For information. ("Scotland Yard" referred to in the three articles is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, London.) Patrick Boylan ====================================== January 29 2000 BRITAIN Art smuggler 'protected by Yard as he helped with stings' BY DALYA ALBERGE AND DANIEL MCGRORY SCOTLAND YARD has launched an investigation into how a notorious self-confessed art smuggler worked for them on undercover "sting" operations for a decade in return for protection for his own activities. Michel van Rijn, a Dutch art dealer, has told The Times: "For years the Yard turned a blind eye to when my shipments were coming into Britain. I made millions out of this arrangement. I also had leverage with the police for my friends." >From his continental hideout, van Rijn claimed that before coming to Britain he would telephone certain detectives to ensure that there were no warrants for his arrest here or in other European capitals. He alleged his links with the Yard continued until only a few weeks ago, adding: "They all knew what I was doing." Van Rijn revealed how a detective recently told him, in effect, to lie under oath to French police about his involvement in an undercover operation to retrieve stolen bronzes. Former Yard officers have confirmed that over the years the 49-year-old dealer did help them to recover stolen art treasures from abroad worth "several million pounds". Senior Metropolitan Police figures admit that last year van Rijn arranged for detectives to meet a businessman with known Mafia links to take part in a planned undercover operation. The Yard paid for van Rijn's airline tickets and hotels for a further meeting with the underworld figure in Switzerland to discuss a "sting" to retrieve a looted art treasure. Van Rijn claimed that, had the operation succeeded, he was to receive £1 million, paid by a foreign government. He said the Yard promised immunity. In a mobile telephone call with a detective, taped by van Rijn, the officer is heard assuring him - "What you are doing currently, you are bulletproof. You have the 100 per cent backing of the Commissioner of Scotland Yard . . . You have the classic Nuremberg defence - you were only following orders." Van Rijn, who has four children, has threatened to reveal explicit details of his decade of undercover operations on his Internet website, claiming that police reneged on promises to protect him and his family from underworld threats. Detectives yesterday denied offering any protection. "As he lives most of the time abroad how could we do that even if we had wanted to?" one senior source said. Van Rijn said that he had never been paid by Scotland Yard, nor had he asked for money: "The deal was they just let me get on with my own business." Last night a senior Yard officer said: "I can confirm that senior Organised Crime Group officers concerned about a member of the public's relationship with the OCG over a period of approximately ten years have referred this matter to the Complaints Investigation Bureau. We are not prepared to discuss anything further." It is understood that the inquiry will involve operations that van Rijn worked on for the Yard as well as the dealer's "own business activities". This will include deals such as his allegation to the Times that he sold a fake Degas bronze for £300,000 after it had been in the Yard's possession. Mr Van Rijn said that he used a Yard associate to have police drop their investigation into "a close friend, a French dealer trading in London" who was in possession of a 3rd-century sculpture, a limestone head smuggled from Cyprus. His lawyers have written to Sir Paul Condon, the outgoing Yard Commissioner, to sever his links and insist that detectives do not try to contact him. The Times has seen that correspondence, including Yard acknowledgements. Mr van Rijn told the Times: "They promised protection . . . and have not kept their part of the bargain. Nor have they acted on information I have given them about key figures in the British art establishment." He said that until last year he was assisting an inquiry into a hoard of gold and silver, known as the Western Cave Treasure, discovered in Iran. Former Yard officers who recruited him have written endorsements about his help, which Mr van Rijn says are on his Dutch website. He added: "After all that has happened the only one to blame is me. I went into this with my eyes open." ------------------------------------------- THE TIMES (London) January 29 2000 BRITAIN Claim of plot to kill Milosevic BY DALYA ALBERGE AND DANIEL MCGRORY MICHEL VAN RIJN plans to use his website to reveal years of undercover operations for Scotland Yard and others. He wants his disclosures to embarrass the British Museum, Sotheby's, Christie's and other leading art dealers as well as the security services. Among his more extravagant claims is that he was approached by MI6 to be part of a plot to assassinate President Milosevic. Mr Van Rijn alleges that he was asked to name influential people he knew in the Serb underworld who could get close to Mr Milosevic. Asked how much he wanted for taking part, Mr van Rijn says he replied: "The price of a Harrier jet, about £15 million." He claims that the Serbs, and others from elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia, who were involved in the plot, are threatening his life because they have not been paid. Scotland Yard has examined Mr van Rijn's website, which is in Dutch, and are angered that it suggests a link to the Metropolitan Police. It includes a quote, said to come from the Yard, that Mr van Rijn has been "involved in 90 per cent of all art smuggling in the world and he would like to be involved in the last 10 per cent". He says the remark was made by a retired detective. "I am realistic enough to know that I can never win the fight against your Government, MI6, Scotland Yard - but I will at the same time not bow to them," Mr van Rijn said. "It is my intention to create a site where the so-called well-established institutions - Sotheby's, Christie's, etc - and frauds, rogues, scams in the art market will be exposed and displayed." He claims to have documents from museums in Britain and abroad dealing with fakes and forgeries in their collections. "People will see how dangerous it is to put your trust in these institutions and experts," he said. Mr Van Rijn says that he enjoys "puncturing pompous balloons". "This