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January 16, 2023

Monday, January 16, 2023 - ,,, No comments

Having Eluded Capture for 30 Years - Matteo Messina Denaro, A.K.A. "Diabolik," has been captured.


Palermo prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia and with the deputy prosecutor Paolo Guido confirmed today that longtime fugitive, Cosa Nostra boss, Matteo Messina Denaro, A.K.A. "Diabolik," has been captured by anti-Mafia Carabinieri, this morning during the early hours.  He was arrested at a bar, adjacent to “La Maddalena” a private health clinic and hospital in the San Lorenzo, district of Palermo where he had been undergoing treatment.  The hospital is a medical-surgical level III facility for oncology. He's since been photographed being walked out of a  Carabinieri palazzo in dark glasses and an oversized coat, before being placed in a a waiting vehicle to transport him to a secure cell. 


Sentenced to life in prison in absentia in 1992, Messina Denaro solidified his position in the mafia following the arrests of two of his predecessors, Salvatore "Totò" Riina in 1993 and Bernardo Provenzano in 2006.  A fugitive since 1993, he had been convicted for the Sicilian mafia's bombing campaign in the early 1990s, which killed two anti-mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino,  and others in Sicily, Rome and Florence.  

One of Cosa Nostra's more brutal bosses, he once boasted "I filled a cemetery all by myself." 

In 2012, while still on the lam, Matteo Messina Denaro was one of mafia members people given an additional sentence of life imprisonment, this time for the murder of 12 year old Giuseppe Di Matteo, dissolved in a barrel of acid.  Di Matteo's father, Santino Di Matteo, was one of the participants in the killing of Antimafia judge Giovanni Falcone on 23 May 1992.  After his arrest on 4 June 1993, he became a government witness – a pentito, a move which ultimately made his son a target.

According to Giovanni Brusca, an Italian mobster and former member of the Corleonesi clan, Matteo Messina Denaro was also the facilitator of the 1993 Uffizi gallery bombing in Florence.  During that incident, a Fiat car packed with 100kg of explosives detonated killing six people, and destroying three paintings - two by Bartolomeo Manfredi and one by the Gherardo delle Notti.  

Messina Denaro was also implicated in the bombing of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome.  

While in hiding, his name has come up several times as linked to Gianfranco Becchina, where it was alleged [though never proven] that the disgraced antiquities dealer from Castelvetrano was involved in the clan boss's operations. Eventually the Court of Palermo dismissed the charges of mafia association against Becchina on the basis that the testimonies given by Vincenzo Calcara, an exMafia soldier and pentito (collaborator of justice) and now deceased former drug dealer Rosario Spatola, were deemed "unreliable" however the seizure of his business assets remained in effect. 


Messina Denaro is credited with having created Trapani branch of Cosa Nostra,  which infiltrated the economy, businesses and banks in the area.  Investigative seizures made by authorities in connection with this boss are so extensive it is hard to tell where the economy of western Sicily stops and Denaro’s mafia-controlled empire begins.  

As the word spread throughout Palermo of his arrest, officers received hugs and praise,  as cars throughout the city, blared their horns welcoming his arrest.


But those who have long lived in the shadow of the powerful clans, are worried that the apparently ailing mobster, now 60 years old, had already handed over the reigns to another, and may have gotten sloppy about where he was, or even perhaps let law enforcement in on his treatment.  With a police press conference scheduled for 17:00 CET, perhaps more will be discussed regarding his underlying medical condition, which some say is a tumour in his stomach that he was being treated for over an extended period of time, benefiting from the use of a false identity document.  

Will the medical issues of this crime boss affect his sentencing?  This remains to be explored. 


What is known is that he comes from a long blood line of mafia family members, some of whom are equally worth remembering. 

Francesco Messina Denaro - Capo Mandamento of the Castelvetrano family, and the head of the mafia commission of the Trapani region, died in hiding in 1998 while he too was a fugitive from justice.  It was after his father's death that Matteo Messina Denaro took over his father's enterprise.  A close ally to the Corleone faction led by Salvatore "Totò" Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, Francesco Messina Denaro was known as Don Ciccio, and headed the Castelvetrano family from 1981 until 1998.  
he was believed to have been behind the theft of the famous Efebo of Selinunte, a 5th century BCE statue of Dionysius Iachos, stolen on October 30, 1962 and recovered in 1968 through the help of Rodolfo Siviero.  Every year, since 1999, despite being on the run, his son managed to place a In Memoriam notice dedicated to him in the Giornale di Sicilia. Mysteriously, the purchaser of the ad is never traced.

Patrizia Messina Denaro - Is the sister of the former fugitive and is believed to have served as a Capodonna representative of the Castelvetrano family while living in that city.  Incarcerated, she is serving a 14 year and 6 months sentence for acting as stand in for her brother.  She was found guilty of being a full member of the Mafia and not an affiliate mafia. Several firms including an olive-oil company belonging to her and her husband were impounded and a number of bank accounts frozen.

Salvatore Messina Denaro was arrested on 15 March 2010, along with 18 others in operation "Golem 2" as a principal in a network surrounding his fugitive brother. Living in Campobello di Mazara, he was charged with organising Matteo Messina Denaro's secret correspondence in order to help him remain on the run, as well as mafia association, corruption and protection rackets.  In this case Palermo financial police in execution of three separate orders issued by the Prevention measures offices of the Palermo and Trapani Courts seized real estate holdings worth 1.8 million euros. 

Update 17 January 2020
The carabinieri ROS and the Palermo prosecutor's office have identified the hideout of where Matteo Messina Denaro, arrested on January 16 at the Maddalena clinic in Palermo, had apparently been hiding, for at least part of the last thirty years.    This residence is in the heart of Campobello di Mazara, (7.7 km from Castelvetrano), the same city where his driver and fiancheggiatore, Giovanni Luppino, is from.  Luppino himself is an olive merchant, who before yesterday was said to have a clean record. He is not believed to be a relation to Messina Denaro loyalist Franco Luppino.

What officers uncover in this house or other houses used by the boss and his facilitators, as well as in his phone, could prove  interesting. The fugitive boss, in addition to his own criminal history, is said to have  possibly held the Totò Riina archives, once held in a safe that was removed from Riina's hideout in via Bernini.  The documents in that safe might demonstrate a lot of the mafia's strategies during the Years of Lead. 

According to a news reports published by ANSA, Matteo Messina Denero's arrest came following leads which had been developed through a traditional policing investigation and not via an informant's leak of the crime boss' location yesterday.  Using the methodology of draining the lake around the fugitive; law enforcement worked to remove his network of low level and influential godfather loyalists charging as many of them as possible for aiding and abetting.  

Officers also tapped telephones including those of family and clan members thought to be co-involved.  It is from these wiretap interceptions that officers first learned of Messina Denero's illness, even if many of these recorded conversations were coded, as those under observation were aware that their phones were likely tapped. 

From there investigators began combing through health records from the Ministry of Health, focusing on male cancer patients, narrowing down the list of individuals who had or were undergoing treatment who were on/around the same age as Messina Denaro.  Among those, was an individual with the name "Andrea Bonafede." Which, aside from the irony of the last name, matches a known family relative, whose medical records indicated had purportedly undergone surgery at La Maddalena one year ago, to remove liver metastases that had formed from colon cancer. 

