bugging the telephone line in his gallery office headquarters as well as his desk and sending an undercover FBI agent in to set up a sting. It didn’t take long. Within a month, Special Agent Don Mason was meeting face-to-face with the imposing member of Midwest mob royalty in the cozy confines of his plush office. In the midst of negotiating the purchase of a shipment of “hot” diamonds, Licavoli offered Mason a chance to buy the Lucretia, an extremely rare piece of artwork boosted from a Cincinnati,Ohio mansion the year previous (conversations picked up by the government-planted bug).Taking Mason, masquerading as a rich classic art collector, on a tour of the breathtakingly-beautiful gallery, set in the shadows of the Sierra Mountains, Horseface Pete showed him the Lucretia hanging in a frame in the foyer and newspaper clippings vouching for the Rembrandt’s authenticity. Licavoli’s had deep blood and criminal ties in the Buckeye State – his younger brother, Thomas (Yonnie) Licavoli, first cousins, James (Jack White) Licavoli and Calogero (Leo Lips) Moceri and his brother-in-law Frank (Frankie C) Cammeratta operated with impunity in various patches of the Ohio underworld in their respective mob heydays that spanned the 1920s into the 1980s. Jack White and Leo Lips assumed leadership of the Cleveland mafia in the mid-1970s, promptly entering into a war with the city’s Irish mob group. At almost the exact time Jack White and Leo Lips took power in Cleveland, government-mole Mason was providing Licavoli a $1,000 down payment for the Lucretia and was subsequently indicted and incarcerated for 13 months of an original 18-month sentence. “We knew he was conducting rackets out in Arizona and in Michigan, he was booking bets, giving out loans and investing in all kinds of land and oil deals, all while chumming around with Joe Bonanno, the New York Godfather that had fled west in the 60s, amongst other hoods in the region,” commented Westerfield. Horseface Pete (81) walked free in 1981 and died of heart failure three years later. After he was arrested and his ranch raided in the spring of 1976, the Rembrandt Lucretia was immediately seized off the wall at the art gallery and returned to its rightful owner, Charna Signer.
Tome Raiders: Rare Items Stolen From Libraries
Thieves are targeting historic collections of rare books, manuscripts and maps held at public libraries around the world.
By Richard Suchet, Sky News Reporter
Rare and valuable items held by libraries around the world are being "raided" by thieves, according to experts.
The theft of historically important books, manuscripts and maps has become such a serious problem that international experts are gathering in London to discuss how to tackle it. A conference at The British Library, called The Written Heritage of Mankind in Peril, aims to produce a set of principles that will "help prevent widespread theft and trafficking and restore stolen items to their rightful owners for the benefit of everyone". Art Recovery International, which keeps a database of missing cultural objects, says more than 2,000 rare items have been reported missing or stolen since the beginning of March. The company's chief executive Christopher Marinello said: "We have seen thieves use small cutting tools - little knives disguised in pencils or pens.
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Gallery: Tome Raiders: Rare Items Stolen From Libraries
Gallery: Tome Raiders: Rare Items Stolen From Libraries
"We have even seen them use wet string to remove a rare map or page from a book and then they will try to sell it on the open market place. "Thieves have seen the phenomenal prices that rare books, manuscripts and maps have achieved at auction and are now raiding our libraries of some very important cultural heritage. "Thieves are looking to cash out as quickly as possible and they are looking at libraries as a weak point. "We hear about the fantastic art thefts that are taking place in museums - they often make the news - but very few people know about what is going on in our public libraries and that is why this conference is so important." The conference is the first of its kind and will be attended by dealers, auction houses, law enforcement officials, security experts, lawyers, collectors, national collections and others. Tens of thousands of historic books and manuscripts are thought to be missing or damaged. "These are not things that can be replicated," says Jonathan Eyal from the Royal United Services Institute. The Defence and Security Forum has had rare military and regimental books stolen from its own library. "The particular damage from any pilfering is very specific," Mr Eyal said. "These are very specialised collections of books, which take centuries to assemble and five minutes to destroy. The significance of such a loss is incalculable. "One of the key problems for libraries is less that of security - most special collections are quite good at the physical security - it's more a question of betrayal of trust by employees." One solution could be to digitise the rarest and most valuable books so they would be both accessible and secure, but opponents of the idea say it detracts from the principle of libraries being a public resource. Speakers at The British Library conference will include Jerker Ryden, legal adviser to the Swedish library, which was at the centre of one of the world's most famous thefts. Senior librarian Anders Burius stole at least 56 books in the 1990s. He later committed suicide following his confession and arrest in 2004. It is also thought there are thousands of items belonging to The British Library that are missing, lost or have been stolen.
EXCLUSIVE: “I’m the real Banksy,” claims British artist hiding out in Spain
British artist claims ‘wealthy and powerful members of Britain’s art circle’ stole Banksy from him
Michael Shurman. Photo copyright the Olive Press“I’M the real Banksy,” says British artist Michael Shurman, straight-faced with a sense of enormous relief. Just four words into the interview and I’m hooked. Lured on the promise of ‘the biggest art story in half a century’ I headed into the Guadalhorce Valley for what would turn out to be one of the most surreal afternoons of my life. Miles away from anywhere, I met mysterious Brit Michael Shurman at his secluded hideout in the mountains. “Or should I say, I created Banksy and then it was stolen from me,” he adds.
“There is no Banksy, there never was.”
The 52-year-old artist, originally from London, claims he created the ‘Banksy’ persona in 2004. He purports that Banksy was stolen from him and then continued by ‘wealthy and powerful members of Britain’s art circle’.
Portrait of Picasso. Photo copyright the Olive PressAs a result, Shurman says that he has been ‘ousted’ by the British art scene and was forced to flee to Spain. “There are some very powerful people behind this,” he adds. “Everyone from art dealers to national newspaper editors are in on it. “People know I am the creator of Banksy, I have had over 120 works of art stolen over the last 10 years as everyone waits for the lid to be blown on this. He adds: “I was banned from art galleries in the UK, commissions were mysteriously cancelled and I was not allowed to compete in national art competitions.
“They are scared of me and wanted me to slip away, but I’ve bit my tongue for long enough.
“This time next year people will be talking about Shurman, not Banksy. I’m going to pull the pants down on the whole scam.” Shurman claims to have invented the Banksy idea while he was living in Glastonbury. He claims that he first painted the image of alien heads in Bristol and Glastonbury in 2004, an image which has become synonymous with Banksy.
Shurman with latest piece. Photo copyright the Olive Press“Banksy was my creation,” he adds. “Although at the time it wasn’t called Banksy, it was just something I was doing. “It’s only when it got taken over that the ‘Banksy’ myth was attributed to it.” Shurman, who moved to Spain in November 2014, said he has finally had enough and is ready to ‘expose those behind the con’. Although he says he is not scared of the Banksy operators he says he intentionally chose his low-key, off the beaten track home in Andalucia’s mountains so he ‘could not be easily found’. He is now in the process of selecting a lawyer in Spain to help him claim for damages against the people behind Banksy.
Photo: DPA
Nazi-stolen painting fetches €2.7m at auction
On Wednesday the painting 'Two Riders on a Beach', looted by the Nazis in 1938, was sold at a London auction house for €2.7m shortly after being returned to the rightful owner.
Max Liebermann's "Two Riders on a Beach" is the first piece of artwork to be auctioned off from a collection found in a 2012 police raid on the Munich apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, son of one of Adolf Hitler's favourite art dealers. The painting sold for nearly €2.7 million, over three times the price of €766,000 it was expected to fetch at Sotheby’s auction house in London. The artwork was returned to the heir by Taskforce Schwabinger Kunstfund, or the Schwabinger Art Fund Task Force, in May. The rightful heir, a New York lawyer, had even attempted to sue the Federal Republic of Germany and the state Bavaria in Washington for the art theft by the Nazis. Before being recovered, the 1901 oil painting was inherited by Cornelius, the son of Hildebrand Gurlitt, an art dealer employed by Hitler, who died last year. Legal wrangles erupted over the collection after Gurlitt's death, as he tried to leave the trove - including many works confiscated from Jewish families and other people targeted by the Nazis - in its entirety to the Museum of Fine Art in Bern, Switzerland. Another heir of the painting, David Toren, now aged 90 and blind, witnessed the painting being stolen from his great-uncle David Friedmann in 1938, the day after the massive Kristallnacht (night of broken glass) action against Jewish-owned businesses, when he was 13.
Spanish police return art stolen from Swedish churches
Spanish police on Monday returned 12 artworks, including several 15th-century wood engravings, to Sweden's embassy in Madrid after they were allegedly stolen by a Spaniard from Swedish churches and museums. Police seized the items -- a wooden chest and 11 wooden engravings -- last month on Spain's Canary Islands at the home of a 63-year-old man who they suspect stole the items in Sweden, police said in a statement.
The Chinese Want Their Art Back
Photo
Credit Jun Cen
OVER the course of five days in March, Christie’s auctioned off the holdings of the dealer Robert H. Ellsworth, who, before his death last year at age 85, filled his 22-room apartment on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan with what was said to be one of the world’s most comprehensive private collections of Asian art, earning him the nickname “King of Ming.” The sale fetched $134 million, nearly four times the presale estimate of $35 million.
Chinese art has become a prized liquid asset for superrich collectors, who, instead of putting their treasures on display, often deposit them in carefully guarded, climate-controlled warehouses. But the media’s emphasis on the white-hot market for contemporary Chinese works overlooks a more interesting story: the effort by the Chinese government, state-run companies, private collectors and even, quite probably, some criminal networks to bring Chinese antiquities back home.
One impetus for this effort is the Communist Party’s embrace of traditional culture as “a foundation for China to compete in the world,” as President Xi Jinping said in October. Having for decades viewed antiquities as relics of feudal oppression and bourgeois decadence, the party now says art can “lead people to live a life abiding by the code of morality,” in that way contributing to social stability. This is a turnabout from the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), when museums were ransacked, and countless antiquities destroyed. Old art is again prestigious; new buyers seek canonical work for the social status, not just potential profit, it confers.
The party has taken its new stance on culture at a time of rising nationalism. China openly promotes efforts to repatriate works pillaged during its self-defined “century of humiliation,” from the Opium Wars of the 1840s and 1850s to the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949.
Perhaps the most notorious affront in that period was the sacking of the magnificent Old Summer Palace by British and French troops encircling Beijing in 1860, at the end of the Second Opium War. The invaders torched or leveled as many as 200 buildings, stripping the nearly thousand-acre site of sculptures, silk robes, jewelry and even Pekingese dogs, then unknown in Europe. (Queen Victoria was presented with a puppy, named “Looty.”)
The destruction was ordered by one James Bruce, the eighth Earl of Elgin — whose father had, some 60 years earlier, ordered the removal of the friezes from the Parthenon in Athens. For decades, Greece has vainly demanded that Britain return the Elgin marbles (which are on permanent display at the British Museum), even going so far as to construct a museum that would house them.
China has taken a different approach: Instead of pressing formal demands for repatriation, it lets money do the talking. Through a corporate offshoot of the People’s Liberation Army, the China Poly Group, the government has turned the auction block into a patriotic battlefield.
Take, for example, 12 animal heads wrenched from a zodiac fountain that once glistened below the European-style Hall of Calm Seas at the palace. In 2000, auctions held in Hong Kong by Sotheby’s and Christie’s featured three of the heads. China’s Bureau of Cultural Relics urged the auction houses to withdraw the bronzes, citing a Unesco convention.
When both companies declined and the auctions went ahead, the winning bids were cast by the Poly Group. They went on view at the Poly Art Museum in Beijing, which subsequently secured three more zodiac heads. One of the three was donated by a Macao gambling tycoon; the other two were bid on at a 2009 Christie’s sale in Paris by a Chinese buyer who then refused to pay for them. In 2013, François-Henri Pinault, whose company owns the auction house, gave them to China as a good-will gesture.
Of course, many art works never come up for auction. Perhaps the greatest enigma in Chinese art today is a little-reported crime wave in Europe that, since 2010, has targeted antiquities that were looted from the Old Summer Palace or from Beijing’s Forbidden City in the early 20th century.
The string of thefts is believed to have started in August 2010 with a break-in at the Chinese Pavilion on the grounds of Drottningholm Palace, the royal residence near Stockholm. Five months later, burglars in Bergen, Norway, made off with 56 items from the China Collection of the KODE Art Museums, mostly antiquities gathered by Johan Wilhelm Normann Munthe, a military adventurer who served in the Boxer Rebellion.
In April 2012, intruders broke into the Malcolm MacDonald Gallery at the Oriental Museum at Durham University in England, filching a porcelain sculpture and jade bowl together valued at about $3 million. That same month, thieves made their way into the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University, making off with 18 “culturally significant” objects, notably Chinese jades.
In January 2013, some 25 Chinese artworks were stolen in a second theft at the museum in Norway. The museum closed its China Collection to visitors and, in an arrangement brokered by a Chinese entrepreneur, seven of 21 marble plinths taken from the Old Summer Palace were promised to Peking University.
Finally, only three months ago, burglars pilfered 15 gold, bronze and porcelain masterworks in the Château de Fontainebleau, the former royal retreat south of Paris. In a seven-minute sweep, they outwitted alarms and cameras as they smashed display cases within the palace’s Chinese Museum, founded in 1863 by Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III. “They knew very well what they were after,” said the chateau’s president, Jean-François Hebert.
Why steal documented works that can neither be legally sold nor openly exhibited? “Chinese laws, on everything from theft to intellectual property, are very different from those in the West, and therefore stolen or forged artworks find a market far more easily there than abroad,” Noah Charney, an art crime expert, said after the Norway thefts. “A certain type of Chinese collector would be far less shy about purchasing a knowingly stolen artwork than a Western collector would. Chinese collectors could purchase stolen Chinese art and still have the pride of display, perhaps with the rationale that, whether or not the object was stolen, it should be in China, and therefore the collector was somehow aiding its liberation.”
