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December 8, 2009

US Justice Department & Central Bureau of Interpol Rate Art Crime Third Highest-Grossing Criminal Trade and Links It To Organized Crime

Statistics on art crime are unfortunately few and generally inaccurate. The reasons for this are detailed in ARCA's book, Art & Crime, and come down to a variety of factors.
  1. At a local level, most police are told to file stolen art with general stolen goods. This means that art thefts are lost among stolen property files and only those unusual or far-sighted police who set art thefts aside for filing, or choose to send files on to Interpol or national art police will be filed as art thefts, and can therefore be studied and constitute a portion of the national statistics.
  2. The legitimate market dollar value of artworks is a nebulous concept. One day a painting could be worth one million, another day two, another day seven-hundred thousand. It all depends on the stock market, the perceived demand of the art market for the object in question, the whims of a handful of individual collectors and museums. So to say that an artwork is worth X amount of money is untrue--it can only be stated that at one time this artwork, or a similar one, sold for X amount of money, and that this is the current best guess as to its value. Therefore it is useful only in terms of situating art crime at a general hierarchical level, and getting people to take it seriously.
  3. We know that reported art crimes represent only a fraction of the total number, the tip of the iceberg. Antiquities looted from the earth or the sea will only be discovered by happenstance, should an archaeologist or policeman happen upon a looted tomb in the wilderness, for instance. Even then, there is no way of knowing what was in the tomb to begin with, which is now stolen. Much fine art theft goes unreported, by museums which do not want to show their insecurity, by collectors who did not declare all of their collection to avoid luxury tax, by libraries or churches or archives that might not realize what is missing.
While the study of art crime is, necessarily, at this point more anecdotal than scientific, due to the poor, incomplete, and often inaccessible statistics, the major police forces agree on the extent and severity of art crime, and its links to Organized Crime, which make it a crime to take very seriously, indeed.

In ARCA's many projects and conferences, those with whom we have worked have conveyed the fact that art crime is the third-highest-grossing criminal trade, behind only drugs and arms, and have underlined with countless examples the links with Organized Crime since 1960. Organized Crime, which includes but is not limited to major Mafias (it also includes any group of three or more individuals working together in a diverse array of criminal enterprises for long-term collective goals), is responsible for some activity in the life of the crime. This is least often the theft or looting itself, which is done by mercenary burglars or local tomb raiders. But syndicates have the international networks necessary to take stolen objects off the hands of the thieves, smuggle them abroad, launder them, and sell them on. Because of this, art crime funds all of Organized Crime's other activities, from the drug and arms trade to terrorism.

Individuals from the major world art police have quoted these facts repeatedly, as have art criminals, lawyers, security staff, criminologists and more. But it is difficult to find published, publicly available statements to back this up. For anyone looking for a good, reliable source to cite when quoting information about art crime as the third-highest-grossing criminal trade, and the involvement of Organized Crime, need look no further than the US Department of Justice and the US Central Bureau of Interpol:


Cultural Property Crimes Program
The annual dollar value of art and cultural property theft is exceeded only by the trafficking in illicit narcotics and arms. The illegal trade of works of art and cultural property is as dangerous as these crimes. The criminal networks that traffic in the illicit sale of Works of Art and Cultural Property are often times the same circles that deal in illegal drug, arms dealing, and other illegal transactions. It has also been found recently that many insurgent and terrorist groups fund their operations through the sales and trade of stolen Works of Art and Cultural Property.

December 4, 2009

Lecture by Met Chief Security Officer John Barelli at University of Richmond


Interested in hearing more about art theft investigation and security at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Check out "The Myths of Art Thefts & Art Theft Investigations" above delivered by University of Richmond graduate John Barelli '71 at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in the School of Continuing Studies.*

*The ISGM theft occurred March 1990 rather than 1989 for clarification; Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" is located in Amsterdam and was slashed in 1975

December 3, 2009

Thursday, December 03, 2009 - No comments

Rave Review of "Art and Crime"

"Art & Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art World" is the first book edited by ARCA. It contains a wide variety of essays by world-renowned scholars, police, security directors, lawyers, art historians, criminologists, and more, detailing the realities of art crime, and showing the unite front, working together to curb it. "Art & Crime" is published by Praeger, and is available through Amazon. All profits go to support ARCA's non-profit activities.

November 17, 2009

Art crime captures audience

Amy Lee of the Yale Daily News has contributed a piece covering ARCA founder Noah Charney's recent lecture at the Yale University Art Gallery:
Measuring 14.5 by 11 feet and weighing in at close to two tons, Jan van Eyck’s “Ghent Altarpiece” is not the likeliest candidate for the most stolen artwork of all time.

And yet this monumental 1432 Flemish panel painting is exactly that. Art historian Noah Charney, who taught a course called “Art Crime” last semester, addressed a nearly full auditorium of professors, students and locals Thursday at the Yale University Art Gallery in a talk titled “Stealing the Mystic Lamb: A true history of the world’s most frequently stolen masterpiece.”

November 4, 2009

Wednesday, November 04, 2009 - No comments

Exciting Opportunity for Law Students Interested in Cultural Property Protection

Law students take note: the registration deadline is fast approaching for the Inaugural National Cultural Heritage Law Moot Court Competition, sponsored by the Lawyers' Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation. The competition will take place at the Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse in downtown Chicago from March 5-6, 2010. The judges for the final round will include members of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Registration will be capped at the first sixteen (16) teams and is due by November 16, 2009.