Following this lead it was determined that the real Andrea Bonafede was at his home on the purported day of this surgical intervention and with this lead a sting was arranged to coincide with one of the imposter's scheduled chemotherapy appointments, who had been using Bonafede's identity for scheduled treatments for the last year.  This resulted in the dramatic capture of Messina Denaro yesterday while he waited in the queue having done his COVID test prior to receiving treatment.  This while other patients were kept outside the facility, for hours, to allow officers to more readily identify the mafia boss when he arrived for his scheduled appointment time.


January 11, 2023

Wednesday, January 11, 2023 - ,,,,,,, No comments

Not surprisingly, and despite all of his protestations earlier, Ali Aboutaam has been convicted.


In a hearing that took less than an hour at the Geneva police court, Ali Aboutaam, the owner of the Geneva gallery Phoenix Ancient Art SA has been sentenced by the Swiss authorities.  Following on a complex and multi-year criminal and procedural investigation by officers and analysts with Switzerland's customs and anti-fraud divisions, working with the Geneva Public Prosecutor's Office, the Swiss-based merchant has been found guilty of forgery of titles.  A misdemeanour under Swiss law on the transfer of cultural property, his admissions come with an 18-month suspended prison sentence, three years probation and requiring him to pay procedural costs totalling 450,000 francs or approximately €454,410.

The courts also confirmed the seizure of 42 artefacts, confiscated due to their illicit origin which will be devolved to the Federal Office of Culture.  Several dozen other antiquities will be returned to the countries of origin.

Aboutaam's conviction and sentencing comes in response to a conspiracy which proved that the art dealer, with the help of accomplices, produced false certificates of provenance in relation to ancient art objects in circulation. Aboutaam was also found guilty of having knowingly paid at least one accomplice, who sourced antiquities from illicit excavations in various countries of the Middle East.

A statement extracted from the Swiss indictment read: 
"Ali Aboutaam knew or must have assumed that they had been wrongfully acquired". 

This particular Swiss investigation dates back to 20 December 2016 when around 5:10 p.m., at around 17:10 hours, when arriving from France by car, a Swiss border patrol officer stopped a grey Land Rover vehicle, registration No. GE777994 registered to the company Phoenix Ancient Art SA, rue Verdaine 6 & 1204 Geneva at the Veyrier border checkpoint. The car had been driven by Ali Aboutaam's driver and was transporting then-Germany based antiquities dealer Roben Galel Dib as a passenger. 

The testimony of the two persons revealed that Dib was in possession of an antique oil lamp, which neither the driver, nor the purported owner of the lamp, were able to provide documentation for proving the object’s provenance to the officers’ satisfaction.  Dib told authorities he was coming to Switzerland to "meet a girl" and that he was carrying the lamp with him because he had just had an appointment on this subject in Paris to have it restored. The object was sequestered, and an inspection of the car revealed the presence of 3 receipts for the rental of two storage units at the company Flexbox Self Storage, route du Nant-d'Avril 40 in 1214 Vernier, in the name of a conservator in Chanoy. 

Both the driver and Roben Dib were released after questioning around 2:00 AM the following morning, while on or around that same time surveillance footage of the storage warehouse listed on the receipts found in the car captured Ali Aboutaam’s wife, Biljana Aboutaam, the family's chauffeur and a housekeeper participating “several movements of merchandise".  Predicated on the foregoing, Swiss Customs Administration developed a “strong suspicion” that the warehouse was being used to store illegally imported art and antiquities. 

As is publicly now known, Roben Dib is the business partner of Hamburg-based dealer of Egyptian art Serop Simonian.  Dib was arrested in Hamburg by German police on suspicion of art trafficking in August 2020 and released after only five weeks behind bars.  

Subject to a European Arrest Warrant, Dib was then rearrested in Paris, France on 22 March 2022 after traveling there to discuss charges related to dealing in illegally trafficked Egyptian antiquities with French authorities.  

Both Dib and Simonian have been tied to million dollar illicit antiquities which have made their way (illegally) into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, and museum and private collections throughout the world on the basis of false provenance documentation, a subject which has been covered with frequency on this blog.  

In January 2016, a 3rd millennium BCE, alabaster plaque was displayed at the European art fair BRAFA after first passing through Port Franc, the free port of Geneva to Inanna Art Services, a subsidiary of Phoenix Ancient Art.  This artefact, according to a qualified Syrian archaeologist, likely came from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Mari.  This artefact was confiscated following an inspection operation, carried out by the Belgian Federal Public Service Economy (French: SPF Économie, Dutch: FOD Economie) along with a marble table in the context of a suspicion of illicit trafficking in antiquities. 


The plaque was first identified in the Aboutaam's Phoenix Ancient Art 2012 - Crystal IV catalogue, which listed the 39.5 cm 3rd millennium BCE plaque with an image of ritual worship as having a provenance of: 

"Ex Elie Bustros Collection, Beirut, 1950s-1960s"

implying that the artefact may have come from the Beirut dealer Elias (Elie) Bustros, purportedly active from at least the 1930s through by some records the 1980s.   

It should be noted that in addition to its Ottoman Empire laws an antiquities, the Syrian Republic's Antiquities Law, Decree No. 222, was enacted in 1963.  That law vested ownership of all antiquities in the State and prohibited the sale or transfer of antiquities without governmental approval. 

This is not, however, the only incidence where "Ex-Elie Bustros Collection" has been used in connection with an artefact handled by Phoenix Ancient Art.


Provenance:
Elias Bustros, Beruit 1950’s-1983;
By descent, 1983-1986?;
(Gawain McKinley, England, on behalf of Selim Dere and Sleiman Aboutaam, 1986)

Selim Dere is the owner of a New York antiquities gallery, Fortuna Fine Arts where Manhattan authorities executed a seizure warrant in June 2018. Erdal Dere (the son of Aysel Dere and Selim Dere), was indicted in the US indicted in relation to a conspiracy to defraud buyers and brokers in the antiquities market with the use of false provenance documentation. 

The Belgian identifications resulted in a separate four-year investigation overseen by the Belgian federal prosecutor's office into the activities of the Aboutaam brothers, who opened a branch of Phoenix Ancient Art in the city of Brussel's Sablon in 2017.  This branch was subject to police raids in 2019 ordered by Judge Michael Claise. 

By June 2021, a Lebanese intermediary of Phoenix Ancient Art had already been condemned by the Geneva public prosecutor for having imported archaeological objects looted in the Middle East.  This individual was identified as having travelled to Geneva four or five times a year, for four years, to deliver ancient objects to Ali Aboutaam. Arrested in Romania, he was extradited at the request of the Geneva public prosecutor's office.

That same year, in November 2021, Ali Aboutaam was handed a 1.6 million francs fine via Swiss customs, including the costs of the proceedings. The tax authorities came after the dealer in this instance for having imported 37 million francs worth of antiquities into Switzerland between 2010 and 2017 without paying the applicable VAT. 

Which brings us back to the present, the Swiss indictment, accepted by Ali Aboutaam within the framework of a simplified procedure, acknowledges the following, verbatim:

"Ali Aboutaam, in his capacity as administrator of Phoenix Ancient Art SA, has asked art experts, or has asked employees of Phoenix Ancient Art SA to obtain from art experts: produce and/or sign false invoices; and/or produce or cause others to produce documents indicating source that are contrary to reality, sometimes contained directly in invoices; and/or provide untrue source indications for use by others."