As Paul Harris, a leading British dealer of Chinese art, wrote in a blog post in March: “The general feeling in intelligence circles is that this was ‘an ordered job’ carried out by local French professional criminals acting as agents for a third party. That third party is almost certainly abroad, well away from French jurisdiction and, according to one intelligence expert, ‘The smart money is on the artifacts being on the way to the People’s Republic of China.’ ”
Granted, speculation is not evidence.
But in a revealing footnote to the Fontainebleau heist, France is involved in backstage discussions regarding the return of 30-odd gold pieces illegally unearthed more than two decades ago in China’s Gansu Province. They were donated to the Musée Guimet, an Asian art museum in Paris, by the art dealer Christian Deydier and by Mr. Pinault’s father, François Pinault, whose fashion houses include Gucci and Saint Laurent (with a large footprint in the Chinese market). But now the plan to return the antiquities has been caught in a legal maze, since gifts to French museums are in theory irrevocable.
So far there is nothing to demonstrate that Beijing has anything to do with the thefts. What’s clear, though, is that the West and China need a more open conversation about art and where it belongs. Unesco has estimated that 1.67 million Chinese relics are held by 200-plus museums in 47 countries. Many Chinese want much of it back. Whether and how that goal is realized will be one of the art world’s big stories for years to come.
Criminal Assets Bureau target homes in Rathkeale
CAB targeted homes in Rathkeale
Officers from the Criminal Assets Bureau have raided a number of properties in Rathkeale in the past week as part of an ongoing operation. Several houses in the town are understood to have been targeted in the swoop which took place last Thursday. A garda spokesman this week confirmed that the raids had taken place but did not reveal the reasons. “The Criminal Assets Bureau conducted a number of searches in County Limerick on Thursday 11th June 2015,” he said. “The planned searches were one element of an investigation which is being conducted by the Bureau. For operational reasons no further information is available.” CAB has previously targeted homes and businesses in the town as part of its investigation into a notorious Traveller gang often referred to as the Rathkeale Rovers. This gang, based around a small number of close-knit families, is thought to be responsible for much of the illegal rhino horn trade in Europe. However, it is believed to be involved in a wide range of criminal activities throughout Europe as well as North and South America, Asia and Australia. In September 2013, five home and an office in Rathkeale, Limerick city and Newmarket, Co Cork were raided by officers from the bureau who removed documents and a various items from the properties. It is not known if last week’s raids were related to this ongoing operation.
Victim finds stolen silver on eBay
Dozens of pieces of antique silverware have been found by Gloucestershire Police, after a burglary victim noticed some of her missing items on eBay.
The house in Woodmancote was searched after items stolen in the Cotswolds in May were discovered on sale on eBay. The force has published photographs of other silver items found at the house, which they suspect are stolen, in the hope of tracing the rightful owners. A man has been arrested and released on bail while inquiries continue. The burglary victim's daughter noticed some of the missing items while browsing the online auction site. Other antique items discovered include engraved spoons, trinket boxes, tankards, fob watches, perfume bottles and hairbrushes. They can be seen on the force's Pinterest page and its own website.
Former Norwich officer arrested on antique store theft allegation
STONINGTON, Conn. (AP/WTNH) — Police have arrested two suspects, including a fired Norwich police officer, on accusations they smashed a plate glass window at a Stonington antique shop and stole jewelry. The Day of New London reports that police charged the former officer, Jamie D. Longolucco of Westerly, R.I. and Meredith Soulia of Groton with criminal mischief, larceny, and burglary. They were released on bond and are scheduled to appear June 29 in New London Superior Court. The 41-year-old Longolucco, who was also charged with driving with a suspended license, was fired by Norwich police in 2007 after three arrests and a conviction on third-degree assault and breach of peace stemming from an off-duty fight with two women. Carolyn Yost, owner of Yost Estate Jewelry & Stonington Antiques, now has to replace the six- by ten-foot window. “It’s quarter-inch plate glass,” she said. “It’s been in the building probably 100 years, so it’s going to cost a lot to replace and it’s an annoyance.” A surveillance picture shows one of the burglars in front of the Stonington Borough store, which was broken into at around 2 a.m. Monday. Witnesses gave police a description of the car, which was stopped a short time later. Police say Longolucco was behind the wheel. “It’s really terrible that somebody that was once trusted to protect you has gone bad, but evidently maybe he was bad in the first place and shouldn’t have been a police officer,” said Yost. Police are also investigating whether or not the pair may have been involved in a smash and grab at the nearby Water Street Barber Shop last December. A man and woman were seen stealing two remote control boats from that shop after breaking the front window.
What Happens to Stolen Art After a Heist?
The most high-profile art heists almost always end in disaster. But what about the bulk of art crimes you don't hear about?
An empty frame in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, where 13 paintings were stolen in 1990.
Photographer: David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Last month, administrators at the Boston Public Library discovered that a $600,000 engraving by Dürer and a $30,000 etching by Rembrandt had gone missing. It set off a media firestorm, the director of the museum resigned, and then … a few weeks after the works went missing, they were found, misfiled, 80 feet away from where they were supposed to be. The works’ disappearance and the subsequent panic underscored how helpless law enforcement can be when art—an easily transportable, largely untraceable commodity—is stolen. But not every artwork is created equal, and neither are heists. The quality of the art, it turns out, profoundly affects how the art is pursued, which makes intuitive sense: The greater the masterpiece, the greater the uproar over its disappearance. Only one thing stays consistent: Once art is stolen, there’s an abysmally small chance of getting it back.
Major Heists
Most people are familiar with the big ones. There’s the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, in which 13 works were taken and which has gone unsolved for 25 years; there’s the 2010 robbery of Picasso, Braque, Modigliani, Matisse, and Leger paintings from the Paris Museum of Modern Art, where one of the suspects—as reported by Le Journal du Dimanche—apparently panicked, destroyed the art, and then put the remnants in the trash (though according to the article, lawyers for the suspect refused to confirm this theory); and there was the 2012 Rotterdam Kunsthal heist, where yet more modern work by Gaugin, Matisse, Monet, Freud, and Picasso were stolen. The art was reportedly stored in Romania with one of the suspects’ mothers, who claims to have incinerated the paintings in her kitchen stove.
A painting by Édouard Manet that was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Édouard Manet, Chez Tortoni, ca. 1879-1880
What do these heists have in common? Start with the price tag—today, the paintings from the Gardiner Museum would be worth an estimated $300 million; the Paris Museum of Modern Art paintings were valued close to €500 million ($561 million), according to the Guardian; and the Rotterdam museum's works were (conservatively) estimated at more than €50 million. Not coincidentally, each theft generated an intense amount of publicity. (“Musee d'Art Moderne art theft” generates around 2.5 million search results on Google.) That kind of scrutiny, says Bonnie Magness-Gardiner, the art theft program manager for the FBI, makes it “very hard to sell stolen work.” Plus, the more prominent the artwork, the less likely a thief is to sell it. “There are no buyers for masterworks,” says Anthony Amore, director of security at the Gardner Museum and the author of such books as The Art of the Con and Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists. “People talk about paintings selling for 10 percent of their value on the black market,” he says. “But masterpieces are still too expensive even at 10 percent—no one’s going to spend millions for a work they can never show anyone.” That’s one reason that major art heists, according to Magness-Gardiner, “are rare. Or I’d go even further and say very rare,” she says. “Honestly, most of what I see are burglaries that don’t target certain paintings or prints; they target wealthy houses.” And those thefts have very different results.
Incidental Burglaries
“I tend to look at art theft in three categories,” says Jordan Arnold, a managing director at K2 Intelligence, an art risk advisory practice with headquarters in New York. “There’s the ‘cave hit,’ the ‘fire sale,’ and the ‘long bet.’” The cave hit, says Arnold, is closest to a targeted art heist, wherein a group of people target specific art to put it in some sort of underground collection. Unsurprisingly, this is the least frequent type of theft—more likely to occur regularly in Bond films than in real life. More common is the fire sale. It’s “the opportunistic criminal, where they’re looking to flip the work to a fence or unscrupulous dealer,” Arnold says. This often happens when someone robs a house, sees an artwork, takes it, and tries to get rid of it fast. Finally, the long bet is when “a thief holds onto the art and hopes that it either goes unreported or the trail goes cold,” Arnold says. “Then the thief will try to sell it some years later to a proper gallery and claim it’s inherited.”
The empty wallspace where a painting by Henri Matisse was stolen during a robbery at the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam.
Photographer: Robin Utrecht/AFP/Getty Images
So: How lucrative is it for the thief? “Very,” says Turbo Paul Hendry, a former art thief who now lectures on art crime and runs the blog art hostage. “Ninety-five percent of art theft is from private residences, and those items are normally $10,000 or less. Once they’re stolen, they’re passed through the hands of middlemen and reappear for their full market value.” Hendry cites the example of a Meissen porcelain figurine. “You might have 500 or 1000 versions of the same figure,” he says. “Who’s to say which is stolen and which is not?” On the rare occasion that a multimillion-dollar work—a Picasso, say—is stolen, Hendry says that the thief makes “pennies on the dollar.” Still, he says, “if a $10 million painting sells for $100,000, that’s still pretty good for just a night’s work.” And how often is the thief caught? Almost never, says Magness-Gardiner. She estimates that the FBI has a recovery statistic of “below 10 percent,” which means thieves pull off art crimes 90 percent of the time. Hendry has an even dimmer view. “Only about 2 [percent] or 3 percent of art is ever recovered,” he says. “When you get to high value stuff, maybe it gets up a little higher, to around 5 percent.” Often, art theft is so successful because “sometimes people don’t even recognize that the art’s gone missing” says Magness-Gardiner. “It could be in a storage facility, or in the basement of someone’s house, and it can often be years before anyone notices it’s gone.”
Frames that held five paintings stolen from the Musee d'Art Moderne in Paris in 2010.
Photographer: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images
It should be no surprise, then, that when criminals have a multiyear lead time, selling the art is easy. “Often, even when we find the stolen property, we don’t find the thief,” Magness-Gardiner says. “It’s often passed through so many different hands, and is years later, so actually figuring out who stole the work is pretty rare.”
Prevention
The way for most collectors to protect themselves, Arnold says, is to do routine collection audits. “The window of time between when it’s taken and when it’s reported dictates the likelihood of recovery,” he says. The way for most buyers to ensure they’re not purchasing stolen art, Arnold continues, “is not just to ask the appropriate questions, but to look at the appropriate documents.” Someone might claim that they’ve had a painting for 20 years, but can they show you a sales receipt? Shipping records from the gallery they bought it from? As the art market continues to grow, Arnold says, that level of due diligence has become increasingly exigent. “As art prices continue to soar, you should only expect that criminals are going to look to works of art with greater frequency,” he says. “Art is regularly selling for more than the average cost of a home, but unlike a house,” he adds, “you can just pick art up and walk away.”
International Police Meet in Attempt to Tackle Pink Panther Jewelry Heist Gang
The International Police Organization (Interpol) has held a two-day meeting attended by investigators from 22 countries to discuss how to stop a notorious group of jewelry thieves responsible for hundreds of high-profile heists worldwide over the past decade. Borko IlincicOn Wednesday, June 10, Interpol gathered nearly 60 specialists to tackle the Pink Panther criminal nework. Investigators believe that the network is made up of about 800 members, many from the former Yugoslavia. They say the group has stolen jewelery worth about 334 million euros (US$ 378 million) during 380 robberies commited in 35 countries since 1999. Interpol launched its Pink Panthers Project back in 2007, building a database of DNA, fingerprints and photos with which law enforcement agencies worldwide could identify, locate and arrest suspected members. The project saw some successes, including the arrest of Borko Ilincic – suspected to be a key member of the gang – who was detained in Spain in 2014. Interpol issued a red notice letter for the capture of Ilincic after receiving a request from the United Arab Emirates, linked to a 2007 robbery – when some members of the group stole jewelry worth US$ 3.4 million from a shopping center,making a movie-like escape by jumping into luxurious display cars and driving them out of the mall through the windows. The group is also responsible for the biggest jewelery theft in Japanese history to date in which, according to BBC, about US$ 30 million of jewelry was swiped from a shop in Tokyo in March 2004. A necklace they stole, known as the Countess of Vendome, is reportedly worth US$ 21 million alone. The culprits were caught and sentenced. Last week, on June 2, Croatian police in cooperation with law enforcement from Serbia, Austria and Germany arrested six alleged Pink Panthers aged from 28 to 46 in Zagreb. Three of the suspects are Serb, two are Bosnian and one is from Montenegro. Police charged them with organizing a criminal group and the illegal possesion of firearms, having uncovered a stash of weapons in raids. Authorities suspect the group was planning a heist. Apart from the weapons, they found fake police uniforms, walkie-talkies, tools for cutting metal along with two Audi A6 cars that had been reported stolen. Police believe they were would-be getaway cars. The group has achieved almost mythical status in former Yugoslav countries as a result of having run rings around local and international police forces for years. Their story is told in a 2013 documentary called Smash and Grab: The Story of The Pink Panthers. The Guardian names them the world's best diamond thieves. The group is highly organized, performing its heists in record times and usually using bold disguises, for instance dressing up as women. They were able to organize several prison breaks for members who wound up behind bars.
Hundreds of Watches Are Stolen but a Victim Remains Undaunted
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The packed Lifshitz Gallery on the East Side, where Elias Lifshitz has refurbished timepieces by Rolex and Cartier.Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Thirty-five years ago, a Mexican sculptor named Elias Lifshitz, who had recently moved to New York City to accept the challenge he more or less knew from a song — “If you can make it here,” he said this week, “you can make it anyplace” — opened a little shop on East 77th Street. He called it Lifshitz Gallery, and there he learned an early, hard lesson: Not as many people were interested in buying art — his or anyone else’s — as he had hoped.
