Selected reports October 3, 2004
________________________________________________
- A DUFFIELD Art Gallery has been targeted by a gang of art thieves
- Arrestato il ladro di mobili; Annarumma svaligiò una villa a San Severino
- Stop, Thieves! Recovering Iraq's Looted Treasures
- Stolen Iraqi antiquities sought
- Return of the Pink Panthers suspected after diamond heist
- Toiles volées, monnaie d'échange pour trafiquants; Un expert français
dénonce l'insuffisance des systèmes de sécurité qui met les oeuvres d'art en
proie au vandalisme
- Großer Kunstdiebstahl vereitelt: Täter-Trio vor Jagdmuseum "erjagt"
(Fascinating story about three burglars that were apprehended before they
made their entrance into Austrian castle and museum)
________________________________________________
Paintings worth thousands are stolen
A DUFFIELD Art Gallery has been targeted by a gang of art thieves.
The three thieves made off with thousands of pounds worth of original oil
paintings.
The art gallery, in Town Street Duffield, is owned by the Preston family who
have decided to speak out in a bid to trace the culprits.
The burglars struck on September 9 when they loaded paintings worth about
£10,000 into a Vauxhall Astra van before escaping.
Six paintings were taken in total including works created by James Preston
senior, father of gallery manager Jim Preston.
Mr Preston said: "It is very difficult to sell stolen art on. You couldn't
take it to a car boot sale or sell it to another gallery as leaflets are
circulated about stolen work. It will probably be taken abroad to be sold.
"Whoever stole the paintings seems to have been watching the gallery. They
knew that no one would be on the premises as my grandmother, who used to own
the gallery, was on holiday at the time of the theft."
Some of the paintings stolen were due to be featured in an exhibition at the
gallery, which features the work of James Preston senior and another local
artist Michael Crawford.
Jim Preston said: "The day after the work was stolen some one came in to
inquire about the largest piece, with a view to buying it. Of course it had
gone so we lost out on a big sale as well."
A police spokeswoman said: "A neighbour called the police when he heard
something and looked out of his bedroom window to see a Vauxhall Astra van
parked outside the shop.
"He saw someone in the driving seat but could not make them out clearly.
There were two other people removing property from the gallery so he called
the police."
The joiner's van had been stolen from Milford and was later found abandoned
near St Alkmund's Church in Duffield.
The theft happened between midnight and 12.15am on Thursday, September 9.
Police are appealing for anyone with information to contact them on 0845 123
3333.
http://www.belpertoday.co.uk/
____________________________________________
Arrestato il ladro di mobili
Annarumma svaligiò una villa a San Severino
Gianpaolo Bisogno
MERCATO SAN SEVERINO. Della preziosa refurtiva non c'è ancora traccia ma i
carabinieri sono riusciti a mettere le mani su un insospettabile ladro
d'arte. Nella giornata di ieri, al termine di una rocambolesca operazione,
sono scattate le manette per Salvatore Annarumma. Il 32enne di Scafati, più
volte arrestato per reati contro il patrimonio, è stato incastrato dai
carabinieri della Compagnia di Mercato San Severino. L'uomo è stato
incastrato grazie alle impronte digitali e ad altre tracce involontariamente
lasciate in quella villa prestigiosa sita in via San Rocco di Mercato. Nella
tenuta della nobile famiglia irnense c'era un vero e proprio tesoro in
mobili antichi che, lo scorso mese di maggio, scomparve nel nulla. I
malviventi approfittarono della temporanea assenza della famiglia che, al
suo ritorno, trovò la tenuta completamente depredata. Praticamente erano
rimaste in piedi solamente le pareti mentre gran parte dell'arredamento, del
valore di oltre 70mila euro, era stato portato via. Chissà quale
collezionista di mobili sta godendo ora dei tesori della nobile famiglia di
Mercato San Severino che adesso ha perlomeno un colpevole, alquanto illustre
per la sua popolarità tra le forze dell'ordine. Tavoli in legno e ferro,
suppellettili d'epoca, uno scrigno porta gioielli, diverse abat-jour,
poltroncine, specchi incastonati in preziosi mobili e perfino sedie in stile