In another section of the indictment, Aboutaam agrees that the falsification  of provenance documentation was done to launder the artworks, giving them: 

"a pedigree aimed at dispelling suspicion of illicit provenance and/or to facilitate their customs transfer with a view to their sale on the art market through Phoenix Ancient Art SA, Tanis Antiquities LTB and Inanna Art Services SA, i.e. companies of which Ali Aboutaam has Control."

The mention of Tanis is significant.  It helps conceptualise the range of years where this shell company has been linked to questionable transactions and laundered antiquities.  In 13 December 2003 Hicham Aboutaam, Ali's brother, was arrested in the United States and charged with smuggling the silver ceremonial drinking vessel known as a rhyton into the United States from Iran and falsely claiming that it came from Syria.  That 2003 government complaint identified the gallery’s affiliate office in New York as "the Bloomfield Collection" and informed that the invoice for the artefact, declaring Syria as country of origin was issued by Tanis Antiquities, Ltd.  

Tanis Antiquities, Ltd comes up again very recently in the ongoing important French investigation involving materials sold to the Louvre Abu Dhabi.  As reported by the French newspaper Liberation, French investigators discovered that Jean-François Charnier's sister, Marie-Christine Charnier, had received money from the Aboutaam family via an account opened in a Moroccan bank, paid from the offshore structure controlled by the merchants, again, Tanis Antiquities Ltd., based in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.  

The legal representative for Tanis Antiquities Ltd is, a Canadian citizen, of Lebanese origin, resident of Geneva, Ali Aboutaam.

I will close this article by mentioning that this is not the first occasion where the Aboutaam family, or Ali personally, has had run ins with legal authorities for their involvement  in the circulation of suspect artefacts originating from varying jurisdictions regarding trafficked objects from the Middle East.  In April 2004 Ali Aboutaam was tried in absentia in an Egyptian court and pronounced guilty and sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison in a long-running trafficking ring that had smuggled Egyptian artefacts through Switzerland to Western dealers and galleries.  That investigation resulted in the convictions of 25 defendants, including several high-ranking Egyptian police and government officials and nine foreigners. 

January 10, 2023

Tuesday, January 10, 2023 - , No comments

A timeline of a convicted seller of Andy Warhol forgeries, who now faces an investigation into the disappearance of his wife


Brian R. Walshe came onto the art crime radar after pleading guilty to the sale of two fraudulent artworks which were purported to have been painted by American visual Pop artist Andy Warhol.  In 2023 his life got a whole lot more complicated. 

This is a timeline of the two Washe investigations.


1994
Brian Walshe meets a Korean friend while attending Carnegie Melon University in Pittsburg, PA for a year.  He does not graduate but the two remain in touch, even after this friend graduates and returns to South Korea.

A later affidavits will claim that Walshe left university due to mental health issues, checking himself into the Austin Riggs Center, a psychiatric in-patient treatment facility. 

Beginning on/around approximately 2004 through 2011
Brian Walshe's Korean friend is now known to be collecting art.  This friend subsequently purchases:
two Andy Warhol Shadow paintings, 
an Andy Warhol silk screen print of a dollar sign on a handkerchief and two Keith Haring prints

Through an arrangement with Walshe, who tells his friend that he can sell his artworks at a profit, Brian's friend hands over the two Andy Warhol Shadow paintings, the Andy Warhol silk screen print of a dollar sign on a handkerchief, the two Keith Haring prints, and a Tang Dynasty porcelain statue so that Walshe can find buyers for the pieces.

3 May 2011
Brian Walshe attempts to consign an Andy Warhol artwork to Gagosian Gallery in New York City, who declines on the basis that Walshe did not have the bill of sale for the artwork.  

At this same time, Walshe is known to have still possessed the Andy Warhol silk screen print of a dollar sign on a handkerchief and the two Keith Haring prints, as well as possibly the Tang Dynasty porcelain statue.

21 September 2011 
Brian Walshe consigns an Andy Warhol silk screen print of a dollar sign on a handkerchief to Christies who sells the artwork at auction for $40,000 

2012 and later 
Brian Walshe is known to have visited his university friend in Korea on several occassions.  His last visit was in 2012 to attend his friend's wedding but to date, and despite his claim to be able to sell the art works handed over previously, no payments for the works have been forthcoming.   

When pressed for answers, Walshe eventually begins to avoid his friend's calls.
 
After several failed attempts at communication and attempts through two different  intermediaries, Walshe is forced to hand over the two Keith Haring prints and the Tang Dynasty porcelain statue when confronted at his home during an impromptu face to face meeting with an intermediary who is a friend to the Korean owner. 

The Andy Warhol Shadow paintings are not recovered at this time. 

March 2015 - July 2020 
According to Brian R. Walshe's Linkedin Page, he is now employed as an International Business Strategist for Ten Sail Consulting. brw@tensailconsulting.com   

21 December 2015
Brian Washe marries Ana Knipp, who maintains her maiden name.  The family go on to have three children. 

Early November 2016
Los Angeles gallery owner Ron Rivlin notices two Andy Warhol paintings for sale via the online auction site eBay via a seller with the user name:
ancili2012:

The eBay listing, on Ana Knipp's seller account, sets the price for the paintings in the advertisement at $100,000 and reads as follows: 

"We are selling 2 Andy Warhol paintings from our private collection. We are parting with these pieces only because we need the money for renovations to our house. Our loss is your gain. Pieces bought from a former Martin Lawrence art dealer in California. We over paid terribly in 2007 for the art. Price paid $240,000. We have enclosed the Christie's estimates as of 2011 for the art as well.  Auction range $120,000 to $180,000. We are trying to sell on Ebay because it is much cheaper and because Christie's won't be able to auction our pieces till May 2017. The pieces are numbered and registered with the Warhol Foundation. Pieces are from 1979. Size 14 inches by 11 inches. Synthetic Polymer Paint and Silkscreen ink on canvas. Warhol Foundation # PA65.049 & PA65.032."

As part of the advertisement, the eBay seller included a picture of an invoice from Fleishman Fine Art for both of the Warhol Shadow paintings with Warhol Foundation numbers and a purchase price of $240,000. 

The eBay seller also included photographs of a label on the back of the painting from the Jablonka Gallery with the number PA65.049; and a photograph of a Christie's document listing the two paintings and two other works by Keith Haring.

The BillTo/Ship To: Name of the purchaser was a family member of Brian Walshe's friend in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea.

Between 3 and 5 November 2016
California art dealer Ron Rivlin is interested in the two Andy Warhol "shadow" paintings and contacts the Walshe's using eBay's messaging service, inquiring about the work and requesting that "Ana" call him, providing the seller with his number. 

Rivlin speaks directly with Brian Walshe – the seller – between 3-5 November 2016 and works towards negotiating a purchase for the Warhol artworks for $80,000.  Walshe in turn negotiates to complete the sales transaction outside of eBay platform so that he can avoid the eBay seller fees. 

After an agreement is reached, Rivlin draws up a DocuSign contract on 3 November 2016 in which both parties sign-off agreeing that the purchaser has three days to terminate the contract and get a full refund if the buyer fails to accept the artwork.