Then he bought a watch — a broken watch — at a flea market. He took it to a desk in the back of his shop.
“I was good with my hands,” he said. He got it working.
“Then I started going to flea markets and buying watches for $20,” he said. He got them ticking, too, and set about figuring out what they were worth.
“There was a book,” he said. “It tells you the value.”
The watches sold for far more than he had paid for them. He expanded his travels to distant flea markets, scooping up watches and pretty much anything else that caught his eye and bringing it all back to Lifshitz Gallery.
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The gallery contains an odd collection of items, including antiques and art pieces.Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Its door is a few steps below the sidewalk level. The shop was narrow when he moved in, and it was empty then. Today, it is crammed with timepieces of every size, from piles of pocket watches to standing clocks to wristwatches that hang from hooks like bunched bananas. Two people cannot comfortably pass in the gallery’s lone aisle. If someone wants to exit, anyone in the way must leave first.
The watches are almost hidden behind stuff in this jungle. Over there: a hanging lamp in a fruit motif, its shade stained glass. A phone that looks like an antique roadster. A clown painting, a pencil etching of the Piazza San Marco in Venice. A porcelain elephant. Pens.
Over here: a Claddagh ring, a self-portrait in bronze, a robust photographic collection of female nudes from the 1920s. “From a man in Mexico,” Mr. Lifshitz, 73, said.
Threaded among all these items are some valuable Rolexes and Cartiers and watches by Tiffany, worth thousands of dollars. It is hard to believe that Mr. Lifshitz knows where everything is but he does.
And he was not the only one.
On March 19, Mr. Lifshitz entered the shop and right away knew something was off, he said this week. The little back room behind his workstation, where he fixes watches, was a wreck. There was a door back there that led to the basement of the apartment building above but it was still locked. Next to it was a large hole in the wall. It looked like the Hulk had broken into the place.
To get to that wall, a burglar needed to pass through three locked doors but a person could open them all with the same key, which he apparently had. He broke into a neighboring computer repair store, just to grab a duffel bag to carry watches.
Four hundred fifty watches or so went into the bag, Mr. Lifshitz said.
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Mr. Lifshitz in the shop. He began fixing and reselling watches when he had trouble selling artwork.Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
One of them was a copy of a Rolex that Paul Newman wore. Mr. Lifshitz described this and many other missing watches to the detectives. “I have a computer in my head,” he said.
Detectives spoke to workers at the computer store and at a hair salon in the building, and quickly made an arrest at a motel in Queens, where they found a man identified as Arsen Canaj, 47, with a bag of watches, a hammer, a saw and a crowbar, all covered in white Sheetrock dust similar to that found near the hole in the wall, according to court documents. Mr. Canaj is free while his case is pending; there is a hearing scheduled for June.
His connection to the building, and how he got a key, if he in fact is the burglar, is unclear, and the police and Mr. Canaj’s lawyer declined to elaborate this week.
Today, Mr. Lifshitz carries on, with three complaints.
One, he wants his watches back. They are in police custody as evidence.
Two, his right hand shakes. “It made my Parkinson’s come back,” he said.
Three, no one wears watches anymore. “Now, people are with the phone,” he said. “They are robots. American robots. Pretty girls, you can’t even talk to them with the things in their ears.”
But he smiled on Thursday when he thought of the song that brought him here.
“I made it,” he said.
Cannes jewellery heist adds to trail of Pink Panther-style raids
La Croisette and the Festival Palace at Cannes. Photo: Reuters
All eyes were on Cannes last week, as the world's most glamorous film stars, including Charlize Theron and Natalie Portman, gathered for its 68th annual film festival. But while the Ruinart flowed and the Chopard diamonds twinkled, there was one shadow looming over events. Just days before festivities began, the French Riviera city had been hit by a violent jewellery heist that shocked its 70,000 inhabitants and caused alarm around the world. At 11am on May 5, a masked man wielding a pistol burst through the front door of the Cartier store on Cannes' palm-fringed thoroughfare, La Croisette, followed by two accomplices.
A British police officer leaves a safe deposit building on Hatton Garden. Photo: Reuters
They seized £13 million ($A26 million) worth of jewellery and watches, before escaping in a stolen Mercedes getaway car driven by a fourth gang member.
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The crime — which, ironically, wouldn't have been out of place in a Hollywood script — is the latest in a string of similar attacks. In February, a £97,000 Calvin Klein dress, studded with 6000 pearls and worn by Lupita Nyong'o at this year's Oscars, was taken from The London Hotel in West Hollywood while the actress was out of the room. A month later, £6.5 million worth of jewels and art were stolen after a 15-strong gang held up two armoured vans in Burgundy. In April, robbers snatched £3.6 million of Chanel jewels from a collector's car while it was stuck in traffic near Paris.
Holes bored through a half-metre-thick concrete wall drilled into a vault in a safe deposit centre in Hatton Garden, London. Photo: AFP
And then, of course, there was the audacious Easter raid on the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit company in which £60 million worth of precious stones and cash was stolen in an operation that lasted more than 50 hours and saw thieves use an industrial power drill to bore a 45cm-wide entry hole in the underground vault. Last week, Scotland Yard arrested nine men in connection with the affair. The identity of the Cannes perpetrators may never be known, although the involvement of established criminal gangs is a given. The case in particular bears the hallmarks of Europe's notorious Pink Panthers — a loose, many-headed network whose origins lie in the Balkans mafia of the 1990s. Known for their brazen but meticulous robberies, its members often hail from military backgrounds (such as the elite, now disbanded, Serbian unit, the JSO). They were given their name by the Daily Mail, due to similarities between a heist at Graff, the New Bond Street jewellers, and Peter Sellers' famous Inspector Clouseau film.
Lupita Nyong'o arriving at the 87th Annual Academy Awards. Photo: Getty Images
It has also been suggested that the Panthers may have been involved, behind the scenes, in the Hatton Garden raid. Whatever the truth, one thing is certain: the recent spree is evidence of the rapidly growing — and ever more unwieldy — black market in jewellery and precious stones, which Jim Dickie, a former detective superintendent within the Specialist Crime Directorate at New Scotland Yard, estimates to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds: "It's becoming more organised — crime groups have always been involved in thefts, but because banks no longer have large amounts of cash on the premises, they're targeting other areas." For those behind raids, the first priority, once the crime is committed, is usually to take the loot abroad. A prearranged contact — known as "the courier" — will take it across borders to buyers usually in cities where diamond trading is widespread, such as Antwerp. Payment will be in cash; the criminals will have an idea of the loot they'll be passing on and will have normally arranged a price — around 20 per cent of the legal market value — with the buyer in advance. Thieves keep three-quarters of that sum and the rest goes to the courier, says film-maker Havana Marking, who spent a year investigating gang members while filming her acclaimed documentary Smash & Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers: "It's not as profitable as it might appear, but if you're talking about a large heist, they're still making £100,000 to £200,000 out of a weekend's work."
Lupita Nyong'o at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles in the dress that was later stolen. Photo: AP
The identity of the buyer is unlikely to be known to the thieves, and vice versa. Instead, the liaison will be organised by a remote — and again anonymous — individual. Dickie likens this to the way spy rings operate: "It's a cell system, and only certain members of each cell will know each other." Should one member be arrested, the others are protected. This first buyer — known as "the fence" — will then process the jewels. Gold will be melted down and precious gems extracted (diamonds are the biggest earner and usually the focus of any operation). Where stones are particularly large or distinctive, the fence will recut them, though whole stones are preferred since the larger they are, the more they're worth. From there, the gems have one of two fates: they may be returned to the legal market, being resold multiple times — Marking says the fence will receive around 30 to 40 per cent of the market value, with the price gradually rising as the jewels pass from one dealer to the next — or they may remain in the underworld, used as currency to buy drugs, weapons or people. Part of the beauty, from the criminals' point of view, is that carrying gems is unlikely to arouse authorities' suspicion. Metal detectors don't pick them up, they're lighter in weight than gold bars and less conspicuous than suitcases of cash. As Marking puts it: "You don't even need to hide them — they're just in your pocket." They also retain their value while national currencies fluctuate; both al-Qaeda and the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab are thought to trade in diamonds. Given the sprawling and global nature of the "industry", it's little wonder that stolen jewels are rarely recovered. There's no single, comprehensive register of legally bought pieces. The Kimberley Process, the UN-backed certification scheme aimed at eliminating blood diamonds, stipulates that rough-stone shipments are accompanied by a uniquely numbered certificate. But once batches are divided and gems cut, they're no longer accounted for. Some owners will register their possessions privately. Organisations such as the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), offer certification services, recording stones' unique features, cut and colour. But even when jewels are registered, the system is far from foolproof, says Julian Radcliffe, founder of the Art Loss Register: "While, if it was resubmitted, it might be able to be matched, if it has been recut, it would almost certainly not be." Likewise, if a stone is damaged in a raid, its distinguishing characteristics are altered and its traceability diminished. Nor is there a single record of looted items. The Art Loss Register, the world's largest private database of missing art, antiques and collectibles, includes 70,000 pieces of stolen jewellery and 50,000 watches, while industry bodies such as the London Diamond Bourse circulate details of stolen goods in an attempt to prevent them being resold. But the onus is on individual victims to register the missing items. Which is not to say there's no hope for victims. Very occasionally, when a stolen gem has re-entered the market, someone identifies it. This happened recently in New York when a grader at the GIA noticed characteristics in a newly purchased yellow diamond that matched a stolen stone. The client who'd brought it in was unaware of its illegal provenance — as was the trader who sold it to them. A private settlement was reached. Meanwhile, the past decade has seen growing cooperation between European police forces. Both the Met and the French police will be collaborating with Interpol, which set up a dedicated Pink Panther working group in 2007. One promising line of enquiry in the Hatton Garden case has been DNA samples which were taken in the wake of a similar raid on a Berlin bank two years ago. And lately there have been some high-profile arrests. In February, eight criminals were sentenced to terms of up to 15 years for stealing more than £65 million in watches and jewellery, including one ring set with a 31 carat diamond said to be worth more than £4 million, in dual heists at the Harry Winston shop on Paris' Avenue Montaigne. In one robbery, which lasted less than 20 minutes, the gunmen disguised themselves as women, sporting wigs, skirts, stockings and high heels. The same month, four suspected Panthers were arrested in Vienna with stolen jewellery worth more than £360,000, including 18 watches that were stolen during a robbery in Montreux, Switzerland, in January. And as the black market booms, there is evidence that criminals may be getting sloppy. In their rush to make a getaway, the Cannes raiders dropped several expensive watches on the pavement. It has also been claimed that those behind the German heist left bottles of beer at the scene. Still, those who lost their gems in Cannes shouldn't hold their breath. Michael Levi, Professor of Criminology at Cardiff University, says that, barring a disgruntled whistle-blower coming forward, the chances of retrieving stolen loot are minimal: "It just gets mixed up in the general trade." As for Scotland Yard's promise of a £20,000 reward for information leading to conviction — well, that's little more than wishful thinking. As Dickie puts it: "If you consider the potential value of what was stolen — £20,000 is minuscule."
Eight Years
Eight years. Eight years since A Cavalier (self portrait) was last seen in public. Eight years ago person(s) unknown stole this Dutch masterpiece. Eight years. No news. No leads. No trace. Someone out there knows something. Someone out there knows where A Cavalier is. Please don’t wait another eight years to come forward.
Husband and Wife Arrested for Stealing $350,000 Worth of Art From Coral Gables Mansion
Erbiti and Rojas.
Miami-Dade Corrections
Early last month, Eduardo Goudie was set to move into his new home on North Greenway Drive in Coral Gables. He had already moved in his eclectic art collection which featured contemporary painters from all across the world, but when he returned to the home on April 3 he found that five paintings worth a total of $350,000 had been cut from their frames and taken. Now police have nabbed Raluxi Raul Erbiti and Dania Rojas, a married couple, both 39 years old, for pulling off the heist.
According to NBC Miami, one work by Cuban painter Leopoldo Romañach was worth $150,000, a work by Cuban-American modernist Cundo Bermudez worth $50,000, a painting by Cuban surrealist Wilfredo Lam valued at $75,000, a work by Pakistani artist Jamali, the originator of "Mystical Expressionism," worth $25,000, and another unknown artist's work valued at $50,000. Coral Gables police began an investigation with the Hialeah PD, Miami-Dade PD, the Broward Sheriff's Office, the DEA, and Homeland Security which soon lead to Erbiti and Rojas. An informant contacted Erbiti last week and agreed to meet him in the parking lot of a Sam's Club in Miramar to discuss the possible sale of the paintings. The couple then showed up the next day at the informant's office and offered two paintings for $90,000. Eventually the price agreed upon was $150,000 for the entire lot. When they arranged to meet again it wasn't the informant but rather police who were waiting for Erbiti and Rojas. They now face charges of second-degree grand theft and dealing in stolen property.
Collector’s tip-off helps police rescue big stash of church relics
More than 60 artefacts stolen from English and Welsh country churches over the past few years have been recovered by police after they were alerted by a collector.
While some items have been returned, the West Mercia force is launching an appeal to trace the owners of the many relics as yet unidentified. Police have arrested a 50-year-old man from Wales in connection with the series of thefts, which ATG has covered on many occasions to alert the trade. The man was released on bail and is due to be further interviewed on his return to Hereford police station. Det Con Tony Lewis, based in Hereford, told ATG: "Operation Icarus is a West Mercia-headed investigation into multiple theft offences from churches across England and Wales. "West Mercia is heading the investigation as we have the highest number of offences on us - eight as it stands today - but I am sure we will have more as items get identified. Other offences have occurred in Breconshire, Monmouthshire, Devon, Suffolk and Kent to name but a few counties. "Last year a private collector from the south east of England contacted the Met Police Antiques and Antiquities Department. He made due diligence reports to them as he was concerned that he may have bought items which could have been stolen." The collector recognised items from media coverage of the theft. As a result of his information, the Met recovered a number of items and several of these were traced to thefts in Herefordshire, and Holy Trinity Church at Torbryan in Devon. DC Lewis added: "In February West Mercia officers attended the address of the original collector in the south east. At that time some 40 exhibits were seized into police control. "Some of these exhibits are multiple items so we have around 60 plus items safe and secure, being held at a West Mercia police station. "These were photographed and the hunt was on to try and identify where they had come from and rehome them as soon as possible to their rightful home."