Luigi XIV. Un vero e proprio tesoro che, molto probabilmente, si sta godendo
più di qualche collezionista. I militari ritengono che i componenti di
questo arredamento siano finiti nelle mani di più persone che, magari,
avranno anche acquistato i mobili presso un antiquario autorizzato senza
sapere dell'illecita provenienza della merce. Prima di sbattere Annarumma
dietro le sbarre della casa circondariale di Salerno Fuorni, i carabinieri
hanno cercato di farlo parlare, ma l'uomo non ha voluto saperne. Si spera
che i giudici del tribunale di Salerno riescano ad avere più fortuna nel
corso dell'udienza durante la quale l'uomo sarà interrogato. Sarebbe molto
interessante sapere, per esempio, il nome dei complici o quello dei
ricettatori ai quali ha consegnato la preziosa mobilia. Per la nobile
famiglia sanseverinese, insomma, non è ancora detta l'ultima e le indagini
potrebbero portare a clamorosi sviluppi nei prossimi giorni. Per i
carabinieri della Compagnia di Nocera Inferiore, il 32enne è un volto più
che noto. Periodicamente, infatti, finisce in manette sempre per vicende
legati a furti. Di solito prende di mira auto ma in questo caso, ha puntato
più in alto, ha agito su commissione ed ora bisogna smascherare chi c'era
dietro di lui. Una caccia all'uomo che continua nel comprensorio.
http://www.lacittadisalerno.quotidianiespresso.it/
_________________________________________________
Stop, Thieves! Recovering Iraq's Looted Treasures By Roger Atwood Sunday,
October 3, 2004
Last August, an author from Rhode Island named Joseph Braude became the
first person to be convicted in connection with the looting of Iraq's
National Museum of Antiquities. Braude, whose book, "The New Iraq" is,
ironically enough, about rebuilding the country, had been caught trying to
bring three 4,000-year-old stone seals into the United States. An alert
customs inspector at New York's Kennedy airport had found the stolen goods
in Braude's luggage.
As a smuggler, Braude was pretty amateurish. He had bought the pieces from a
street vendor in Baghdad, didn't bother to scrape off the tiny letters
"I.M." (for Iraqi museum), and then foolishly denied to the inspector that
he had been in Iraq. He is due to be sentenced later this month.
A small victory, perhaps, but Braude's conviction shows how international
action to stop the flow of stolen antiquities can produce real results --
and not just in U.S. courts. At a symposium in Turkey in June, Iraq's new
general director of museums, Donny George, revealed some startling figures:
Coordinated efforts by governments and law enforcement agencies in the 16
months after the looting of the Baghdad museum had resulted in the recovery
in six countries of at least 5,200 pieces out of roughly 13,000 stolen.
That's a good start and, more importantly, it puts unscrupulous antiquities
dealers on notice that stolen Iraqi artifacts are subject to seizure and are
therefore unmarketable -- today, tomorrow and forever.
Thirteen thousand artifacts is far fewer, of course, than the 170,000
mistakenly reported missing in the days following Saddam Hussein's downfall.
The confusion developed when Western journalists arrived at the trashed
museum and were shocked to find the shelves empty. The staff, it later
emerged, had sensibly moved most of the artifacts into storage vaults before
the fighting started -- a fact that distraught curators failed to explain.
While those 13,000 artifacts hardly compare with the burning of the ancient
library of Alexandria, as early reports claimed, they represent a huge loss
for any museum, and especially one that holds the richest trove of
Mesopotamian artifacts in the world. They are the products of some of the
most important work ever done in archaeology.
Out of this disaster has come a palpable change in the way national
governments and police deal with the illegal trade in cultural property.
Governments that once looked the other way or responded with bureaucratic
half-measures have been shamed into taking a swifter, more pro-active
approach. Within weeks, they took the kinds of actions that in the past took
years -- tightening border controls, circulating photographs of specific
pieces, training police to recognize suspect pieces when they see them.