7 November 2016
Ron Rivlin’s assistant flies to Boston to meet with Brian Walshe and to take possession of the two Andy Warhol "shadow" paintings.  

After taking a cursory look at the paintings and forwarding digital photos to Rovlin the buyer's agent takes possession of two artworks during a meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston and provides Walshe with a cashier’s check for $80,000. 

As the paintings are in frames, the backs of the paintings are not inspected on this date.  According to bank records, reviewed as part of the subsequent investigation into Walshe's activities, this cashier’s check was deposited on the same day into an account controlled solely by Walshe.  

Rivlin's assistant flew back to Los Angeles with the art works. 

Between 8 and 21 November 2016
Brian Walshe makes a series of withdrawals and payment transactions from the same bank account where he deposited Ron Rivlin's payment of $80,000.  In total he withdraws or makes payments for outstanding depts totalling $33,400 in the span of 13 days. 

8 November 2016 and later
Ron Rivlin’s assistant brings the two purchased paintings to the Rivlin for his inspection. In examining the two paintings, Rivlin removes the paintings’ frames and discovers that neither artwork has the Warhol Foundation authentication stamp on the back.  He also ascertains that both of the canvasses and the staples appear to be new. 

When Rivlin compares the paintings to the original photographs of the Andy Warhol "Shadows" from the eBay listing, he realises that the artworks delivered to him after his purchase do not appear to be those previously depicted in the photos for the sale on eBay.   He concludes that the two paintings he purchased and which were delivered to his assistant by Brian Walshe are not authentic.

Subsequent to this realisation, Rivlin repeatedly tries to contact Walshe, by telephone, text message and email, but initially receives no replies.  Rivlin then contacts Brian’s mother, whose name was on the title to Brian Walshe and Ana Knipp’s home, as well as Knipp's place of employment in Boston demanding that Brian return his calls or risk legal action. 

16 November 2016
According to the 2018 complaint charging Brian Walshe with wire fraud, Rivlin received a email reply from the Walshe on November 16, 2016 which makes excuses for the delay in refunding the California dealer's money.  Walshe claimed both that he didn’t have access to his phone  and that the time difference between Boston and L.A. made it difficult to call.  He promised Rivlin that he “would like to return your $80,000 ASAP.”
 
See transcript of the email from the court document here:
"Hello [redacted], Thank you for calling my wife. She said you were very kind and respectful, which is how I remembered you from our first interaction. I was going to call on Tuesday (election day) to ask about the 'shadows', but because of the time difference I was unable. I was in meetings and buildings all that day which did not allow me to have my phone. Once I saw your messages, things had already escalated to an uncomfortable level. Mr.  [redacted] is our family lawyer. He was trying to resolve the matter without unnecessary litigation. He was not going to represent me formally in any civil or criminal proceedings, but was hoping to satisfy you as a client. On Friday he did offer a full refund to your lawyer, but from your Saturday email it seemed it was too late to resolve this matter without a drawn-out court case. The information you explained to my wife is very troubling. If the photos I sent you are clearly different then the ‘Shadows' you have now, then that is a serious problem. However, regardless of the problems with the 'shadows', you have a right to a full refund according to our written agreement in section 9.3. I have no reason to believe that you would mis-represent any information. When I spoke to you last I had the impression that you were a fair and honest businessman. My wife has the same impression since your conversation yesterday. I was just surprised with how quickly things escalated. I am traveling this week, but I would like to return your $80,000 ASAP. Please send me your Bank of America information and I will send you the money. Once you receive your money please send me the 'shadows'. I need to investigate what happened on my side of this transaction. Once I have the ‘shadows' and can confirm your information, I will also refund the cost of sending [redacted] to Boston. I don't want you to suffer financially from this transaction. Especially, if the fault is on my side. Thank you again for reaching out to my wife. I will be in touch directly with you later this week. Best Brian".

22 - 28 November 2016
After continued excuses and delays, Brian Walshe has only made two partial payments totalling $30,000 to Ron Rivlin via Ten Sail Consulting LLC. 

8 December 2016
Ron Rivlin informs Brian Walshe that he has spoken with the FBI regarding the the lack of total refund for the purported Andy Warhol "Shadow" paintings. 

May 2018
Brian Walshe is arrested on a criminal complaint filed in the US District Court in Massachusetts following the FBI's investigation into his sale of two fake Andy Warhol paintings. 

Investigations by state and federal authorities allege that Walshe initially gained access to authentic Warhol paintings through a second victim, his Korean friend, who was known to have purchased Andy Warhol artworks.  Walshe had also been present with the aforementioned friend on one occasion when that individual purchased one work of art by Warhol.  Later, this same friend also purchased the two authentic Warhol Shadow paintings.

According to the criminal complaint, afterwards, while visiting the victim in South Korea, Walshe told his friend that he could sell some of this individual's art for a good price and an agreement was made to let Walshe take possession of the two Shadow paintings by Warhol and other fine art pieces.

After Walshe took the items however he became unreachable to the victim. 

The FBI investigators allege that Brian or his wife Ana Walshe subsequently used her eBay account to advertise the two Warhols.  

The Federal complaint did not charge Walshe's wife, but documents that she had a somewhat active roll in as much as it was her eBay user account and she fielded phone calls from Ron Rivlin.

September 2018
Brian Walshe's father,  Thomas Moorecroft Walshe III, dies at age 71 in India.  

At some point thereafter, the father's lawyer contacted the deceased man's son to inform him of the news, at which point, according to legal documents presented during the probate dispute, it is alleged Walshe asked for a key to the $710,000 beachfront property in Hull, Massachusetts, after the attorney went himself and took pictures of the original will – dated May 2016.

October 2018 
Brian Walshe is formally indicted by a federal grand jury on four charges in the paintings fraud case, including wire fraud, interstate transportation for a scheme to defraud, possession of converted goods and unlawful monetary transaction.

December 2018
Three months after his father’s death, Brian Walshe had himself appointed as personal representative of his father’s estate on the grounds his father had no will, a document filed by federal prosecutors in the Warhol theft case states.

By July 2019
Brian Walshe is involved in a legal dispute in Plymouth Probate and Family Court with family members regarding his father's estate in which family and friends allege that he has been estranged from his father for more than ten years and that after his father's death, arranged to destroyed at least one document, his deceased father's will, before wrongly took over management of his father’s estate, despite family members claiming that his father had left his son out of his 2016 will,  stating only his “best wishes but nothing else from my estate,” as per the words of his will.

Relatives allege Brain Walshe stole $100,000 from his father's bank account and stole/sold artwork and luxury items – including paintings by Salvador Dali and Joan Miro – as well as a car and attempted to sell the house in the period where his father's estate was being contested. 

A friend of the father Jeffrey Ornstein, stated in a 2019 affidavit that Walshe's father relayed to him that his only son had been a “long-term patient” at the Austin Riggs Psychiatric Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and had been diagnosed as a “sociopath.”

The dates of this hospitalisation and diagnosis have not been confirmed. However after the disappearance of his wife in 2023 varying news outlets report on this earlier hospitalisation.

November 2019 
In his own affidavit submitted to the Probate Court, Brian Walshe alleges that in the years prior to his father’s death, the two of them had reconciled, especially after the birth of his son in 2016.