Torbryan Screen
Many of the thefts caused damage to the churches when the works were hacked away, with one of the worst cases being Torbryan, where a pair of 15th century oak panels was ripped out from the rood screen. The decorative panels, bearing paintings of St Victor of Marseilles and St Margaret of Antioch, are considered of national importance, and were stolen in August, 2013 (reported in ATG No 2104). The rood screen and its panels are one of only a handful of such artworks in England which survived the Reformation. Stolen items included stone and wood carvings, cloth items, stained glass, tombstone lids, brass plaques, misericords, sections of carved rood screens and small glass items. DC Lewis said: "West Mercia have sought the help of a number of organisations and individuals who are all working together to identify the items we have recovered. So far we have identified some 21 items - some of which have been returned to their home, including the Torbryan item. "We are grateful for the assistance of those helping us to identify these items. "We would ask all church wardens/clergy/parishioners to check their churches to look and see if there are any items missing. "We believe the offences started in 2011 and will have ended late summer/early autumn 2014. "Some items are very small and some have been removed from dark corners or high up in walls. "As such, the thefts may not have been noticed. In some cases attempts have been made to cover a theft, with a different item placed where the stolen item was taken from." The Churches Conservation Trust, the national charity that cares for 347 unique churches around England including Torbryan church, faces a bill of £7,000 to restore the damage caused by the thieves hacking the panels out of the screen during the theft. The trust has launched a campaign to raise the money. - See more at: http://www.antiquestradegazette.com/news/2015/may/26/collectors-tip-off-helps-police-rescue-big-stash-of-church-relics/#sthash.gmRYo1hb.dpuf
Picasso Recovery in Newark Shines Light on Art Theft
Stolen pieces can vanish for decades and losses are difficult to estimate
An image of the 1911 painting ‘La Coiffeuse,’ by Pablo Picasso. The artwork was recovered by customs officials in Newark in December.
Sculpture specialist Alice Levi Duncan was cataloging two early 20th-century bronze statuettes this winter when she realized something unusual.
Both of the pieces were unique casts, meaning no subsequent editions had been made from that mold—“very rare in the bronze world,” said Ms. Duncan, a director at Gerald Peters Gallery. “It’s like winning the lottery twice.”
As it turned out, the sculptures, consigned for sale at Gerald Peters, had been swiped in 1983 from another Manhattan gallery, Hirschl & Adler.
The fact was only uncovered when Ms. Duncan, who remembered selling one to Hirschl & Adler years earlier when she worked at Christie’s, called to confirm that the work—a sculpture of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney by Prince Paul Troubetzkoy—was unique.
Such recoveries offer a window into the shadowy world of art crime.
The extent of the problem is hard to pin down. At one point the Federal Bureau of Investigation estimated that art and cultural crimes, which include fraud, theft and looting, resulted in billions of dollars of losses each year, though the agency now says those figures are too hard to verify.
Complicating matters: While law-enforcement agencies track such crimes, there is no central governmental repository that lists missing objects, which may, in the case of a Picasso recovered in December, vanish in Paris and reappear in Newark, N.J.
The 1911 cubist painting, estimated to be worth millions, went missing from a storeroom at Paris’s Centre Pompidou. It resurfaced in a shipment from Belgium, labeled as an “Art Craft Toy” with a declared value of $37.
Former NYPD Detective Mark Fishstein, an investigator for the art-risk advisory practice at the consulting firm K2 Intelligence LLC. He is holding a photograph of himself with artwork he recovered.
The theft was reported in 2001. But the painting could have theoretically gone missing two years earlier: It was placed in storage in 1999 after being lent to a German museum. The loss was only detected after a subsequent loan request from India, according to court papers.
It isn’t clear how customs officials at Newark, among the busier ports in the U.S., unearthed a stolen artwork the size of a place mat. A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations declined to comment, citing a continuing investigation.
Centre Pompidou spokesman Benoît Parayre said the museum has beefed up its security and collection-management system since the theft of the painting, titled “La Coiffeuse.”
Tracking down stolen art can take decades and may turn on lucky breaks like anonymous tips or calls to police by suspicious potential buyers.
During his time with the New York Police Department, Mark Fishstein, a detective who specialized in art crime and retired in October, handled cases ranging from break-ins to the disappearance of a Norman Rockwell painting worth more than $1 million from a Queens storage facility in 2013.
“You can never give up hope because if they are stolen, some people hold them for a predetermined amount of time and then think it’s safe to sell,” said Mr. Fishstein, who now works as an investigator for the art-risk advisory practice at the consulting firm K2 Intelligence LLC.
When objects do resurface, it is often through the combined efforts of law-enforcement agencies working with insurance companies and a small field of private businesses that specialize in detecting art fraud, tracking down purloined works and conducting the sometimes delicate negotiations surrounding their return.
Once an art object is reported stolen, police typically contact sister agencies, such as the FBI and Interpol, said NYPD Detective Michael Dorto. Police also register the theft with one of the private groups that compile stolen-art data.
The point, he said, is to “render this art useless” by indicating it is stolen.
For years, the biggest such operator has been the Art Loss Register, a London company that maintains what it says is the largest international database of stolen art objects and antiques. Last year, it conducted more than 400,000 paid searches, with more than 5,000 queries raising a red flag about an item’s provenance. About 150 or so objects are recovered each year.
The group also retrieves lost art and is building up a new business line: a database of forged items and likely fakes, according to Chairman Julian Radcliffe.
Some of his company’s methods, including payments to informants, have been questioned by others in the art world, though Mr. Radcliffe dismisses the criticism.
“The whole question of payments, police persuasion—we wouldn’t be in the business if we were operating illegally,” he said.
Two years ago, a group of former employees started a rival business, Art Recovery Group, led by lawyer Christopher Marinello. It uses a database of disputed art, launched earlier this year, that uses image-recognition software to search for matches in auction catalogs and other materials. A separate division of the firm specializes in art recovery and dispute resolution.
When the long-lost bronze statuettes came to light at Gerald Peters, the other gallery, Hirschl & Adler, called on Mr. Marinello to help arrange their return. While the Troubetzkoy work had no distinguishing characteristics, the other piece—a compact statuette of a woman holding a flower by New York sculptor Paul Manship, known for his gilded “ Prometheus” at Rockefeller Center—was mounted on a marble base with distinctive veining.
The two works are now worth an estimated $250,000.
The private stolen-art databases can make it “relatively easy to investigate something if you know where to look and find a tainted record,” said Eric Baumgartner, a senior vice president at Hirschl & Adler.
Britain's most prolific burglar: Crook who has stolen from 250 homes is jailed... just 16 days after release
The thief's 54-year crime spree seems never ending after he was put behind bars for another six years
Prolific: Britain's burgling menace Simon Berkowitz
Britain's most prolific burglar has been jailed yet again after breaking into a retired couple's home just 16 days after being given an early release. Career crook Simon Berkowitz has confessed to being addicted to breaking into other people's homes. The criminal menace has committed at least 250 break ins during a 54-year career of crime. Berkowitz' best-known crime was trying to sell stolen documents regarding then-leader of the Liberal Democrats Paddy Ashdown's affair with his secretary in the days leading up to the 1992 General Election. He had come across the documents after breaking into the politician's solicitor's office. The crook had been out of prison for barely two weeks after being freed half way through a five and a half year sentence when he travelled to Devon in search of properties to burgle. Berkowitz has plagued affluent seaside towns all along the South coast and the genteel resort of Sidmouth, Devon, has been a favourite hunting ground.
Victim: Former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown He broke into the home of pensioners John and Ann Searle on Guy Fawkes night last year while they were away on holiday. He left no clues at the scene but was trapped by CCTV when he used Mr Searle's stolen bank cards to obtain £1,100 in the space of 12 hours at cash machines in Sidmouth and Exmouth. He also used Mr Searle's stolen bus pass to wander up and down the coast, stopping at Budleigh Salterton, Bournemouth, and Dorchester. Berkowitz was only caught when police issued his picture to local papers and television channels and he was spotted by a member of the public having Sunday lunch in a pub in Sidmouth. Police arrested him on the sea front carrying a rucksack which contained a burglary kit consisting of metal levers, gaffer tape, two torches, a piece of wire bent into a hook, and a magnifying glass which he used to study jewellery and antiques before he took them. He denied burgling the house in Sidmouth and told Exeter Crown Court he had no need to steal because he inherited £4,000 from his mother who died during his last jail sentence. He said he found the bank cards with their PIN numbers on slips of paper which were conveniently attached with elastic bands.
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Justice: Exeter Crown Court The jury took less than an hour to convict him after hearing his list of previous convictions which date back to Worthing in 1961, and include 37 different burglary convictions covering 250 different raids and recent jail terms of three and a half and four and a half years. Berkowitz, 68, of Hove, denied burglary but admitted handling and five counts of using the bank cards fraudulently. He was found guilty and jailed for six years by Judge Francis Gilbert, QC, who told him:"In your evidence you said you felt sorry for all the people you have burgled over the years. "I find that to be completely and utterly false. "You do not feel the least bit of sympathy for what you have done. "It is perfectly obvious you have no regrets or remorse whatsoever. "Burglary is your chosen way of life. "This one took place barely two weeks after your release. "You are a persistent burglar. "You have an appalling record and it is extremely likely you will continue to offend."
'We didn't really think we'd get away with it': The astonishing story of how two young Irish men completed an audacious £7m art heist
In 1956 Paul Hogan shocked the world by unhooking an Impressionist masterpiece from a wall in the Tate and carrying it calmly out of the gallery
As Paul Hogan came dashing down the steps of London’s Tate Gallery in 1956 with a £7m Impressionist masterpiece under his arm after coolly unhooking it from its hanging place moments earlier, his picture was taken by a press photographer who happened to be waiting outside.
The resulting image shows the young Irish art student, the belt of his tweed overcoat flapping as he moves at speed, grappling with the heavy gilt frame containing Berthe Morisot’s Jour d’Eté and two large pieces of card attempting to cover the image of two French ladies on a boating lake. After jumping into a taxi, Mr Hogan realised he had no idea where to take his loot and instructed the driver to head to the only place he could think of - Piccadilly Circus. As art heists go, it was audacious but it was hardly the crime of the century. Indeed, it was never meant to be. Mr Hogan, then 25, and his accomplice, Bill Fogarty, a trainee vet from Galway, had staged the theft on 12 April 1956 solely to highlight Ireland’s claim to the Hugh Lane collection - some 39 paintings, including world class Impressionist works such as Jour d’Eté, which had been bequeathed by their wealthy owner to both London and Dublin before he perished on the Lusitania in 1915. A last-minute codicil to the art dealer’s will had promised the collection to the Irish Republic but because it was unwitnessed, a previous clause giving the paintings to the Tate was enforced by Britain - creating a further source of rancour between the two nations. Berthe Morisot’s Jour d’Eté, stolen by Paul Hogan in 1956 Such was the desire of the two young men to gain publicity for their brazen daylight snatch that they had tipped off the Irish News Agency on Fleet Street about a “demonstration” to take place that day outside the Tate. It was the agency’s photographer who took the shot of Mr Hogan, which was then promptly surrendered to police once it became clear what had happened and used to try to trace the suspects. From the point of view of the “thieves”, who claimed the raid on behalf of the Irish National Students Council, the operation was a brilliant success. The story made headlines around the world and even served to knock the other great event of that day - Grace Kelly’s wedding to Prince Ranier of Monaco - from the front pages of some British newspapers. But what has remained secret until now is the extent to which the antics of Mr Hogan, who was the son of a senior Irish civil servant and aide to Irish Taoiseach Eamon De Valera, and Mr Fogarty created panic at the highest levels of the British state. The Scotland Yard file on the theft of Jour d’Eté had been ordered to remain under lock and key for 75 years until 2031 but it has now been released to The Independent under the Freedom of Information Act. The 86-page file, which has been heavily redacted in places, reveals that although police were confident they had identified the two students, who went on the run after their escapade and eventually made it back to Dublin via Blackpool and Liverpool, the Yard and the Director of Public Prosecutions resolved not to prosecute the pair for fear of turning them into “martyrs” for the Irish cause.
The documents show that the authorities were doubly reluctant to put the men on trial because they felt the inevitable publicity would expose the shambolic security at the Tate, where national treasures had been hung unsecured and a warder had let Mr Hogan walk out of the building in the belief he was taking the Morisot (worth £10,000 in 1956 but now valued at £7m) to be photographed. Officers were concerned that news of the ease with which the painting had been taken would spark a spree of more hard-nosed raids at the gallery, the custodian of key works by British artists such as Constable and Turner. Sir John Rothenstein carries the painting 'Jour d'Ete' into the Tate after it was handed into the Irish embassyMr Hogan, now aged 84, told The Independent he and his colleague had been astonished to get away with their stunt: “We had decided our only way of getting away with it would be walk out of the front door. But we didn’t really think we’d get away with it. I’m not surprised if the authorities were reluctant to prosecute - if I had been the head of the Tate Gallery, the last thing I would have wanted was further publicity.” After a four-day manhunt, which saw watches put in place at Heathrow and all ports to try to intercept the painting as well as an alert being issued to Interpol, the missing painting was returned to the Tate via the Irish embassy and an anonymous female friend of Mr Hogan. In a memo to colleagues, the unnamed Metropolitan Police commander dealing with the theft outlined the reasons why he and the DPP had decided not to pursue charges. The officer wrote: “This was not a larceny with intent to sell the picture to somebody else. Although it was not exactly of a political nature, it was made in a misguided sense of patriotism… If these men were charged they would then be heroes or martyrs.” The officer then added grumpily: “One other point too I mentioned, that in such proceedings, the complete lack of security measures, so far as a National Picture Gallery was concerned, would be revealed and it might encourage others with a real felonious intent.”