With the exception of Kuwait and Iran, which have demonstrated striking
indifference to helping Iraqis recover their national treasures, governments
have adopted the kinds of measures that advocates of cultural patrimony have
been urging for years -- and they got results. Italy has confiscated on its
soil more than 300 pieces looted from the Baghdad museum. Syria has
confiscated 200. In Iraq itself, more than 3,000 objects have been seized or
voluntarily returned to the museum. Authorities in Jordan, which has worked
the hardest among Iraq's neighbors to prevent itself from being used as a
transshipment point, had seized an extraordinary 1,054 pieces by June.
In the United States, about 600 antiquities known or strongly suspected to
have been stolen from the Baghdad museum have been confiscated or
voluntarily relinquished, nearly all of them at airports, according to
George. This rich haul of stolen goods -- including several clay tablets
inscribed with the world's oldest form of writing, cuneiform -- would never
have happened if federal authorities had not circulated images and
descriptions of Iraqi treasures to all U.S. ports of entry. It was one of
those bulletins -- a one-page flier -- that led that inspector to recognize
Braude's little seals.
As for the museum's most famous stolen treasures, photos of them appeared on
the Internet within days of the looting. They became impossible to sell, and
few seem to have made it out of Iraq. The celebrated 3rd millennium B.C.
sculpture known as the Lady of Warka, one of the earliest known realistic
portrayals of a woman, was returned to the museum after it had circulated
among at least five would-be Iraqi sellers. The last of them, frustrated at
his inability to find a buyer, buried it in an orchard, where it was
retrieved after American investigators received a tip-off.
The most important changes, though, are more long-term. Switzerland, for
example, a notorious shoppers' mart for looted antiquities, finally ratified
last October the 1970 UNESCO Convention on Cultural Property, the treaty
that remains the backbone of global efforts to combat the trade in plundered
goods. (The United States ratified the treaty in 1983.) Two months later,
Britain enacted legislation that, for the first time, made it a crime to buy
or sell illegally excavated or removed antiquities in that country, whatever
the origin. Officials in both countries had talked about these changes for
years, but "the Baghdad disaster provided the impetus" to making them a
reality, said Patty Gerstenblith, an expert on cultural property law at
DePaul University in Chicago.
No matter how many stolen museum pieces are recovered, an even more urgent
task is stopping the relentless pillage of archaeological sites inside Iraq.
Every ancient site I saw in Iraq last year was under assault. At the
biblical city of Nimrud, I saw where professional looters had chiseled out
carvings decorating the imposing stone walls of the palace of King
Ashurnasirpal II. Those pieces have disappeared, sold into the illicit
antiquities market and presumably now sitting in some collector's living
room.
Reports suggest the pillage has since grown much worse. The buried remains
of the 4,000-year-old Sumerian city of Isin have been turned upside down by
hundreds of illegal diggers. With security as chaotic as it is in Iraq, it
is unrealistic to expect coalition troops to guard all these remote ancient
sites against looters. All we can hope is that the continued seizures of
stolen artifacts will start to cool looting. At least 60 Iraqi antiquities
that were not in the museum's collection already have been confiscated from
travelers at U.S. airports, according to George.
Congress can help. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has introduced legislation
that would empower the president to slap a five-year ban on the import of
any antiquities removed from Iraq since 1990. Designed to prevent looted
treasures from being laundered through the United States, the bill would
show everyone -- dealers, collectors, auction houses, casual buyers -- that
Iraqi artifacts are hot and will remain hot for the foreseeable future.
Buyers cannot simply wait for the storm to blow over.
If mass lootings can't be prevented, at least the Iraqi disaster has shown
us how we can catch the birds once they have flown the cage.
Author's e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Roger Atwood is the author of "Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers,
and the Looting of the Ancient World," to be published next month by St.
Martin's Press.
The Washington Post
___________________________________
Stolen Iraqi antiquities sought
Oct 3, 2004
Eight Iraqi customs officers have been found dead and the valuable cargo of
antiquities they were transporting from southern Iraq is missing, police
said on Saturday.