He also claimed, somewhat ironically, given the charges he was facing, that the digital photo of his father's 2016 will “is a possible forgery” because his father's medical condition would have prevented him from writing it at the time it was dated. 

August 2020 - May 2021
According to Brian R. Walshe's LinkedIn Page, he is now employed as the Chief Financial Officer of Capital Letters Consulting. 

1 April 2021
Acting United States Attorney Nathaniel R. Mendell and Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Office announces that Brian Walshe has plead guilty on this date to three of the four counts in exchange for a recommended sentence from prosecutors of incarceration, supervised release and fines.  

He also agreed to either return the artworks or pay for them.

The counts Walshe plead guilty to are:
one count of wire fraud, 
one count of interstate transportation for a scheme to defraud, 
one count of possession of converted goods and an unlawful monetary transaction. 

He is subsequently scheduled for sentencing on 2 August 2021. 

May 2021 - Present
According to Brian R. Walshe's LinkedIn Page, he is employed as the CFO and Co-Founder of LETS: Leadership & Effective Teamwork Strategies.

March 2022
Ana Knipp is hired by a Washington, DC, real-estate firm Tishman Speyer.Her new role requires her to work in DC so she commutes back and forth while her husband (who remains on home confinement) and kids remain in Cohasset, Massachusetts.

June 2022
The 2 August 2022 date that U.S. Senior District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock was scheduled to sentence Brian Walshe in connection with his conviction is postponed.  US District Court Judge Douglas Warnock orders a hearing on Brian Walshe’s role in managing his father’s will and to allow time for the US Attorney’s Office to investigate Walshe’s current finances after Walshe failed to inform US Probation about two IRA's at Fidelity – one of which he contributed $91,000 – and left off a 2014 Fiat and 2015 Maserati, which his wife Ana drove.

In the interim, Walshe is placed on federal pre-sentencing probation with conditions which require home confinement with GPS monitoring.  Under these release conditions Walshe is required to request permission to exit his home via his supervising officer at the US Probation and Pretrial Services.  To do so he must specify precise times, locations, and necessity for being outside of the residence before authorisation can be granted. 

October 2022
Brian Walshe files an affidavit In probate court stating that he had prepared an inventory and is "in the process of organizing a full account of the estate and intend to file it with the court as soon as it is complete."

A pretrial conference in the probate case is subsequently scheduled for April 19, 2023.

27 December 2022
Having made plans to visit a friend near Washington, D.C., Ana Knipp (Walshe) texts her friend to say that she has to work late and will be delayed.  After two hours, Walshe responds to her friend stating that her phone died and she could not use GPS to get directions, so she returned home. 

The two friends reschedule their visit to Jan. 5, 2023.

28 December 2022
Ana Knipp (Walshe) texts a friend and tells her that she now has a new SIM card for her phone.

4 January 2023 and later
Ana Knipp (Walshe) is formally reported missing by her employer, real estate company Tishman Speyer after she fails to show up for work in Washington DC.   

The Walshe’s are known to now have a residence in the District, in addition to their Cohasset residence.

4 -5 January 2023
Shortly after Ana Knipp (Walshe) is reported missing, law enforcement question Brian Walshe regarding his wife's movements prior to her disappearance, and his movements after her disappearance. 

When interviewed by the police, Walshe claimed that his wife, who regularly commuted between Massachusetts and Washington, had been  heading out early on January 1, 2023, to take a flight into Washington, D.C.

According to the later-filed charging document, Brian Walshe told law enforcement investigators that he last saw his wife at their home in Cohasset early on January 1 when she had briefly woken him up to kiss him goodbye before she ordered a vehicle from a rideshare service to pick her up to bring her to Boston's Logan Airport.

Walshe also told officers that on the same day he had driven to the house of his mother in Swampscott, a 40-mile drive from Cohasset, but didn’t take his phone and “got lost,” making the trip take longer.  That same day he stated he visited Whole Foods and CVS in Swampscott to run errands for his mother. 

Knowing that his home confinement only allowed him out of the house during school drop-off and pick-up times to get his kids from school,  Walshe also informed law enforcement that on the morning of January 2nd, during the authorised morning release window for school drop off, he took one of the family's sons out for ice cream, on a day when school was closed. It is unclear where the other two children were at this time. 

5 January 2023
Cohasset police publicly announce that Ana Knipp (Walshe) is missing.  Police also do a preliminary search of the Walshe family home. 

6 January 2023
A fire breaks out and causes heavy damage to a resident located at 725 Jerusalem Road in Cohasset.  Ana Knipp (Walshe) bought this property for $800,000 in 2020 and sold it for $1.385 million in March 2022. 

Authorities later state that the fire was accidental and is not considered suspicious.

6-7 January 2023
Massachusetts State Police, trained in search and rescue, begin a comprehensive search for Ana Knipp (Walshe)'s whereabouts, canvassing the areas around her home in Cohasset, 20 miles southeast of Boston, utilising drones, dogs, and K-9 units.  

8 January 2023
Following up on the statements made during the interview, investigators find no record of Ana Knipp (Walshe) having taken an Uber or Lyft ride share or arriving at Logan Airport in Boston on January 1st as planned.  They also document that her cell phone pinged at the family's home address overnight on January 1st into the 2nd.

During the investigation, neither receipts, nor surveillance video, at Whole Foods or CVS corroborate Brian Walshe's reported visit to the two stores. Surveillance video footage does show, however, that Walshe visited a Home Depot Rockland on January 2 (a detail he withheld from officers).  There he bought $450 worth of cleaning supplies, including mops, a bucket and tarps.  During this trip he wore a surgical mask and gloves and paid in cash – visiting the store during his authorised time out of the house to pick up his kids from school in the afternoon, which was not open that day. 

As a result of the numerous discrepancies identified to the statements made by Brian Walshe, investigators request and obtain authorisation to further search the family home on January 8, 2023. 

In the home's basement, officers from crime scene services find both blood and a damaged, bloody knife.  They also find search queries on Brian Walshe’s internet records which include “how to dispose of a 115-pound woman’s body” and how to dismember a body. 

Brian Walshe is taken into custody and charged with misleading a police investigation. 

9 January 2023
Brian Walshe, is arraigned in Quincy District Court on a charge of misleading investigators who are searching for Ana Knipp (Walshe).  In reviewing the criminal affidavit Prosecutor Lynn Beland discussed the inconsistencies found in Brian Walshe's statements regarding his movements on the days of Sunday, January 1, 2023, and Monday, January 2, 2023.

A plea of not guilty is entered on Brian Walshe’s behalf by his counsel, Tracy Miner and with the Court ordering a $500,000 cash bail.  

Today, officers collected trash bags with blood, a hatchet, a hacksaw, a rug and used cleaning supplies, at a waste transfer facility in Peabody, about an hour from the family's home Cohasset home.  No information from police has been released as to if this evidence provides more information on what happened to 37 year old Knipp (Walshe).

Brian Walshe remains in custody after he fails to meet the $500,000 bail requirement set by the judge.  His next hearing is scheduled for February 9, 2023.  

The couple's three boys, ages 2, 4 and 6, are in state custody at the present time. 


January 9, 2023

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When history repeats itself, and not in a good way. Political insurrection 2.0 causes extensive damage to Brazil's cultural and political patrimony.