The plot to highlight the injustice of Sir Hugh Lane’s bequest residing in London had been hatched just a few weeks earlier when Mr Hogan, then a student at the Dublin College of Art, came across a pamphlet written by the collector’s aunt, Lady Augusta Gregory, agitating for her nephew’s paintings to be restored to Ireland. Lane, a Cork-born art collector, became determined during his lifetime to see Dublin host a world-class art collection and offered his paintings - including Renoir’s Les Parapluies and works by Manet, Pissarro and Vuillard - to Ireland on the basis that they be hosted in a purpose-built gallery in the capital. When no gallery was forthcoming, Lane changed his will to leave the works to London. But shortly before his death when the Lusitania cruise liner was sunk by a German torpedo the collector renewed his bequest to Dublin. Because the document was never witnessed, Britain refused to recognise it as legally binding and removed the collection to the Tate as the Irish Republic was declared in 1922. Mr Hogan and Mr Fogarty, who it later emerged was a member of the Official IRA, hatched their scheme while walking home together one evening and then travelled to London, staying at the Irish Club in Belgravia to allow them to reconnoitre the gallery - with the aid of a forged letter of introduction from the Dublin College of Art - and select the Morisot as their target. Detectives investigating the theft likened the incident to the hijacking six years earlier of the Stone of Scone by four Scottish students who stole the relic from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1950. Another Yard memo states: “I suggest that we treat this in the same way as the matter of the Stone of Scone… The two students in this case apparently belong to that school of thought which prefers action to words. I am reliably informed that they cared little for the risk of discovery they ran when they took the picture. This rather tends to explain the audacious manner they adopted.” The Yard file, released at the National Archives in Kew, west London, reveals the brazen nature of the theft. The file relating to the theft has been released after 59 years (Getty) Dennis Fisk, an 18-year-old insurance clerk, was visiting the Tate to look at Jour d’Eté and other paintings when he noticed the two men approach the Morisot carrying two large pieces of cardboard. In his statement to police, Mr Fisk said: “Together they lifted the picture from its hooks on the wall on to the floor and placed it between the cardboard. The man carrying the picture when he had gone a few paces turned round and nodded to the second man… I thought that these men had the authority to remove this painting.” The clerk then recounted how he had queried what he had just seen with a gallery attendant. He said: “I pointed to the blank space on the wall… and said to him, ‘Shouldn’t there be a painting there?’. He said, ‘It has been taken to the photographers and may be away a number of days’.” The words were prophetic - the painting was indeed being photographed ahead of a short absence, though not in quite the manner the attendant had imagined. As well as garnering publicity, the theft also arguably achieved the wider goal of its perpetrators. By 1959, it was announced that Britain and Ireland would share the paintings - a deal which was recently updated to ensure that 27 of the works remain permanently in Dublin with the remaining 12 rotated between the two capitals every six years. And what became of the dashing patriotic art thieves? Mr Fogarty died in 2002 in a state of poverty while Mr Hogan, who became a senior Irish trade official, continues to live in his native Dublin. Their exploits could yet hit the big screen. Mr Hogan’s nephew, the Irish actor Stephen Hogan, is in the process of writing a script with Oscar-nominated collaborators to seek funding for a film. In the meantime, one of its protagonists remains proud of his youthful flirtation with notoriety. Paul Hogan told The Independent: “We achieved what we set out to do. We were enormously successful in putting the issue in the headlines. I don’t think I was any more of a tearaway than anyone else I knew.”
Stolen 15th-century Torbryan church icons recovered by police
Holy Trinity church in Devon faces £7,000 costs to restore icons hacked out of their panels by thieves in 2013
The panels were recognised in an online sale by a collector who had seen media coverage of the stolen artefacts. Photograph: Mark Passmore/Apex
Two priceless 15th -entury oak panels that were stolen from the rood screen of a west country church have been recovered by detectives. The decorative oak panels were taken from Holy Trinity church at Torbryan in Devon in the summer of 2013.
Bearing images of St Victor of Marseilles and St Margaret of Antioch, the panels were found by the Metropolitan police’s art and antiques unit after being spotted by a private collector in an online sale. This led to a raid by specialist detectives in south London earlier this year and the recovery of the panels, along with dozens of other artefacts. The rood screen and its panels are particularly precious as they are one of only a handful of such artworks in England that survived the reformation. Despite elation at their recovery, the trust faces a £7,000 bill to restore the damage – the result of the thieves hacking the panels out of the screen – and has launched a campaign to raise the money. Currently they are in storage in Bristol. Holy Trinity is one of 347 historic churches cared for by the charity the Churches Conservation Trust. Its chief executive, Crispin Truman, said: “Torbryan rood screen is one of the highlights of this internationally significant collection. The theft of these unique artworks from Holy Trinity was a real blow, so we’re delighted that they are now back in our hands. “Unfortunately the damage caused as the thieves hacked them out of the church will cost a lot to put right. “The CCT is committed to displaying unique artefacts like these panels in their original setting and open to the public for everyone to see and enjoy.”
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The Rev Peter Ashman, the incumbent vicar, added: “The value of the panels cannot be underestimated – they form part of a unique collection of medieval paintings preserved from destruction during the reformation housed in a beautiful and very special church. We look forward to their safe return where they belong.” Historian and presenter Dan Cruickshank, who backed the original campaign to find the stolen panels, said: “I’m delighted that these 15th-century artworks – once feared lost forever – have been recovered. The panels are irreplaceable examples of an important period in our art and history, and pieces like this help us to learn about who we are as a society. They should belong to everyone.” The discovery of the screens prompted the police to set up an operation codenamed Icarus, which has led to a treasure trove of other church artefacts, including stonework, friezes, statues, paintings, brasses, misericords, stained glass and bibles, being recovered. Among the items already returned to where they belong are a pair of misericords – mercy seats – that were taken from St Cuthbert’s Church at Holme Lacy in Herefordshire. Saxon stonework has also been returned to another church in Herefordshire, St David’s in Much Dewchurch. Police are struggling to identify many of the items recovered, sometimes because churches do not know they have gone. The collector who first went to the police wishes to remain anonymous. It is understood he recognised the panels from media coverage of the theft. Since the theft, the Churches Conservation Trust have conducted an audit of security at Holy Trinity, Torbryan, and a new alarm system is now in place at the church. The painted saints, once part of a procession of 40 panels stretching the width of the church, are exceptionally rare because so few figurative paintings, either on panels or stained glass, survived the flurry of image-smashing during the reformation in the 16th century. Most rood screens – which originally divided the nave from the altar area of the church and supported carved crosses – were dismantled and either burned or recycled for their wood. Those with representations of saints were particularly targeted. The Torbryan panels were restored in the 19th century from beneath layers of whitewash that may have been deliberately applied to protect them from iconoclasts. They were regarded as among the best preserved in Britain. The church itself is unusual because it was built in one phase, between 1450 and 1470, with a spectacular fan-vaulted ceiling, instead of the usual pattern of gradual extension over centuries. Both the carving and the painting of the screen were of very high quality, and the piece is believed to have been a contemporary commission from an unknown master craftsman for the church.
Matisse From Gurlitt Collection Is Returned to Jewish Art Dealer’s Heirs
Christopher A. Marinello, a lawyer who specializes in tracking down looted and stolen art, with the recovered Matisse, "Femme Assise," in Munich on Friday.Credit Wolf Heider-Sawall/Art Recovery, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
MUNICH — The slide made public in November 2013 showing a painting of a woman wearing a white blouse embroidered with blue, purple and red flowers, with a fan on her lap, was grainy, but its subject was immediately recognizable to Elaine Rosenberg. It showed a priceless Matisse. Her family’s Matisse.
Christopher A. Marinello, a lawyer who specializes in tracking down stolen art, was in a New York hotel room at the time, when his phone rang. It was Ms. Rosenberg, his client and a descendant of Paul Rosenberg, one of the world’s leading dealers in Modern art, whose collection, including the Matisse, “Femme Assise,” or “Seated Woman/Woman Sitting in an Armchair,” was looted by the Nazis.
“She told me, ‘That is our painting, go get it,’ ” Mr. Marinello said.
On Friday, more than 70 years after its disappearance and after a year and a half of hard-nosed negotiations, the painting was handed over to Mr. Marinello, on behalf of the Rosenbergs, at an art storage facility in southern Germany.
Part of the art trove hoarded by Cornelius Gurlitt and discovered in his Munich apartment in 2012, it was one of the first two paintings from the collection to make it back to the families of the original Jewish owners.
Another painting found in Mr. Gurlitt’s home, “Two Riders on the Beach,” by Max Liebermann, was also handed over this week. Representatives of the descendants of David Friedmann, a Jewish industrialist from Breslau, whose art collection was looted by the Nazis, took possession of the picture on Wednesday, said August J. Matteis Jr., a lawyer who represents David Toren, a great-nephew.
The restitutions this week are the culmination of a discovery that upended the art world and laid bare the cumbersome bureaucracy in Germany that still hampers the return of looted works, despite pledges by the government to right the wrongs of previous generations. The Germans have vowed to provide proactive clarification and a fair and just solution, in keeping with Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art.
Yet for Mr. Marinello, getting to this day involved combing through roughly 250,000 documents, letters and photographs in the Rosenberg family’s records; chasing down signatures of the rightful heirs and Mr. Gurlitt’s descendants; and pressing the authorities, past one failed agreement and through numerous phone calls and emails — including one exchange with the leading German researcher in which she insisted that “provenance research can’t be rushed.”
“The Germans are sticklers for detail and accuracy, which is good and important in provenance research, but following the process can be very frustrating to people like my clients, who are humans who suffered at the hands of one of the worst regimes in history,” Mr. Marinello said.
The Rosenberg family thanked German officials for their cooperation and encouraged others to pursue the return of looted works. “There is a great deal to be learned from this case,” the family said in a statement.
More than 1,200 pieces were found in Mr. Gurlitt’s apartment, another 250 in his Salzburg home. Two more works, including a Carl Spitzweg painting and a Pissarro called “View of Paris,” have been recognized as looted art. A task force established by the German government and the state of Bavaria continues to investigate the ownership history of about 590 works, while Mr. Gurlitt’s decision to leave his estate to the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland faces legal challenges.
Monika Grütters, who was appointed Germany’s minister of culture shortly after the collection’s existence became public, responded to international pressure by doubling the country’s budget for provenance research to 4 million euros, or $4.6 million, and establishing the German Center for Cultural Property Losses. The center serves as a clearing house for all provenance research in the country and as a central point for people seeking information about a missing painting or the history of a work in a private collection.
Germany has invested €13 million in provenance research and restituted 12,000 objects over the past decade, many of them books. But families and even small museums have been stymied by uncertainty over where to go for information related to looted works, as well as some insensitivity as to what is at stake.
Prosecutors in Augsburg, Germany, who confiscated the works from Mr. Gurlitt’s home in February 2012 as part of a tax investigation, kept the discovery a secret. Only a year later, after a wave of international criticism over its handling of the art, did the Culture Ministry intervene.
Mr. Marinello, who runs Art Recovery International, based in London, sent documents proving the Rosenberg claim to the judge in Augsburg who had jurisdiction over the case at the time. They included inventory cards listing the Matisse as item 1721, and a 1946 declaration to the French government signed by Paul Rosenberg that included the Matisse among works still missing.
Mr. Marinello never received a response.
Several weeks later, he composed a letter in German and sent it directly to Mr. Gurlitt. That led to negotiations that nearly resulted in the painting’s return. But hours before he was to board a flight from London in March 2014, his phone rang — Mr. Gurlitt had fired his lawyer, and the restitution was off.
Two months later, Mr. Gurlitt, 81, died in his home, leaving his collection to the Kunstmuseum Bern. Although agreements reached with the German and Bavarian governments before his death stipulated that any works that were found to have been looted were to be returned to their rightful owners, the Rosenbergs and other families now faced negotiations not only with the German task force but also the Munich probate court handling the estate.
All that time, the painting sat in a warehouse outside Munich.
Mr. Marinello took possession of the work on behalf of the Rosenberg family at the storage depot early Friday. He declined to say what the family intended to do with the painting, aside from having it cleaned to remove the layers of grime and to restore the original brilliance of its colors.
The first step, however, would be to get it out of the country. “It is definitely leaving Germany,” he said.
Murder hunt launched after death of infamous criminal John 'Goldfinger' Palmer
Convicted comnan, John 'Goldfinger' Palmer was initially thought to have died as a result of natural causes, but police now confirm they are treating his death as a murder inquiry
Police launch a murder inquiry after death of John 'Goldfinger' PalmerPhoto: Rex
By Martin Evans and Gordon Rayner
7:18AM BST 02 Jul 2015
John “Goldfinger” Palmer, one of Britain’s most notorious criminals, has become the latest underworld figure to fall victim to the “curse of Brink’s-MAT” after he was shot dead at his home.
Palmer, who was tried for melting down gold bars stolen in the £26 million theft of bullion and jewellery from a warehouse at Heathrow Airport, is the eighth person with close links to the 1983 robbery to be shot dead.
The 64-year-old was initially reported to have died of natural causes when his body was found at his home in South Weald, near Brentwood, Essex, on June 24, but Essex Police have now launched a murder inquiry after a post-mortem examination found he had been shot in the chest.
Palmer, who was once described as Britain’s richest criminal with a fortune of £300m, was jailed at the Old Bailey in 2001 over his involvement in a vast timeshare swindle, which cost thousands of British holidaymakers their life savings.
John ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer, with his former wife Marnie in 1987, was said to have had a £300 million fortune But he was best known for his connection to the Brink’s-MAT heist, for which he was tried in 1987. He was said to have melted down bullion from the robbery in his back garden, but he denied knowing the bullion was stolen and was acquitted. The Brink’s-MAT robbery was carried out by a gang of six, who had expected to find £3 million in cash but instead discovered three tonnes of gold in the warehouse owned by an American security company. Only three men – Micky McAvoy, Brian Robinson and his brother-in-law Anthony Black, a security guard at the warehouse – were ever convicted of carrying out the robbery. Because the gang had no expertise in handling gold, they had to recruit other underworld figures to help them dispose of the metal and launder their money.
Days before his death he had been told that he faced 15 years in jail for another alleged timeshare fraud
Inevitably, gangsters connected with the robbery fell out with each other and violence followed. Nick Whiting, who was accused by some gang members of being an informant, was the first to be killed, in 1990, when he was stabbed nine times and shot twice. The same year Charlie Wilson, one of the Great Train Robbers, who had been hired to launder some of the proceeds of Brink’s-MAT, was shot dead on his doorstep in Marbella. Donald Urquhart, a money launderer, was found shot dead in 1995. The following year Keith Hedley, another suspected money launderer linked to the raid, was shot and killed by three men on his yacht off Corfu, and two years later Solly Nahome, a Hatton Garden jeweller said to have handled the stolen gold, was found dead outside his home in Finchley with four bullets in his head. (left - right) Nick Whiting, Charlie Wilson and Donald Urquhart Then in 2001 Brian Perry, who served a jail sentence for handling the gold, was shot in the head. George Francis, said to have been another member of the gang, was also shot dead the same year. Around half of the stolen gold remains unaccounted for. Palmer had been facing trial over another alleged timeshare con at the time of his death. He had been charged with fraud, firearm possession and money laundering after an eight-year investigation in Tenerife, where he had his second home. Days before his death he had been told he could be facing a 15-year prison sentence, and nine others were also facing charges, including his girlfriend Christine Ketley and nephews Andrew Palmer and Dean Morris. (Clockwise from top left) Solly Nahome, Brian Perry and George Francis and Kenneth Noye DCI Simon Werrett, from Essex Police, who is leading the investigation, has called for the public's help. He said: "My team would like to speak to anybody who was around Sandpit Lane between 4pm and 6pm on Wednesday June 24. The area is rural but is often used by dog walkers and joggers. "Did you see any people or suspicious vehicles in the area? Did you witness anything out of the ordinary? "Officers are at the scene making enquiries and I would urge anyone with information, no matter how small, to come forward."
Paintings stolen decades ago returning to Amsterdam Museum
Posted on by Janene Van Jaarsve A harp player - by Charles van Beveren (Picture: Facebook/Amsterdam Museum)
Five paintings that were stolen from n outside depot of the Amsterdam Museum and the Stedelijk Museum in 1972 have been found at a British auction, the museum announced in a press release on Wednesday. The paintings have been returned to the Amsterdam collection.“We are overjoyed that these works have returned to the Amsterdam museum after 43 years.” Paul Spies, director of the Amsterdam Museum, said. “It is unique that works are recovered after such a long time. We are therefore grateful to anyone who played a role in this for their help.” A total of 49 paintings were stolen from the depot in 1972. 31 of these were traced over the years. The five 19th century paintings that were found now are A harp player by Belgian painter Charles van Beveren, Flute player with sheep by Frederik Hendrik Kaemmerer, The Death of General Hans Willemvan Aylva painted by Chales Rochussen, The resting model by French-Polish artist Emile Eisman Semenowsky and A sitting page with a dog by Belgian artist Florent Willems. The paintings were surfaced in an auction house in Lewes, Britain, While checking the origin of the paintings, the auctioneer discovered that the works were listed in the Art Loss Register – the international database for missing art and antiques. According to the museum, the owner who had given the works up for auction had no idea that they were stolen.
The resting model – by Emile Eisman Semenowsky (Picture: Facebook/Amsterdam Museum)
A sitting page with a dog – by Florent Willems (Picture: Facebook/Amsterdam Museum)
Flute player with sheep – by Frederik Hendrik Kaemmerer (Picture: Facebook/Amsterdam Museum)
Death of General Hans Willem van Aylva – by Charles Rochussen (Picture: Facebook/Amsterdam Museum)
There has been much chatter recently about the Cezanne stolen from the Ashmolean Museum on New Years eve 1999-New Years day 2000. Rumours it is being held in the North of England, Newcastle was mentioned as well as the usual runours of it being held as collateral.
The BBC Radio Four programme Steve Punt PI has recorded an episode about the Ashmolean Cezanne, which Art Hostage was asked to contribute too. However, knowing the way the BBC acts and the kind of negative narrative they pursue, Art Hostage declined. Charlie Hill did however contribute and was recorded whilst taking a stroll through the Ashmolean Museum several weeks ago. The latest is the Steve Punt PI programme has been delayed because of the current undercover operation, which has failed, according to BBC sources, to try and recover the Ashmolean Cezanne and arrest those who have information about the Ashmolean Cezanne.
Charlie Hill has finally succumbed to the Dick Ellis, of (QUINTONS FARM HOUSE GROVE LANE ASHFIELD STOWMARKET IP146LZ) format of setting up people and was trying deperately to gain a glimse of the Cezanne so Police could swoop and recover it and arrest those within a mile radius. Sadly, for Charlie Hill and the Ashmolean Museum, this latest sting attempt, according to sources at the BBC, failed and the Cezanne remains elusive as ever.
So, if the news had broken the Ashmolean Cezanne had been recovered and arrests had of been made, those involved would only have had themselves to blame, as it has been pointed out time and time again
"There is no reward, no fee, no money at all for the recovery of the Ashmolean Cezanne and anyone thinking they can get any kind of payment is in for a rude awakeneing and will be arrested, charged and taken through the courts"
Anyone proporting to represent the Ashmolean Museum, Insurance company etc is always going to be Undercover Police and as soon as there was the slightest glimse of the Ashmolean Cezanne or the whereabouts of the Ashmolean Cezanne had of been deduced, Police would have swooped and arrests would have followed. This is common knowledge amongst the art crime underworld and has proven the case time and time again, so Art Hostage is certainly not revealing anything secret or covert.
Take this failed attempt as a warning that there are no rewards, no fee, no payments of any kind for the recovery of stolen art. The recent civil court case of the Da Vinci Madonna proved beyond all reasonable doubt, the days of payments for recovering stolen art are well and truly over.
Back-story:
Watching the detective
Sunday 5 August 2001 If you need to track down a stolen masterpiece, call investigator Charlie Hill. John Wilson goes undercover (no cameras please...) with the scourge of international art thievery
A west London Greek-Cypriot restaurant on a sultry Saturday night. A family place. Three birthday parties are in full swing, toasts are joined from every part of the room, plates are hurled to the floor and the man on the synthesiser pumps out a steady medley of Hellenic hits.
(This west London Greek-Cypriot restaurant is owned by the nephew of the infamous Bertie Smalls, the first Police Supergrass, with the code name Colin and Charlie Hill's top informant.) If Thomas Crown really existed, you wouldn't find him here. Neither would you bump into Dr No, Captain Nemo or Raffles on their nights off from international art thievery. But according to my dining companion, Charlie Hill, one of the world's leading private investigators of stolen treasures, this ostentatious suburban eatery, owned by Charlie Hill's top informant, Colin, the nephew of the infamous Police Supergrass Bertie Smalls, is a favourite hang-out for a pool of villains who marvel at these fictional thieves' taste for Monet rather than money. 'They've seen the movies - Pierce Brosnan in the Thomas Crown remake or Sean Connery in Entrapment - and think it's cool, sexy,' Hill tells me. 'Look, even the less intelligent ones realise they can't sell a Monet or Cézanne to the local art dealer or ask Sotheby's to get the best offer. But that doesn't mean the work is worthless. It's about kudos. If you arrive for a drugs deal with masterpiece in your boot, the other team know you're serious.' I head for the lavatory to check whether the tiny minidisc recorder hidden in the lining of my jacket is still working and to make sure the button-hole microphone is picking up anything we're saying above the plate-smashing and drunken cheers. I rejoin Charlie Hill, try to affect a look of nonchalant disdain and not spill hummus down my shirt as I steer the pin mike in the direction of his stage whispers. Who are those heavies in the sports jackets? 'Serbs; one of them I know well. He doesn't know me luckily, except by reputation.' The crop-headed man in the fawn three-button is aware of our attention, but probably doesn't realise he has been identified as an international art thief by a private investigator. 'He was recently doing time in a Belgian prison for stealing a Van Dyck,' says Hill casually. 'Actually, it turned out to be the work of a student of Van Dyck, so when he was arrested and then found out it wasn't even the real thing, he felt doubly ripped off. I didn't know he was out already.' The company the Serb chooses to keep - in the restaurant that will remain nameless for health and safety reasons - is multinational. Amid the Greek families celebrating noisily lurk small groups of middle-aged men, hunched conspiratorially across tables and casting an occasional wary eye round the vast room. This used to be part of Hill's uncharted territory when he was a detective with the Metropolitan Police's art and antiques squad. Working undercover, Hill would pitch up at the bar to make casual conversation with whoever was lurking. 'To them, I was a bar-room bore who worked in insurance. Very often I'd be offered jewellery and antiques. Then the eastern European crowd arrived and there'd be talk of religious icons and antiques, looted from churches. That stuff goes on here all the time, but occasionally you get the big fish, the ones who are looking to offload a painting, maybe worth millions.' Hill's greatest claim to fame, though one he couldn't publicly take the credit for at the time, is as the undercover Scotland Yard art and antiques squad chief who recovered Edvard Munch's The Scream from the thieves who raided the national museum in 1994. Cheekily, the robbers had celebrated their heist by leaving in the space vacated by that icon of existential angst a postcard depicting three men doubled up in mirth at some private joke. On the card was scrawled the message: 'Thanks for the poor security.' The thieves stopped laughing when Hill, posing as a bow-tied representative of the Getty Museum and carrying a £500,000 'ransom' in a suitcase, was handed the painting and called in Norwegian police and Interpol officers to complete the sting. Though Hill is quick to dismiss the James Bond parallels, his story - of fooling the robbers with a steady patter of Californian-accented art-speak, of seeing the Munch carried up from the cellar of a fjord-side chalet, of verifying its authenticity by the distinctive wax-splatter on one corner of the canvas ('Munch had blown out a candle as he was painting it') - is gripping stuff. The Scream is back at home in Oslo. For a while, it joined a virtual gallery that, if collected together in a single room, would shame the Tates, Guggenheims and Gettys: 355 Picassos, 250 Chagalls, 180 Dalis, 120 Rembrandts and 115 Renoirs are among the staggering list of missing masterpieces. Hill talks of stolen paintings, particularly Cézanne's Auvers-sur-Oise, lifted from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford in an audacious millennium eve raid, Titian's Rest on the Flight to Egypt, taken from Longleat House, and two Turners, now in the hands of Serbian gangsters after being snatched from a Frankfurt gallery while on loan, with the passion of an art collector. Acres of empty wall space has been left in galleries and homes around the world. Helping to refill those gaps gives him a purpose in life, Hill claims. The Charles Hill Partnership is an international detective agency specialising in tracing stolen art. Its website offers investigative services and advice on 'sensitive problems that fall outside the scope of mainstream advisers'. Having served with the Met for 20 years, Charlie Hill knows that the police, whose scaled-down art squad now investigates art crime only within the London region, work within tightly reined financial and ethical limitations. By talking directly to the villains, and by making it clear to others within the art-crime community that informers will be paid, Hill knows he's wandering into tricky legal territory. The fine ethical line that distinguishes a reward, which could end up in the hands of close associates of those holding the loot, and a ransom, which all agree must never be paid, is often difficult to discern. There's £100,000 of Lord Bath's money up for grabs if anyone will point him in the exact direction of Titian's Rest on the Flight to Egypt, which was ripped from the walls of his ancestral home in 1995. It's widely accepted by art-theft investigators that the early sixteenth-century Italian masterpiece once admired by visitors to Longleat House is currently in the hands of new curators within the travelling community. People within the same community, maybe neighbours or cousins, are also looking after Jean-Baptiste Oudry's The White Duck on behalf of Lord Cholmondeley until it's returned to Houghton Hall in Norfolk. Though he won't go into detail about the investigation, Hill reveals that he has spoken to those holding the Titian, though any appeal for return on aesthetic or altruistic grounds is hopeless. 'They just wouldn't understand,' he sighs. The formation of the Charles Hill Partnership meant that the 'art-risk consultant' had to break cover after years in the murky sub-strata of criminal investigation. Hill used to adopt a variety of pseudonyms and guises, his favourite involving the bow-tie and the American accent. He preferred not to be photographed for this article. Sipping Greek wine and dipping into his meze in the west London thieves' eatery, Hill now looks every inch the successful insurance salesman, in pastel colours, thick-rimmed specs and middle-aged spread. The Charles Hill business website includes a CV that refers to a former career as a soldier. 'Oh, yes, that was Vietnam,' he explains, deadpan. 'Really?''Yes, really.' The son of an American intelligence officer, Hill was born in Britain, moved to Washington as a boy and, after sitting out high-school classes in the company of a young, wannabe journalist called Al Gore, enlisted for the army. While teenage contemporaries were marching on the Pentagon, Charlie Hill was stalking the jungles near the Cambodian border with a M16 in one hand and a book in the other. For the year he served with the 173rd Airborne Brigade - 'shooting people, being shot at, but never getting hit' - he was nicknamed 'the Professor' and regarded as a talisman by colleagues who marvelled at his ability to avoid the bullets. Having volunteered for Vietnam to 'satisfy my intellectual curiosity', Hill won a Fulbright scholarship to Trinity College, Dublin, to study modern history. Spiritual curiosity nudged him next in the direction of a theology degree at King's College, London. Hill then joined the police. He worked undercover with various crime squads from the mid-Eighties, most notably the art and antiques squad, which, between 1994 and 1996, he led as chief superintendent. As we talk, Hill glances around. He was introduced to this restaurant by a safe-cracker 12 years ago. In the old days, alongside the thieves, fraudsters and drug dealers, you'd find half of the CID sniffing round for leads, rubbing shoulders with the rogues. 'Police work? It's all about paper-work and conviction targets now,' he sniffs. Just as he begins to head off down memory lane, Hill interrupts himself. He has spotted another face, a man whose plans to lift the Alfred Jewel from the Ashmolean were rumbled. The plan was resurrected on 31 December 1999, with Cézanne's Auvers-sur-Oise as the new target. The execution was perfect: an elegant drop through the skylights, a smokescreen using a grenade and a hand-held electric fan to fill the gallery with dense white smoke, all timed to coincide with millennial fireworks on the streets of Oxford. 'If that guy hasn't got the Cézanne, he knows a man who does,' says Hill. As we head for door, I'm conscious that the wire of my mike has slipped and is swinging loose. I glance nervously around. Ashmolean man is laughing into his beer at some private joke. • John Wilson presents Stealing Beauty on Tuesday, 8pm, BBC R4
Jenson Button burglary: Gas suspected in F1 driver break-in
Anaesthetic gas may have been used against Jenson Button and his wife Jessica during a burglary in France, the Formula 1 driver's spokesman says.