will be everything you want to know but you are afraid to ask about the art world." ------------------------------ January 29 2000 Art mole threatens to turn tables on Yard handlers BY DALYA ALBERGE AND DANIEL MCGRORY MICHEL VAN RIJN, the self-confessed art smuggler who worked undercover for Scotland Yard, has never been shy about his dubious activities in the art world. His claims about the millions he made through his links with the Yard are typical of his passion for causing embarrassment. As detectives begin their inquiry into Mr van Rijn's role with the Metropolitan Police, he claims to have tape-recordings and documents detailing his ten years as an undercover agent. "They have reneged on promises to me, so I will now tell everything I know about them, and they will not like it," he told The Times yesterday. A flamboyant figure, with a penchant for self-publicity, he would seem a risky choice to work undercover for the Yard. But the officers who first recruited him nearly a decade ago were prepared to gamble on his worth as a key informant, knowing his links with the underworld. All those detectives are now retired, but one said that whatever else Mr van Rijn did, the officers had no doubts that he was responsible for retrieving "several million pounds worth of art treasures from abroad". Mr van Rijn includes written testimonies from detectives on his website, which he now intends to use for his revenge on the police and the intelligence services who, he says, reneged on promises to protect him and his four children. There is believed to be a lack of documentary evidence inside Scotland Yard about how Mr van Rijn began working for the police and his early years with them. He claims he was first introduced by the FBI, which cleared him as a suspect in a major art robbery, then asked him to work for them. He says his operations for the Yard took him to at least ten countries. A heavily built figure with an exotic dress sense, the 49-year-old dealer knew the problems he was posing for the Yard last May in one of his final operations with them. He suggested the Yard meet a business friend of his who has links with a Sicilian Mafia family. The operation was so sensitive that detectives had their first meeting with the wealthy entrepreneur and Mr van Rijn in the British Embassy in Madrid so as not to alert Spanish police to their intended "sting" to retrieve a looted art treasure. There were further meetings in Europe, with Mr van Rijn's travel and accommodation paid for by the Yard, but detectives were doubtful that the plan could succeed and abandoned the operation. Mr Van Rijn claims his links also extend to MI6, saying he was invited to meet intelligence officers last year because of his links with the Serb underworld. At the same time as he claims to have been approached by MI6, Mr van Rijn was working with detectives on an inquiry into a hoard of gold and silver discovered in Iran in the late 1980s, known as the "Western Cave Treasure". He claims that this treasure, worth £80 million and dating from the 5th century BC, was discovered buried in a cave by a shepherd in the late 1980s and then illegally smuggled out of Iran to London and the West. He alleges that the provenance of some pieces of the treasure was then falsified by an academic and part of the collection sold to the Miho museum in Japan. Exhibits from the Miho's collection are currently on loan to the Antiquities Museum in Leiden, including an ornate gold drinking horn. Both the Miho Museum and the Leiden museum insist that they have thoroughly investigated the origin of the pieces and are convinced of their authenticity and legal ownership. Mr Van Rijn alleges that as well as helping Yard detectives, he has been assisting diplomats in the Iranian Embassy in London on this inquiry. French police want to question him about another of his operations with the Yard, involving the recovery of 19th-century bronzes stolen in Brussels. Part of this cache surfaced in London, which explains the Yard's interest, but Mr Van Rijn said he paid £15,000 of his own money for some of the bronze pieces he tracked down in Amsterdam, which he handed over to a Yard detective. He has been subpoenaed to give evidence to French investigators, but alleges a senior detective has told him in effect to lie under oath about his relationship with the Yard. The inquiry by the Complaints Investigation Bureau into the Van Rijn affair will also investigate claims of how the dealer says he profited from the Yard, "turning a blind eye to my own business dealings". Mr van Rijn claimed to The Times that he made a £300,000 profit on selling a fake Degas bronze which had been in the possession of Scotland Yard. He had passed the fake to a Yard detective who "ran" many of his undercover operations. The detective later returned it to him, but by now the bronze was wrapped in a package that carried a label and other identification from the Metropolitan Police. "When the dealer asked me if it was genuine I pointed out that it had come to me straight from the police," explaining that the purchaser happily accepted that it must be genuine. Mr van Rijn boasted about some of his earlier exploits in an autobiography, Hot Art, Cold Cash, released by a leading British publisher, which he says made him "many, many enemies". A dentist's son from Amsterdam, who owns several houses around the world, he admits smuggling icons out of Russia, Cyprus, Greece and elsewhere. "I have made millions and lost millions but yes I have plenty of money" is how he describes his wealth. One of his most elaborate business coups was the sale of a Rembrandt to a Tokyo art dealer for eight times its then market value. Mr van Rijn let the Japanese purchaser believe he was a descendant of the painter because they shared the same family name. "I love to prick the pomposity of the art world which thinks it knows the value of everything," he said. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Want to send money instantly to anyone, anywhere, anytime? You can today at X.com - and we'll give you $20 to try it! Sign up today at X.com. It's quick, free, & there's no obligation! http://click.egroups.com/1/332/4/_/1599/_/949174569/ -- 20 megs of disk space in your group's Document Vault -- http://www.egroups.com/docvault/decani/?m=1 Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . 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