While most in the world can remember the fracturing of politics in the United States on January 6, 2021 following the defeat of then-U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, this week made way for a grim copycat incident, equally violent in nature in the Capital of Brazil this week. 

During the more than three hour long incident on Sunday, supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, protesting the October 30, 2022 runoff vote for the 2022 Brazilian general election which replaced the former president with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, swarmed over the Praça dos Três Poderes (Square of the Three Powers).  Protesters then invaded and damaged the Palácio do Planalto (Presidential Palace), which is the seat of government, where the President of the Republic meets with advisors and visitors.  

The riots quickly spread to the seat of the Supremo Tribunal Federal, Brazil's Supreme Court and the highest authority of the judicial power as well as to the buildings of the Congresso Nacional do Brasil, Brazil's Congress which houses the legislative body of Brazil's federal government.  There some protesters attempted to set the carpet on fire, which flooded rooms in the building when the fire suppression systems activated.  

Protesters swarming the Congresso Nacional do Brasil

Video provided by Twitter account @ALendaDePassos documents extensive damages to the Great Hall of the Superior Federal Court (STF). A largely ceremonial room, it was decorated with furniture from the 19th century, and housed works of art over 100 years old, as well as gifts given to the Brazilian Government by more than 20 countries. 

In another area, Paulo Pimenta, chief minister of the Social Communication Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic, walked reporters through the destruction caused by the insurrection to his office where videos recorded vandalism to the tables, chairs, documents, printers, computers, televisions and artwork.  Later, on his Twitter account Pimenta called the invasion a coup, and urged Brazilians to unite against domestic terrorism. 

As depicted in the photo below, the Sala de Armas do GSI at the Palácio do Planalto was also ransacked, with protesters even attempting to burn chairs in the outer control room.  In a second video released by Pimenta he shows empty weapon boxes which which could point to theft of arms the GSI's usually uses to maintain building security. 

More images of damages have been uploaded to Brazilian news site Globo.

The total historic assets damaged in Sunday's riot are yet to be documented and ARCA will update this blog post as further details emerge. 


January 6, 2023

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The US United States of America has hands over a rare artefact to Palestine

 

For the first time, the United States of America has handed over a rare artefact that was smuggled from the ruins of the Com in Hebron into the United States.  Carved from ivory, this object dates to circa 800-700 BCE and features an engraving of a winged creature.

This artefact is one of the 180 seized antiquities, valued at $70 Million purchased by Michael Steinhardt which were trafficked by a total of 12 different criminal smuggling networks. 

As the result of the District Attorney of New York - Manhattan investigations compelling evidence demonstrated that this, and other pieces were stolen from their country of origin, none of which had any specific provenance that could be verified by the collector or the DA's investigative team.

According to an invoice, Steinhardt purchased this ancient artefact on 21 January 2003 with no prior provenance for $6,000 from (then) licensed Israeli dealer Gil Chaya. While Chaya had listed his dealer’s license on his invoice to Steinhardt, the artefact was never registered (as required by Israeli law) with the Israeli Antuities authorities. 

Evidence as to its origins is documented in an email sent to Michael Steinhardt’s then-Collection Manager by Gil Chaya's then-wife Lisa, which stated:

“Cosmetic Spoon is from the Hebron area, a place called El Kom, this is the area of the richest Iron age Jewish tombs (many royal).” 

Map of the Hebron district

If Chaya's statement is to be believed, this artefact may come from Khirbet el-Qom, (خربة الكوم), an archaeological site in the village of al-Kum, between Lachish and Hebron.  The Hebron district (al-Khalil) itself is located 30 km south of Jerusalem where Chaya sold pieces he sourced illegally. Hebron is the largest governorate in the Palestinian territories, not only in terms of size and population (PCBS, 2009: 55-60), but also in its richness of cultural and natural heritage and is noted for being one of the oldest continuously inhabited areas in the world, sacred to the three monotheistic religions.




January 3, 2023

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ARCA looks forward on (combatting) art and antiquities crime in the year 2023 and opens its general application period for its PG Cert program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection.


As the new year gets off to a fresh start, art restitution and trafficking remain hot topics in 2023. 

Over the last year, as museums were forced to grapple with the question of how to to handle illicit antiquities in their collections, this year we see some of the more interesting pieces beginning to make their way home.  One of which is the 500 kilogram Late Period (747-332 BCE) "green sarcophagus" of a priest named Ankhenmaat, which was received by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in a formal handover ceremony in Cairo on January 2nd.  

Acquired by the Houston Museum of Natural Science in Texas in 2013, the artefact was looted, likely from a shaft tomb, at the Memphis necropolis at Abusir Al Malaq in Egypt, an archaeological locality on the western bank of the Nile River, approximately 25 kilometers southwest of Cairo.  Investigations overseen by the New York District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan determined that the sarcophagus had been illicitly exported out of Egypt and subsequently smuggled into Germany before eventually passing onward to the United States in 2008. 

January 2, 2023 ceremony at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosted handing over the "green sarcophagus" to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities after it was recovered in the United States.

2023 may also be the year where some of the same museums which grappled with their illicit antiquities in 2022 also begin, this year, come to terms with their acquisition of Nazi-stolen art or art sold by members of the Jewish community under Nazi duress.

In the last week of 2022 Judith Silver, her sister Deborah Silver, and seven other individuals from Los Angeles, Seattle and Israel, named in a lawsuit as the surviving heirs of Jewish collector Hedwig Stern, filed a claim in the Northern District of California District Court, against the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Athens-based Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation.  

Their lawsuit, surrounding the museum's deaccessioning of Van Gogh's "Olive Picking, 1889, contends that the Met's (then) chief curator Theodore Rousseau, “knew or consciously disregarded that the painting had been looted from Hedwig Stern by the Nazis” but still approved the Van Gogh painting's purchase and its later deaccessioning and sale. 

The painting's World War II era owner, Hedwig Stern, escaped Germany in December 1936 leaving behind a collection of artworks, which a Nazi-appointed trustee then sold onward.  The painting named in the lawsuit was deaccessioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1972 and after a series of transactions is now part of the collection of the Goulandris Museum of Contemporary Art, an Athens museum run by the family foundation of the late Greek shipping magnate Basil Goulandris and his wife, Elise Goulandris.   The lawsuit further contends that the Foundation continues to hold the painting despite its known provenance problems. 

Not counting this deaccessioned work, the Metropolitan Museum of Art reported that it has identified 53 works in its collection as having been seized or sold under duress during the Nazi era, excluding Picasso's painting “The Actor.”

Elsewhere, Timothy Reif and David Fraenkel, heirs of another collector persecuted during the Nazi regime, Fritz Grünbaum, have also filed lawsuits against the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in California seeking to recover a 1912 painting and 1915 pencil drawing, by Egon Schiele, each of which depict a woman. Grünbaum's art collection was looted by Nazis before he died on January 14, 1941 while held at Dachau Concentration Camp.

On the side of building capacity and advancing knowledge, later this month on January 18, 2023, at 5:00 pm, London time The Institute of Art and Law will host its next instalment of The Restitution Dialogues conference series.  This event will take place in the form of an online seminar investigating the Vatican Archives and its holdings of Indigenous items, including questions of returning items to communities of origin.