Two men, who stole jewellery including Jessica's engagement ring, may have pumped gas through the air conditioning before Monday's break-in, he said. The couple were with friends in a rented villa in Saint-Tropez. The British former F1 champion's spokesman said they were unharmed but everyone was "unsurprisingly shaken". The Sun newspaper reported that valuables worth £300,000 were stolen. The couple married in December. Button's spokesman said: "Two men broke into the property whilst they all slept and stole a number of items of jewellery including, most upsettingly, Jessica's engagement ring. "The police have indicated that this has become a growing problem in the region with perpetrators going so far as to gas their proposed victims through the air conditioning units before breaking in." Button, 35, who drives for team McLaren, is based in Monaco, about 80 miles (130km) along the coast from Saint-Tropez. He won the F1 championship in 2009 driving for Brawn GP and finished in eighth place in 2014.
Roman Totenberg’s Stolen Stradivarius Is Found After 35 Years
The Ames Stradivarius recovered by the F.B.I. in June.Credit Federal Bureau of Investigation, via Associated Press
It was a cold case for more than three decades — a cold violin case — but now it has been closed. A Stradivarius violin that disappeared without a trace after it was stolen in 1980 from the violin virtuoso Roman Totenberg has been found, and is being restored to his family, said one of his daughters, Nina Totenberg.
Ms. Totenberg, the legal affairs correspondent for NPR news, reported the discovery of her father’s stolen violin on Thursday morning on NPR’s “Morning Edition.” She said in an interview that law enforcement officials were planning to hold a news conference about it in New York on Thursday afternoon.
The violin — which was made in 1734 and is known as the Ames Stradivarius — was stolen in May 1980 from Mr. Totenberg’s office at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass., where he was then the director. Mr. Totenberg, a teacher and virtuoso who performed as a soloist with major orchestras and worked with Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Leopold Stokowski and Arthur Rubinstein, died in 2012 at the age of 101. His violin was valued at $250,000 when it was stolen; these days, Stradivarius violins often sell for millions of dollars.
Photo
Nina Totenberg, a daughter of the violinist Roman Totenberg, reported the discovery of her father’s stolen violin on Thursday morning on NPR’s “Morning Edition.”Credit Molly Riley/Associated Press
Stolen Stradivarius violins are hard to sell because they are so recognizable. This one turned up, Ms. Totenberg said, after a California woman met with an appraiser in New York in June with a violin she said she had inherited from her late ex-husband.
“The appraiser looks at her and says, ‘Well, I have some good news and some bad news,’” Ms. Totenberg said. “‘The good news is that this is a real Stradivarius. And the bad news is it was stolen, 35, 36 years ago from Roman Totenberg, and I have to report it right away.’ And within two hours, two agents from the F.B.I. art theft team were there.”
A law enforcement official said one of the agents was able to call up digital images of the stolen Stradivarius while en route to see it. Then measurements were taken, which matched those of the missing Ames. The official said that no charges are expected to be filed in connection with the case. Details on the suspected thief were not immediately available.
Ms. Totenberg said that the woman had inherited the violin from the man Ms. Totenberg’s father had suspected all along of stealing the instrument. The man had been seen in the vicinity of his office at Longy near the time of the theft, and a woman once visited Mr. Totenberg and told him that she believed that the man had stolen his violin. But to the family’s frustration, investigators at the time apparently did not believe that the tip was sufficient for them to obtain a search warrant.
“My mother was so frustrated,” Ms. Totenberg recalled, “that she famously went around Boston asking her friends if they knew anybody in the mob who would break into this guy’s apartment.”
An F.B.I. agent put in a call to Ms. Totenberg to tell her that the violin had been recovered in late June.
The next morning, Ms. Totenberg spoke by phone with her two sisters. “We were just crying and laughing on the phone,” she said.
Ms. Totenberg said she was sad that her father was not alive to see his instrument restored. The bond between musicians and instruments is a powerful one. After the theft, Mr. Totenberg, who had owned it for 38 years, told CBS News in 1981 that it had taken two decades of playing it before the instrument reached its potential, saying that “it took some time to wake it up, to work it out, find all the things that it needed, the right kind of strings and so on and so on.”
But she said that he would have been furious “if he’d know that the person that he’d thought took it had in fact taken it, and all these years had it hidden away, not maintaining it the way one should, not caring for it as a special baby, not having it played.”
She said that the family has now paid back the insurance money that Mr. Totenberg collected after the violin was stolen, and that it planned to have the Ames Stradivarius restored and sold.
“We’re going to make sure that it’s in the hands of another great artist who will play it in concert halls all over the world,” she said. “All of us feel very strongly that the voice has been stilled for too long.”
Roman Totenberg playing the Stradivarius. Pic: courtesy of Nina Totenberg
Spain Says Banker’s Seized Picasso Will Head Back Home
Picasso’s “Head of a Young Woman.”Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
PARIS — To the Spanish authorities, Picasso’s 1906 “Head of a Young Woman” is a unique painting, the only example in Spain from a pivotal period in the artist’s life. Because of that status, the courts labeled it a “national treasure” that should not be sold outside the country.
In the view of Jaime Botín, a member of a wealthy Spanish banking dynasty, the work is simply his personal property. Purchased in 1977 and kept on a yacht docked along Spain’s Mediterranean coast, it is valued at as much as 26 million euros, or $28.3 million, in today’s booming art market.
But on Friday, after an apparent tip from the Spanish authorities, it was seized by French customs officials from the yacht, which had docked in Corsica. The Spanish government contends that Mr. Botín was trying to move the Picasso to Switzerland for sale, in defiance of a court ruling invoking a Spanish law meant to shield such works of art from export.
It is only the latest collision of powerful forces in the art world, where demand from the superrich has enticed owners to sell their treasures, even as national governments scramble to keep such works at home.
Many countries, including Germany and Ireland, are weighing new export controls for cherished artworks, like several Rubens paintings that had been selected for auction this year by the Russborough House museum in eastern Ireland.
Spain has had such a protectionist law for 30 years, and the seizure of the Picasso is being closely watched as an illustration of how an attempt to protect state interests can clash with private ownership rights.
Rafael Mateu de Ros, Mr. Botín’s lawyer in Madrid, said in a statement that his client is pressing an appeal to Spain’s Supreme Court, arguing that the painting could not have been exported unlawfully because it was purchased abroad, and its permanent address was aboard the yacht, the Adix, which is registered in Britain.
“For years now, the picture has been inside a British vessel, which is foreign territory for all who that may concern, even when it is moored in Spanish ports,” he added.
Spain could ultimately take ownership of the painting if it finds that Mr. Botín, 79, violated its cultural protection laws against illicit trafficking. Or it could simply fine Mr. Botín and bar him from moving it out of the country again. Infractions carry administrative penalties of up to 600,000 euros.
Mr. Botín, a member of the family that controls Banco Santander, bought the Picasso painting of a longhaired woman in 1977, at the Marlborough Fine Art Fair in London, for his personal collection.
Spain’s cultural protection legislation, dating from 1985, requires museums, dealers and private owners to obtain export licenses for any work over 100 years old before it can be moved out of the country. Last year, the Spanish authorities say, they received more than 14,000 requests for export licenses for sales and exhibition loans. Seventy applications were denied, and the state acquired 27 of the works at issue.
Mr. Botín’s Picasso painting was classified as a national treasure by Spain’s historic heritage department, overseen by the Culture Ministry, after Christie’s sought an export license that would allow the banking magnate to auction the work in London. In 2013, the ministry denied him permission to sell the work abroad, declaring that no similar work remained on Spanish territory.
Picasso is said to have painted “Head of a Young Woman” during the summer of 1906 in Gósol, a remote Spanish village in the Pyrenees. Art historians describe that year as decisive for the artist, presaging the birth of Cubism.
In the years that followed, Mr. Botín fought the cultural heritage designation, arguing that the work was not only stored on a vessel registered to Britain but that it was owned by a Panamanian company in which he was registered as a major shareholder. He challenged the government’s decision in a Spanish appeals court, which informed him in May that the Culture Ministry’s 2013 export ban would stand.
Since then, the country’s Guardia Civil has monitored the movement of Mr. Botín’s yacht, the authorities say. The Spanish press reported that Spanish officials alerted French customs agents about the painting after the ship docked in Corsica in July.
Vincent Guivarch, a spokesman for the French customs agency, said that agents found the carefully wrapped work in the captain’s quarters. Mr. Botín’s son, Alfonso, and an Australian captain were on board, he said, and had been awaiting instructions from Mr. Botín for three days. Among the documents carried by the ship, Mr. Guivarch added, was the Spanish court ruling barring the painting’s export.
He said that the Botíns planned to fly the work to Switzerland, although the precise destination was not known. The country is a hub for free ports, or zones where art can be privately sold and stored under the names of offshore companies.
At the moment, it is not clear how the Spanish government will proceed with the recovery of the artwork, which remains in the hands of the French authorities. Museum experts doubt that the government will move aggressively against Mr. Botín, who is highly regarded in Spain and known for his newspaper articles on ethics and morality, to take ownership of the painting.
Meanwhile, Germany’s culture minister is under fire for proposing a similar law, and Italy is considering loosening its restrictions, under pressure from dealers who want to take advantage of the hot market for Modern and contemporary art.
Last year, the global art market topped 51 billion euros, according to a European Fine Art Fair report. In May, another Picasso painting, the 1955 “Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’),” brought $179 million — a global auction record for a work of art — in New York.
At a budget presentation this week, Spain’s culture minister, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, said the ministry was working with the Guardia Civil to recover the painting. “I am pleased that a work of this quality — declared ineligible for export — is returning to Spain,” he said.
Correction: August 6, 2015 Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article paraphrased incorrectly from a statement by Rafael Mateu de Ros, Mr. Botín’s lawyer in Madrid, about Mr. Botín’s appeal to Spain’s Supreme Court. The appeal has been filed and he said Mr. Botín is pressing it; he did not say that Mr. Botín would file an appeal.
John 'Goldfinger' Palmer murder inquiry: Man arrested
Police originally thought John Palmer had suffered a cardiac arrest
A man has been arrested by police investigating the murder of convicted fraudster John "Goldfinger" Palmer.
The 65-year-old was shot at his home on Sandpit Lane in South Weald near Brentwood in Essex on 24 June. Police initially thought he had had a cardiac arrest and did not realise for nearly a week he had been shot. A 43-year-old man from Rugby has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the inquiry, Essex Police said.
Palmer was found dead at his home on Sandpit Lane, South Weald near Brentwood Palmer was jailed for eight years in 2001 for masterminding a timeshare fraud targeting people across the UK.
£300m fortune
A year later, he was ordered to hand over £35m, but the ruling was overturned on a technicality. Det Ch Insp Simon Werrett, who is leading the murder investigation, said: "This is a positive development but we are continuing to appeal for witnesses to any suspicious activity in the area. "Sandpit Lane is a popular spot for joggers and dog-walkers and I am particularly keen to hear from anyone who was in the vicinity between 16:00 BST and 18:00 BST on Wednesday, June 24." The arrested man has been released on police bail until 23 September pending further inquiries. Palmer's wealth was once estimated at £300m, according to an Underworld Rich List compiled for the BBC in 2004. He owned helicopters, a French chateau and a £1m mansion in Bath, and was once considered one of the biggest landowners on Tenerife.
'The timeshare king'
Brought up in Olton, near Birmingham, Palmer was a serial truant who left school unable to read or write
But he made his fortune by going into the gold and jewellery business with a friend
He was arrested for his alleged role in helping smelt gold stolen from a warehouse at Heathrow in 1983 but was cleared of any wrongdoing
Palmer's most lucrative enterprise was a timeshare scam based in Tenerife, in which he conned at least 16,000 victims until he was jailed in 2001
The BBC understands when he was killed, he was on bail after being arrested in Spain over an unknown offence
Palmer kept a sign on his office desk which read: "Remember the golden rule - he who has the gold makes the rules."
Hatton Garden raid: Two more people charged
Several people have already been charged over the raid
A man and woman have been charged in connection with the Hatton Garden safety deposit box raid at Easter, the Metropolitan Police have said.
The pair are accused of offences under the Proceeds of Crime Act. Brenn Walters and Terri Robinson, both from Enfield, are due to appear before Westminster magistrates later this month. Nine people already charged in connection with the heist have appeared in court.