"Seven customs officers and their commander, reported missing on September
27, have been found dead in the region of Latifiyah," a Sunni Arab insurgent
bastion immediately south of Baghdad, said the chief of police in the nearby
Shi'ite majority provincial capital of Hilla.
The missing objects are believed to be those recovered on Tuesday by Italian
police and Iraqi customs officers after they dismantled a criminal ring
trafficking archaeological treasures dating from the Sumerian period some 50
centuries ago.
The police recovered around 70 fragments of stone tablets bearing traces of
cuneiform script - one of the world's oldest - 12 finely carved vases and a
substantial number of coins, bracelets and other pieces of jewellery.
Two men were arrested during the operation and a number of guns seized.
Hilla police chief General Qais al-Mamuri said the bodies were found burnt
after their convoy was attacked and could only be recovered after a skirmish
with unidentified armed men.
"The archaeological items were not recovered and the bodies have been taken
to hospital," he added.
Customs officers in the southern city of Nasiriyah said on Thursday that
they had lost contact with the convoy carrying the recovered objects.
Colonel Jaafar Alwan said then he thought the convoy might have been
ambushed and did not exclude the possibility that the traffickers were
trying to get back the antiquities.
Italy has about 3,000 troops deployed in the Nasiriyah region as part of the
US-led multinational force in Iraq.
http://tvnz.co.nz/
_____________________________________________
Return of the Pink Panthers suspected after diamond heist
Jason Burke, chief reporter
Sunday October 3, 2004
The Observer
It had everything a high society event should have: an exotic location, a
smattering of celebrities, champagne on tap, hundreds of almost priceless
objets d'art - and a heist by Europe's most infamous gem thieves.
Detectives believe the gang, which took an estimated £10 million of diamonds
from the chic antiques fair held beneath the Champs Elysées in Paris last
week, are part of a Balkan-based network known as the Pink Panthers.
Officers from Scotland Yard and other European police forces have joined
Interpol in the hunt for the thieves.
'They may have this daft name, but they are competent and dangerous,' said
one investigator.
British police thought they had broken up the Pink Panthers last year, when
two gang members were convicted for their role in a £20m London gems raid.
Pedja Vujosevic, the 29-year-old mastermind of the operation, had escaped
with the stones on a scooter after flying in a team of thieves to help rob a
Mayfair jeweller. Later arrested in Paris, Vujosevic was suspected of thefts
in Europe and the Far East, including that of the £17m Comtesse de Vendome
necklace in Tokyo. Only £3m worth of the Mayfair haul has been recovered.
Last Tuesday's raid bore all the hallmarks of the gang's work. The diamonds
were stolen from under the noses of four saleswomen and two security guards
at a display at the Union of Antique Dealers' bienniale. 'No one saw
anything,' said Christian Deydier, the president of the union.
Experts told The Observer the chances of the theft being 'opportunistic'
were 'nil'. 'They knew exactly what they wanted long before the show
started,' said Charlie Hill, former head of Scotland Yard's arts and
antiquities squad and now a private art crime investigator.
The show brings together some of the most exclusive salesmen and collectors
in Europe.
This year more than 100 exhibitors offered about 8,000 items, including a
massive 1948 mobile by US artist Alexander Calder and a large painting by
Gustave Courbet, the French Realist painter, recently discovered in an
attic. The Calder sold for about £3m.
All week Europe's cultural elite viewed the valuable exhibits as
white-jacketed waiters proffered champagne. Prices were available on
request.
The gang used the crowds as cover to inspect security arrangements. They
appear to have noticed that the collection of top Swiss jeweller Chopard had
no visible video cameras and that the display cases were not alarmed.
To distract the attention of the security men and saleswomen, the gang sent
in dozens of false buyers who crowded the display, asking questions.
When the rush cleared, the diamonds were gone. Only two gems were stolen - a
white, 47-carat diamond the size of a cigarette lighter, and a smaller, blue
diamond of around 1 carat.