"The panel will discuss items such as the broader impact of the contemporary ‘restitution revolution’, the nature and provenance of Indigenous material in the Vatican collection, institutional best practices in restitution and repatriation, and the cultural impact of return and renewal."

The webinar is free for to anyone who registers.

January also marks the month when the Association for Research into Crimes against Art will accept general applications for admission to its 2023 Postgraduate Certificate program in Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection.  Back in 2009, ARCA started the very first interdisciplinary program designed to study art crimes holistically, in a structured and academically diverse format which includes eleven interconnected courses focusing on important theoretical and practical elements related to identifying, combatting, and studying art and heritage crime. 

Taught in Italy, over the course of one summer, the General Applications Period runs through 30 January 2023.  Late applications will be considered after, subject to remaining census availability. 

ARCA will also post information later this month regarding its annual Amelia Conference (and its call for presenters).  This event will be held the weekend of June 23- 25, 2023 in the beautiful town of Amelia, Italy, the seat of ARCA’s summer-long PG Cert program. 

December 31, 2022

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ARCA looks back on art and crime in the year 2022

Debris covering stairs inside the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre following a March 16, 2022, bombing in Mariupol, Ukraine.
Image Credit AP - Alexei Alexandrov

As the year comes to a close, it's time to highlight (some) of the losses, and a few of the successes from the year 2022 before we look ahead to what 2023 will bring.  

In 2022 we witnessed Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, taking thousands of lives and creating a tragic humanitarian crisis.  One symbol of both heritage and human loss was the airstrike upon the historic Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre in Mariupol, a cultural landmark where hundreds of people had been sheltering as a result of the city's siege.  The theatre strike serves as painful testimony to the cost of war and the painfully permanent scale of destruction to the Ukrainian port city and ints inhabitants, as Russia's primary target in Ukraine's southeastern region of Donbas.  

Evidence collected by the AP estimates that as many as 600 civilians may have died as a result of the theatre's March 16th double airstrike, which placed this cultural institution directly in the crosshairs of the conflict.  This despite the centre's obvious civilian character and the fact that the displaced individuals who sought refuge there had plainly marked the pavement, in front of each entrance to the structure, with the word дети (children), written in Cyrillic and could be seen cooking daily meals outside.  

Five days later and just a few blocks away, Russia's bombardment also heavily damaged the Kuindzhi Art Museum, dedicated to the life and work of local realist painter Arkhip Kuindzhi.  Kuindzhi’s works were not in the museum at that time,  however, the fate of other artworks in the museum remains difficult to ascertain. 

It total UNESCO has documented 64 damaged or destroyed sites of historical and/or artistic interest in the Donetsk Region alone. 

Elsewhere in the Ukraine, some 400 kilometres away, artworks from the Kherson Fine Arts Museum's collection were stolen between October 30 and November 3 just prior to Russia's forced withdrawal from the city. Photos shared later on Facebook showed dozens of paintings from the plundered museum stacked along a wall inside the  Tsentral'nyy Muzey Tavridy, the Crimean history museum in Simferopol, Crimea. 

As of December 23rd, throughout Ukraine, again according to UNESCO, the agency has verified damage at 102 religious sites, 18 museums, 81 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 19 monuments, and 11 libraries.

Outside Ukraine, two themes for 2022 are museums, and those in charge of them, behaving badly, and crime doesn't pay. 

In the US, investigators from the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan, issued three separate search warrants on the Metropolitan Museum of Art which resulted in the seizure and return of 27 antiquities to their countries of origin—21 to Italy and 6 to Egypt.  

On the West Coast, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles saw its hand forced by the same East Coast prosecutor, following an ongoing criminal investigation by DANY.  That investigation resulted in the California museum relinquishing, post-seizure, its looted group of life-size terracotta figures known as Orpheus and the Sirens back to Italy. 

Things were no quieter for museums over in Europe and the Middle East, where over the summer, France saw its former director of the Musée du Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez and archaeologist-curator Jean-Francois Charnier formally charged for “complicity“ in having facilitated $50 million in acquisitions of illicit material by the Louvre Abu Dhabi, connected to investigations of suspect antiquities dealers Roben Dib (currently in French custody) and Germany-based dealer Serop Simonian.

As legal investigations usually take several years to unfold in France, Martinez and Charnier have been released under judicial supervision while a ruling of the examining chamber is expected in the new year, which some say, may see these preliminary charges dropped.

Dealers who behaved badly include Inigo Philbrick who received an 84 month prison sentence in May in connection with a multi-year scheme to defraud various collectors and business entities in order to finance his art business.

Eighty year old Raffaele Monticelli, a man considered by various Italian prosecutors to be one of the biggest middle-tier traffickers of archaeological finds in Europe, died in October.  Still active in smuggling illicit material out of Italy, he had only recently returned home to Taranto following the conclusion of a short prison sentence involving a looted helmet in circulation in the Netherlands. 

Also in the Netherlands, the Dutch appeals court confirmed the 8 year prison sentence in July for 59 year old Nils Menara, a professional burglar known on the street as 'Gauwtje' for his role in the thefts of two paintings, The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (1884), by Vincent van Gogh, and Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer by Frans Hals.  The two paintings, worth $20 million are still missing. 

In France, the 33rd criminal chamber of the Paris Judicial Tribunal held a decision in October in a case where Egypt requested the restitution of Egyptian antiquities within a criminal proceeding against Didier Wormser, who was accused of dealing stolen cultural property from the Saqqara necropolis. The director of the Star of Ishtar gallery, was given a three-year suspended prison sentence. 

In India, November saw disgraced antiques dealer Subhash Kapoor convicted of burglary and the illegal export of 19 antique idols during his first completed trial to date, held in the town of Kumbakonam in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.   With more court cases to follow, Kapoor was handed a 10-Year jail sentence for this first conviction.  The judge also imposed sentences on Kapoor's accomplices: Sanjivi Asokan, Marichamy, Packiya Kumar, Sri Ram alias Ulagu and Parthiban. 

In happier news, the last month of the 2022, marked the month where German police successfully recovered 31 of the priceless 18th-century jewellery pieces stolen from  the Royal Palace that houses the historic Green Vault (Gruenes Gewoelbe) in Dresden in 2019.   

Let's hope 2023 is a year of recoveries, more successful prosecutions and an end to conflicts. 


December 17, 2022

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Recovered: (Some) of the Jewels Stolen in the November 25, 2019 Green Vault Burglary at Dresden's Residenzschloss.


On 25 November 2019, burglars entered the Green Vault (Grünes Gewölbe in German) museum within Dresden Castle in Saxony, Germany and smashed open exhibition cases using an axe. In only a few minutes, the precision coordinated team of thieves slipped away with an outstanding cache of jewellery, including the 49-carat Dresden White Diamond, the diamond-laden breast star of the Polish Order of the White Eagle, a 16-carat diamond hat clasp, a diamond epaulet, and a diamond-studded hilt containing nine large and 770 smaller diamonds, as well as its jewel-encrusted scabbard.  

Despite having torching the motor vehicle used in the getaway to any destroy evidence they may have theft behind in its interior, clues surrounding the spectacular art theft, lead German authorities to investigate the purchase of SIM cards by members of a clan known to have been involved in a series of criminal offenses which eventually resulted in the arrest of several members of the Remmo clan, one of the grandfamilies of Lebanese-Kurdish descent who immigrated to Germany during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. 