For more information on the competition, please click here.

November 3, 2009

ARCA Talks in the US this November

ARCA is pleased to announce the following events taking place in the US during the first two weeks of November.

Nov 5
11am
Marriot Hotel and Conference Center
Philadelphia, PA
ARCA trustees Erik Nemeth and Noah Charney present at the American Society of Criminology conference (open only to conference registrants)

Nov 7
4pm
Walters Art Museum
Baltimore, MD
Spotlight: Gary Vikan and Noah Charney
A conversation with the Walters Museum director and ARCA director Noah Charney

Nov 10
8am-4:30pm
Wexler Center for the Arts
Ohio State University
Columbus, OH
Library and Archive Security
Travis McDade and Noah Charney present a workshop on archive theft and security strategies, in collaboration with IFCPP (open to the public)

Nov 11
9am-4pm
Henry Lee School of Forensic Science
University of New Haven
New Haven, CT
Noah Charney gives an all-day workshop on how a knowledge of the history of art theft can be used to protect and recover art in the future

Nov 12
530pm
Yale Art Gallery
New Haven, CT
"The Most Stolen Painting in History"
Noah Charney speaks about his next non-fiction book, entitled Stealing the Mystic Lamb, a monograph on the art history and criminal history of Jan van Eyck's The Ghent Altarpiece, the most frequently stolen masterpiece of all time.
The talk will be followed by a book release party for ARCA's essay collection, ART & CRIME: EXPLORING THE DARK SIDE OF THE ART WORLD. The party will be held after the talk, across the street from the gallery at Atticus Bookstore Cafe. All are welcome.

October 30, 2009

Gary Vikan & Noah Charney at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Spotlight: Gary Vikan and Noah Charney

November 07, 2009

Walters Art Museum

Baltimore, MD

Time: 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Date: Saturday, November 7, 4 p.m.

Pre-registration recommended; books for sale in the Museum Store

Fans of Dr. Vikan's compelling WYPR "Postcards From the Walters"will enjoy this 2009--2010 series of lively on-stage chats, with Dr. Vikan hosting distinguished guests. In this session, he will chat with author Noah Charney, and will discuss Charney’s novel, The Art Thief and issues of art theft. Charney is the director of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art. An "after-talk" reception and book signing follow.

October 29, 2009

ARCA Lecture "The Most Stolen Artwork in History: Crimes and Mysteries of the Ghent Altarpiece"



ARCA Lecture
"The Most Stolen Artwork in History: Crimes and Mysteries of the Ghent Altarpiece"

Yale Art Gallery
Thursday, November 12, 5:30 PM

Noah Charney, art historian and founding director of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA), a nonprofit think tank on the protection of cultural property, presents a lecture on the subject of his next book, Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece, the world’s most frequently stolen artwork, involved in thirteen different crimes since its creation in 1432. The lecture takes place at the Yale University Art Gallery’s Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall and is followed by a book signing and reception at Atticus Bookstore/CafĂ©, where Mr. Charney will be signing copies of "Art and Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art World," a collection of essays on the world of art crime and its consequences.

October 27, 2009

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - No comments

ARCA Featured in "The New Criminologist"

We are pleased to direct your attention to a new article on art crime by Elizabeth Elliot, published in "The New Criminologist."

New Criminologist Special: Art Crime

http://www.newcriminologist.com/article.asp?nid=2175

One of ARCA's primary goals is to encourage the academic study of art crime and create a criminological methodology for the analysis of art crime. Interested academics from any relevant field are welcome to contact us and submit papers for publication in our peer-reviewed academic journal, The Journal of Art Crime. The more scholars and professionals working together to curb art crime, the better off we, and our world's cultural heritage, will be.

October 23, 2009

Friday, October 23, 2009 - ,, No comments

Investigating Art and Cultural Objects Theft: How the History of Art Crime Solves Today's Mysteries

ARCA and The Henry Lee Institute Team Up on the Forensics of Art Theft

Investigating Art and Cultural Objects Theft: How the History of Art Crime Solves Today's Mysteries

This special one-day workshop will explore the history of art theft, and the lessons that it can offer to contemporary investigators and security personnel. Over the past forty years, art crime has consistently been the third highest-grossing criminal trade worldwide. Most art crime since the 1960s has involved organized crime, funding other operations, including the drug and arms trades, and even terrorism.

Art crime is little studied, from an academic and an investigative perspective. The combination of scholarly historical analysis with experience in the field can provide the best means to understand and curb this serious threat to not only our cultural heritage, but to impede organized crime overall.

The first half of the program will take you on a tour through the history of art crime with a focus on fine art theft, investigation, and museum security. The second half of the workshop will detail practical methods of using the lessons learned from history's master thieves, and from the successes and failures of investigators and security programs, to suggest better ways to investigate and protect art in the future.

Seminar starts 900am and will be located in Dodds Auditorium on the University of New Haven campus. This seminar is open to law enforcement officers, educators, and the public. Tuition is $100.00 and light refreshments will be served.

The seminar will be run by ARCA Founding Director Noah Charney.
To register please go to www.henryleeinstitute.com .