Ransacked
Police said a further three individuals, a man and two women, have also been interviewed under caution. Mr Walters, 43, also known as Ben Perkins, of Manor Court, and Ms Robinson, 35, of Sterling Road, are due to appear in court on 27 August. Items believed to be worth more than £10m were taken in the raid at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company in London's jewellery quarter over the Easter weekend. Thieves broke into the vault and ransacked 73 safety deposit boxes. Arrests followed in May and June after police raided addresses across London and Kent.
Man cutting hedge finds stolen paintings worth €180,000
Garda confirm recovery of works by Sir John Lavery, Jack B Yeats and Paul Henry
Denis Russell shows the paintings he found in a hedge near his home in Co Wicklow on Tuesday.
A man cutting furze bushes in a field beside his holiday cottage in Co Wicklow on Tuesday has found paintings by leading Irish artists in a black bin bag.
The paintings, including works by Sir John Lavery, Paul Henry and Jack B Yeats, appear to be those stolen from a house in Co Wicklow last year. The paintings have an estimated value of €180,000.
Denis Russell (59), from Donard, Co Wicklow, told The Irish Times he was “strimming furze bushes” at lunchtime when he “saw a black bag stuck in the middle of a ditch”.
He opened the bag and found three framed paintings. He said he “recognised a Paul Henry and a Yeats” and said the other picture was “a Lavery”.
All three were framed and “in good condition” although “the frame on the Lavery was a bit damaged,” he said.
He said a fourth picture in the black bag was an unframed canvas. According to a label from the Apollo Gallery in Dublin this was a portrait Samuel Beckett by Tom Byrne which has “mildew on the canvas”.
The black bag seems to have been thrown into the ditch from the roadway but was “only visible from the field side”.
Mr Russell said the field was not used frequently as he now lives in London and returns to the cottage on the land that he owns for holidays.
The paintings may have lain there for almost 10 months after they went missing in October last year.
Donard village is close to the Glen of Imaal in west Co Wicklow.
Mr Russell photographed the paintings and then contacted Baltinglass Garda station and a female garda came to collect them.
In a statement gardaí said they had “recovered all the paintings” and taken them to Garda Headquarters for examination.
They said no arrests have been made in the investigation into the theft and that investigations are continuing.
They named three paintings as ‘Portrait of a Lady’ by Sir John Lavery, ‘Landscape with Cottage’ by Paul Henry, and ‘The Fern in the Area’ by Jack B Yeats.
Ian Whyte, a leading art auctioneer in Dublin said the combined value of the paintings could be “up to €180,000”. The painting of Samuel Beckett by Tom Byrne is less valuable and one is currently for sale at the Duke Gallery in Dublin for €350.
Gardai appealing to anyone who can assist with the investigation to contact Baltinglass Garda Station on 059-6482610, the Garda Confidential Telephone Line 1800 666 111 or any Garda station”.
Jan Preisler masterpiece is valued at up to 8 million Kč
Police in Prague have made a breakthrough in an almost two-decade-old case of art theft with the recovery of a painting called “Koupání” (Bathing) by Jan Preisler.
Art expects give the current value of the work at up to 8 million Kč, according to the Czech Police. While police have recovered the painting, they are still looking for the person or persons who stole it, according to a joint statement from Prague Police spokesman Tomáš Hulan and Pardubice Regional Police spokesman Jiří Tesař. The painting was stolen in 1996 from an exhibition at Galerie Hlinsko in the Pardubice region of Central Bohemia. The painting was on loan from the National Gallery in Prague, which owns it. The National Galley reportedly is now in possession of the painting and has it secured in a depository. There was a widespread search when the painting was first reported stolen, and the image was entered into a database of stolen art. The search also took place across Europe, as it could not be ruled out that the painting has been taken across the border. Recently, information surfaced that the painting was being offered for sale. Before the sale could take place, police specialized in art theft intervened and recovered the work. Preisler had a relatively short career. He was born in 1872 and died in Prague of pneumonia in 1918. In 1903, he stated teaching nude drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts and was a professor from 1913 until his death. His influences included Alfons Mucha, Vojtěch Preissig and, later, Paul Gauguin. He was among the artists to provide decoration for the Municipal House in Prague. He also helped decorate Hotel Central on Hybernska Street. His early work was in the neo-Romantic style, but he is also associated with Art Nouveau and the symbolism movement.
Thief replaced stolen art with fakes
A painting from the Rocks and Birds series by artist Bada Shanren was one of those stolen. Photo / Supplied
A former chief librarian at a Chinese university admitted in court Tuesday to stealing more than 140 paintings by grandmasters in a gallery under his watch and replacing them with fakes he painted himself. For two years up until 2006, Xiao Yuan substituted famous works including landscapes and calligraphies in a gallery within the library of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. He told the court in his defense that the practice appeared to be rampant and the handling of such paintings was not secure. He said he noticed fakes already hanging in the gallery on his first day on the job. Later, after he replaced some of the remaining masters with his own fakes, he was surprised when he noticed his fake paintings were being substituted with even more fakes. "I realized someone else had replaced my paintings with their own because I could clearly discern that their works were terribly bad," Xiao, 57, told Guangzhou People's Intermediate Court, which posted a video of the two-hour hearing on its website. Xiao said that he didn't know who had replaced his fakes, but that students and professors could take out paintings in the same way as they could borrow library books. Xiao sold 125 of the paintings at auction between 2004 and 2011 for more than 34 million yuan ($6 million), and used the money to buy apartments and other paintings. The 18 others he stole are estimated to be worth more than 70 million yuan ($11 million), according to prosecutors. Xiao pleaded guilty to a corruption charge for substituting the 143 paintings, and said that he deeply regretted his crime. The stolen works mentioned in the court transcript included paintings by influential 20th century artists Qi Baishi, who used watercolors, and Zhang Daqian, who depicted landscapes and lotuses. Zhang himself was considered a master forger. Also removed was "Rock and Birds" by Zhu Da, a painter and calligrapher who lived during the 17th century and used ink monochrome. Xiao said he stopped his stealing when the paintings were moved to another gallery. He was the university's chief librarian until 2010, and his crimes came to light when an employee discovered what had happened and went to the police. Calls seeking comment from the university were not answered. Xiao will be sentenced later.
Stolen Rodin sculpture recovered through lucky breaks, persistent chipping
As the director and founder of the Comité Rodin in Paris, Jérôme Le Blay has dedicated his career to the study of the great sculptor's work. So when he spotted a small Auguste Rodin bronze, "Young Girl With Serpent," at the offices of Christie's in London, he quickly recognized something the auction house had not yet discovered: The piece had been stolen two decades earlier in Beverly Hills. Essential Arts & Culture: A curated look at SoCal's vast and complex arts world "I had in my database a precise description of the stolen work,'' Le Blay recalled. The piece didn't come with much documentation, but it matched the description. "The art market is very secretive," he added. "Works can go through the net quite easily."
Le Blay's recognition of the Rodin piece in 2010 set off a chain of events that led to the piece being recovered this year and offered back to its rightful owner, an elderly Beverly Hills woman. Key assists came from a retired Beverly Hills police detective and a firm that specializes in the recovery of stolen art. The tale began in 1991, when a Beverly Hills couple returned home from vacation to find that their house in the north side of town had been ransacked of $1 million in art and other personal items, authorities said. Their housekeeper was later arrested and convicted in connection with the theft. But he claims to not have stolen the goods himself, claiming that he had bragged about his employers' collection of valuables at a local bar, where the thieves propositioned him to sell a duplicate key to the house for $5,000, according to Christopher A. Marinello, chief executive of the London-based Art Recovery Group. Some of the items were later recovered, but not the Rodin girl— and no one beyond the housekeeper was ever arrested or charged in connection with the theft. The couple was prominent among the city's high society and was involved in cultural philanthropy. The husband has since died and his wife, now in her 80s, still lives in Beverly Hills, police said. Speaking by phone this week, the wife asked that the family name not be revealed. The bronze is a posthumous cast of the original Rodin sculpture, "Jeune Fille au Serpent," made circa 1886. Authorized casts are considered authentic and are overseen by the Musée Rodin in Paris. The stolen bronze was created in the early 1970s as the ninth in a limited edition. Marinello said the couple originally acquired the piece from B. Gerald Cantor, namesake of the Cantor Fitzgerald financial services company who amassed one of the world's largest private Rodin collections.
"Young Girl With Serpent" isn't a large work — it stands a little more than a foot tall — but it has "significant historical importance in relation to how the artist evolved," said Bernard Barryte, an authority on Rodin at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford, where he is a curator of European art. He said the piece provides an example of the young female form that Rodin would revisit in his sculptures of Eve and other pieces. Rodin sculptures are highly prized by museums and collectors, and a number of pieces have been stolen over the years, including a cast of "The Thinker" from a museum in the Netherlands in 2007. After Le Blay revealed that the art had been stolen, Christie's pulled the item as part of its due diligence process. "It never went into a sale," a spokeswoman said.
Christie's contacted New Scotland Yard in London, which in 2011 got in touch with the Beverly Hills police — and Det. Sgt. Michael Corren, who had been a supervising officer on the case at the time of the theft. Corren said he contacted one of the original investigators. "He remembered the case — but not a lot of memory. It was so old, and it was international, but I didn't want it to drop by the wayside," Corren said. "I just don't do that. You follow it to the end." Corren began an intensive search that involved sifting through old archives on microfiche and following paper trails. After much digging, the detective determined that the owners had, in fact, made an insurance claim after the theft and reached a settlement. He also learned that the father of the man who now possessed the sculpture and had consigned it to Christie's had a business not too far away in West Hollywood. But Corren said the current owner, whom he declined to identify, didn't want to give it back.
"I explained to their attorney that we needed to get the sculpture to the rightful owner. They felt otherwise," the detective said. By this time, the insurance company that had paid the victims for their loss sought to reclaim possession of the Rodin. The case languished as an attorney for the possessor insisted on being paid at least half of what the Rodin was worth, Marinello said. An early Christie's estimate had pegged its value as a high as $100,000. The insurance company eventually hired Marinello to pursue recovery. According to Marinello, the Rodin was sold to a Los Angeles-area art dealer shortly after it was stolen. After the dealer died, he said, the man's son put it up for auction. While the negotiations continued, Corren said he took another look through the files and found a document that shed more light on the case. "It was a fluke — apparently it had been misfiled. It gave me information that appears to indicate that the possessor's father may have known that it may have been stolen," Corren said. Corren said the document was located in a police follow-up report to the original crime. He said the document established that the deceased art dealer had been contacted after the 1991 theft. He declined to say more about the document. After the document was found, the son agreed to release the bronze to the insurance company and dropped his demand for any payment. Marinello declined to identify the son but emphasized that the man had no knowledge that the Rodin had been stolen. The item is now in the ownership of the original insurer, according to the police. As is routine in these cases, Marinello said, the insurance company offered to give the Rodin back to the widow if she would agree to return the insurance payment she had received after the loss. She told The Times: "Corren is an amazing detective. He's been following this case for more than 20 years. He would not give up and would be relentless — 110% of the credit goes to him."
Corren said, "I knew it was a job that needed to be done. Our job is to advocate for the victims." "Young Girl With Serpent" is scheduled to go on the auction block at Christie's in New York in November, consigned by the insurance company. But there are still Rodin works missing from the 1991 home burglary that may, one day, reach the auction block. Among them are an early sketch of "The Kiss" and another sculpture, "The Eternal Spring."
World Jewish Congress mourns Charles Goldstein
Mon, 03 Aug 2015
The World Jewish Congress mourns the passing of our beloved friend and esteemed colleague Charles A. Goldstein, counsel to the Commission on Art Recovery and longtime adviser to World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder. A brilliant lawyer, Charles graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, clerked for the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and was for many years one of the leading real estate lawyers in New York City. In that stage of his distinguished legal career, Charles was the personal attorney to New York Governor Hugh Carey and consultant to the Urban Development Corporation. In the mid-1990’s, Charles was asked by Ambassador Ronald S. Lauder to develop and lead the then newly created Commission for Art Recovery to assist Holocaust survivors or their heirs in recovering works of art that had been stolen from them by the Nazis and their accomplices. In that capacity, Lauder recalled, “he was fearless in achieving the ultimate goal in law - fairness and justice.” Over the course of the past two decades, Charles became, in the words of his colleagues at the law firm of Herrick, Feinstein LLP, “one of the leading international experts on the identification and restitution of art that had been looted by the Nazis during and before the Holocaust. Being the intellectual powerhouse that he was, Charles quickly became an expert in this new area of art law and before long became one of its leading practitioners, lecturing and writing extensively on the subject. He was remarkably successful in recovering stolen artworks and other cultural property, despite many obstacles including strenuous opposition from formidable adversaries. An articulate spokesman for the right of Holocaust victims and their families to reclaim their property from governments, museums and others who had acquired it in the years following World War II, Charles literally rewrote history, and earned the great distinction of helping to right horrific wrongs visited upon Jewish families and others during the Holocaust.” Charles Goldstein will be greatly missed by all who had the privilege of knowing him and working with him. We extend our deepest condolences to his daughter, Deborah, his son, Graham, and his grandchildren.
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La Croisette and the Festival Palace at Cannes. Photo: Reuters
A British police officer leaves a safe deposit building on Hatton Garden. Photo: Reuters
Holes bored through a half-metre-thick concrete wall drilled into a vault in a safe deposit centre in Hatton Garden, London. Photo: AFP
Lupita Nyong'o arriving at the 87th Annual Academy Awards. Photo: Getty Images
Denis Russell shows the paintings he found in a hedge near his home in Co Wicklow on Tuesday. 
A brilliant lawyer, Charles graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, clerked for the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and was for many years one of the leading real estate lawyers in New York City. In that stage of his distinguished legal career, Charles was the personal attorney to New York Governor Hugh Carey and consultant to the Urban Development Corporation.