Members of this clan have been criminally conspicuous, gaining reputations for trafficking, racketeering and robbery, some of which have been spectacular in their execution. Their complicated family ties and property ownership structures, have made it possible for the tightly knit groups to launder money - and sometimes, but not in this case, have made it considerably more difficult for investigators to entangle who is involved and in what capacity. 

Today, during a press conference held by the Ministry of the Interior of Saxony, jointly with the Dresden Public Prosecutor's Office and Police, German officials announced that between December 16th and 17th, the Dresden public prosecutor, Soko Epaulette and the LKA Sachsen seized 31 of the stolen Green Vault jewels in Berlin  Several of the pieces appeared to be complete including the hat decoration (heron tail) and the breast star of the Polish Order of the White Eagle from the diamond set. 

The items recovered will now go before specialists from the Dresden State Art Collections to ensure their authenticity and completeness.  The epaulette with the "Saxon White" that was damaged during the theft and the large breast bow of Queen Amalie Auguste remain missing.

On September 2, 2021, six members of the Remmo family were formally indicted in Dresden for serious gang theft and arson for their alleged involvement in the 25 November 2019 burglary of the Green Vault (Grünes Gewölbe in German) museum within Dresden Castle in Saxony.

Wissam Remmo, Rabih Remmo, and Bashir Remmo, were arrested in 2020.  Wassim was arrested in his car in Berlin while Rabih and Bashir were picked up when police stormed apartments in the densely populated suburbs of Neukölln and Berlin-Kreuzberg. 

On 14 December 2020 and 18 May 2021 twin cousins Mohamed Remmo and Abdul Majed Remmo were also placed in handcuffs.  Later that summer, law enforcement officers in Saxony arrested the sixth suspect, Ahmed Remmo on 19 August 2021 at an apartment in Berlin-Treptow.  

German authorities have stated that the jewellery was recovered following ongoing negotiations with defence counsel for members of the Remmo clan. While information pertaining to what plea deal, if any, has been agreed upon regarding the charges faced by the six defendants, a followup hearing  is scheduled for Tuesday, December 20th, 2022. 

Previously, members of the Remmo clan were charged and sentenced in another audacious heist, which took place at the Bode Museum.  In that theft, the thieves made off with a 100 kilo gold coin on 27 March 2017 which has never been recovered and is believed to have been melted down. 

In July 2018 the Berlin public prosecutor's office and the state criminal police provisionally seized 77 properties, including apartments, houses and land belonging to members of the "Lebanese" Kurdish extended family "Remmo" worth an estimated 9.3 million euros.  These seizures were based on evidence that the properties was likely purchased with proceeds from crime using new rules under the German Criminal Code (StGB) and Criminal Procedural Order (StPO) enacted 1 July 2017.  Modelled after Italy's own organised crime laws on property seizure,  where the state may order the seizure of property that a person of interest is able to dispose of when the value of the property is disproportionate to the person’s declared income or economic activity, Germany's new law regulates the recovery of criminal proceeds and serves to effectively confiscate illegal proceeds from offenders or third beneficiaries who can be tied to proceeds from criminal transactions. 

According to an earlier article by Der Spiegel it is estimated that while that clans make up just four percent of Berlin's inhabitants, 20 percent of suspects in organized crime cases belong to one of the city's well-known clan groups.  The trio arrested this week have been charged with serious gang theft and arson.  

To learn more about the structure of the Berlin clan groups, German readers can read Ralph Ghadban's Arabische Clans: Die unterschätzte Gefahr.  Ghadban, who has spoken out about the criminal machinations of the Arabische Großfamilie clans which dominate Berlin's underworld, is now under permanent police protection, for his criticism of the clans and the power of the Lebanese mafia in Europe. 





November 2, 2022

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A lighter than we had hoped [but not unanticipated] sentence for Subhash Kapoor

 

Arrested while on business in Cologne, Germany on October 30, 2011, after a years-long investigation code named Operation Hidden Idol that ultimately resulted in the issuance of an INTERPOL Red Notice, Subhash Kapoor, the former New York gallerist who once operated Art of the Past, has (at last) been convicted in Tamil Nadu's Kumbakonam court, in the first of several cases against him. 

Extradited from Germany to India, to face charges in a case registered in with the Udayarpalayam police station, Kapoor was handed over by the German authorities to the Idol Wing of the CID police in Chennai on July 13, 2012.  Appearing before the court the next day,  Kapoor pled not guilty to charges relating to the theft of idols from Varadaraja Perumal temple in the state's Ariyalur district.  

Afterward, he was remanded into judicial custody by the Judicial Magistrate, Jayankondam in Ariyalur, and would remain in custody for the next decade, held at Trichy Central Prison in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, while his case proceeded through the judicial process.  While there, other idol theft cases piled up against him; in Vikramangalam, in Veeravanallur, in Palvoor and in Virudhachalam, as well as abroad in the United States and Germany.

Yesterday, the disgraced owner of the New York gallery, Art of the Past was found guilty and sentenced by Chief Judicial Magistrate D Shanmuga Priya under:

IPC penal code section 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) carrying with it a three year prison sentence plus a fine. 

IPC penal code section 413 (receives or deals in property which he knows or has reason to believe to be stolen property) carrying with it a three year prison sentence plus a fine. 

IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy) carrying with it a seven year prison sentence plus a fine. *

Other co-conspirators in this case also had sentences handed down.

Sanjivi Asokan, AKA Sanjeevi Asokan, AKA Sanjeeve Asokan, received a two year sentence and fine for violation of IPC penal code section 465 (forgery), a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 468 (forgery, for the purpose of cheating), a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 471 (use of forged material) a one year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 414 (concealing or disposing of stolen property), and a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).*

Marichamy received a seven year sentence and fine for violation of IPC penal code section 457 (lurking house trespass by night, or house-breaking by night), a three year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 380 (theft of a building) and a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).*

Packiya Kumar received a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 465 (forgery), a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 468 (forgery, for the purpose of cheating), a two year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 471 (use of forged material), a three year sentence and fine IPC penal code section 411 (receiving stolen property), a three year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 414 (concealing or disposing of stolen property), and a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).*

Sri Ram AKA Ulagu received a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 457 (lurking house trespass by night, or house-breaking by night), a three year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 380 (theft of a building) and a seven year sentence and fine  for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).*

Parthiban received a seven year sentence and fine for IPC penal code section 457 (lurking house trespass by night, or house-breaking by night), three years for IPC penal code section 380 (theft of a building) and seven years for IPC penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy).* 

It should be noted that in the United States, the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan filed extradition paperwork for Kapoor in July 2020 after charging him with 86 felony counts for allegedly looting $145 million in antiquities over the last 30 years. 

Last month, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. returned 307 antiquities to India, valued at nearly $4 million. Of those, 235 of those were pursuant to his Office’s investigation of Kapoor.  Five of his co-defendants, in the US court case have already been convicted in the United States. 

To get a look at some of the pieces returned to India handled by members of Kapoor's network, please see our earlier blog post on daylight sentences, reconceiving restitutions and the hard work it takes to restitute pieces to their countries of origin.

*NB: Some of these sentences may run concurrently. 

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