Hill said: 'It's a tragedy, but they will be cut up and sold. If the thief
makes £1m, he'll be lucky.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
________________________________________________
Toiles volées, monnaie d'échange pour trafiquants
Musées · Un expert français dénonce l'insuffisance des systèmes de sécurité
qui met les oeuvres d'art en proie au vandalisme.
propos recueillis par mariella de crouy chanel
Au mois d'août, Le Cri et La Madone, deux chefs-d'oeuvre du peintre Edvard
Munch, étaient dérobés à Oslo dans le musée consacré à l'artiste. Des
témoins ont assisté au raid qui a duré moins d'une minute et ont mis en
cause l'absence totale de système de sécurité. Aucun des deux tableaux
n'était assuré contre le vol. Invité à Fribourg par l'association de jeunes
historiens de l'art Articulations (voir encadré), Jean-Louis Clément est
expert scientifique de documents et oeuvres d'art auprès de la Cour d'appel
de Paris. Entretien.
«La Liberté»: quels exemples de déprédations dans les musées?
Jean-Louis Clément: - De nombreux exemples: des écoliers qui donnent des
coups de stylo bille, des déséquilibrés qui commettent des agressions par
jet d'acide. Ou le personnel de musée lui-même. On a eu des cas de tableaux
de Corot, Fragonard, Chardin et d'autres encore, endommagés par des rayures
en croix et des perforations. Ces actes avaient été commis par un gardien
avec sa clé passe-partout!
Quelle est l'ampleur de ce phénomène? A quoi est-il dû?
- Le phénomène de déprédation s'accroît avec la taille toujours plus grande
des musées, la foule qui se masse devant les tableaux est parfois
incontrôlable. Et les systèmes de sécurité souvent mal adaptés. La seule
solution serait qu'en appui de la vidéosurveillance, les salles soient
ouvertes à tour de rôle, de façon à libérer plus de personnel pour
surveiller les toiles.
Lorsqu'un tableau est abîmé, même peu, quelles sont les conséquences?
- Même un petit trou, fait avec la molette d'un briquet par exemple,
nécessite un travail de restauration long et coûteux. Il faut reconstituer
la trame de la toile en renouant chaque bout de fil coupé. Puis il faut
reprendre la peinture qui mettra des années à sécher, alors que le reste de
la toile a fini son vieillissement naturel. Et la restauration risque d'être
visible. Cela trouble la lecture du tableau et diminue son attrait et sa
valeur.
Les voleurs trouvent-ils des acheteurs pour les tableaux célèbres?
- Non, c'est trop risqué, mais les toiles peuvent être utilisées comme
monnaie d'échange par des trafiquants. Le vol de tableau est moins puni que
le trafic de fausse monnaie ou de drogue. Une personne vole une toile et
l'échange contre de la drogue. Le dernier intermédiaire restitue le tableau
volé à son propriétaire moyennant une rançon. Mais le tableau sort souvent
abîmé du périple.
Pourquoi certaines oeuvres célèbres ne sont-elles pas assurées contre le
vol?
- Une oeuvre connue et répertoriée n'est pas vendable par des voleurs. En
refusant d'assurer les musées en cas de vol, les compagnies se mettent à
l'abri d'un chantage par les voleurs.
Y a-t-il des faux dans les musées?
- Oui, obligatoirement. Les conservateurs ne sont pas infaillibles lors de
l'achat. Les musées de France ont un laboratoire de recherche et quand il y
a un problème d'authenticité, le tableau est analysé. Pour déceler un faux
on établit un croisement entre les caractéristiques physico-chimiques de
l'oeuvre et les archives du musée. S'il y a incohérence, on peut en déduire
que le tableau est faux. Mais certains musées ne disposent pas d'archives
suffisamment importantes pour tous les peintres, ils ne peuvent alors pas
repérer les incohérences.
Quels sont les peintres à risque?
- Ceux pour lesquels on ne dispose pas de catalogue raisonné où sont
classées toutes leurs oeuvres. C'est le cas aujourd'hui des petits maîtres
du XIXe siècle ou des artistes dont l'oeuvre commence à prendre de la
valeur. Moins on dispose de données sur l'oeuvre, plus le risque est grand
que des faussaires profitent de la brêche. Par ailleurs, il peut y avoir des
déclarations erronées après la mort d'un artiste. D'où l'importance du
recours à une expertise judiciaire.
MCC
http://www.laliberte.ch/
___________________________________________
Großer Kunstdiebstahl vereitelt:
Täter-Trio vor Jagdmuseum "erjagt"
(Fascinating story about three burglars that were apprehended before they
made their entrance into Austrian castle and museum).
ST. FLORIAN/LINZ. Wertvollstes Porzellan und eine Jagdglas-Sammlung von
unschätzbarem Wert hatten es offenbar drei Kunstdieben angetan. Noch bevor
aber das Trio ins Jagdmuseum in Schloss Hohenbrunn eindringen konnte,
klickten die Handschellen.
Dass der Coup vereitelt werden konnte, hat die Exekutive einem aufmerksamen
Pendler zu verdanken, der bereits eine Woche zuvor eine seltsame Wahrnehmung
gemacht hatte: Auf der Fahrt von Steyr nach Linz war ihm kurz vor 5 Uhr früh
ein langsam fahrender Pkw mit ausländischem Kennzeichen aufgefallen, der
schließlich zum Jagdschloss Hohenbrunn zufuhr. Seit mehr als 40 Jahren
beherbergt es auch das OÖ. Jagdmuseum mit antiken Jagdwaffen, Gemälden sowie
der bedeutendsten Jagdglas- und Porzellan-Sammlung Mitteleuropas. Und genau
wegen dieser waren die nächtlichen "Besucher" da. Vor einer Woche hatten sie
allerdings nur den Tatort ausgekundschaftet, wie die vom Pendler alarmierte
Exekutive vermutet.
"Wir haben das Objekt daraufhin verstärkt überwacht", so ein Ermittler.
Neben Diensthunden kam auch die erst seit Mittwoch bestehende 20-köpfige
neue Einsatzgruppe zur Bekämpfung der Straßenkriminalität zum Einsatz. Eine
Woche passierte aber nichts: In der Nacht zum Freitag kurz vor Mitternacht
tauchte dann jedoch auf einmal ein Pkw auf - und ein mit schwarzer Maske
vermummter Mann begann an der Rückseite des Schlosses Schachteln und eine
Holzleiter auszuladen. Der Hundeführer, der Wache schob, alarmierte sofort
seine Kollegen, die von den Tätern unbemerkt einen Sperrring rund ums
Schloss aufzogen.
Während einer der Verdächtigen beim Objekt blieb, fuhr ein Komplize nach
zehn Minuten mit dem Wagen weg. Als nach etwa einer Stunde auch noch ein
Klein-Lkw am Tatort eintraf und die Täter sich daran machten, ins Gebäude
einzudringen, schlugen die Einsatzkräfte zu. Zwei der Täter im Alter
zwischen 34 und 39 Jahren konnten sofort verhaftet werden. Der dritte
Verdächtige, der mit seinem Pkw Fluchtwege ausgekundschaftet hatte, konnte
daheim in Wilhering geschnappt werden.
Alle drei sind Österreicher, arbeitslos und waren bisher nur durch
Betrügereien und Aktivitäten im Rotlicht-Milieu bekannt.
Hohenbrunn
Das ehemalige Jagdschloss Hohenbrunn des Stifts St. Florian wurde von 1722
bis 1732 nach Plänen von J. Prandtauer erbaut. Seit 43 Jahren beherbergt es
das OÖ. Jagdmuseum mit wertvollen antiken Jagdwaffen, Gemälden, der
bedeutendsten Jagdglassammlung Mitteleuropas und einzigartigem
Nymphenburger-Porzellan. "Für das reisen Besucher extra aus Holland an", so
Landesjägermeister Hans Reisetbauer.
http://www.nachrichten.at/
______________________________________________________
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