The Great
$50 Million Art Swindle. Forbes, February
6, 2001
"Many are calling it the biggest art fraud ever. When all the figures
are in, art dealer Michel Cohen will have taken the art world
for at least $50 million, and maybe half as much again or more ... It's
a jealous and wary system, where each player guards sources and clients,
but it is built on an essential trust. This is the system that has made
the art market the largest unregulated money market in the world--a
market that Michel Cohen was in a position to loot."
FBI
to Examine Photo 'Forgeries.' The Times
[of London], August 17, 2001
"The FBI has begun an investigation into the suspected forgery
of hundreds of works by one of America’s most famous photographers.
Test showed that numerous 'vintage' prints by Lewis Hine, who is revered
for his social realist pictures from the Depression, were printed on
paper not available until more than a decade after his death in 1940.
The investigation was prompted by a complaint from a dealer in Santa
Fe, New Mexico, about Hine’s longtime collaborator, Walter Rosenblum,
an acclaimed war photographer and the former president of the Photo
League co-operative where Hine left his archives ... he was reported
to have reached a confidential settlement out of court with six dealers
to create a £690,000 fund to reimburse buyers of between 300 and 500
Hine prints who were unhappy with their purchases."
More Misleading Than Buying Sight Unseen.
The Art Newspaper [Great Britain], May
30, 2000
"The New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has filed an
injunction against the Antique and Design Center, an art gallery based
in New Windsor outside New York City, for selling fake works of art
through eBay. Throughout 1999, the Antique and Design Center, which
also operates under the name Antique Connection and sells on eBay through
the ID 'sambuca914.' sold twenty-three works valued between $700 and
$10,000 ... (The proprietors of the Antique and Design Center, Jill
and Jerry Schuster, had no comment for the publication.)
This will be the first case of fraud brought by the State against an
online art retailer, but the Attorney General does not think that it
will be the last. 'This is just the tip of the iceberg,' commented Mr
Spitzer. He also added that several other galleries are currently under
investigation."
Money Laundering
Charges for Art Dealers, museum-security.org
[originally from the New York Times], June 3 2001
"Two New York City art dealers, Shirley D. Sack, 73 and
Arnold K. Katzen, 62, have been charged with conspiring to launder
$4.1 million in drug money after being apprehended in an undercover
sting in Boston, federal authorities said. According to the Associated
Press, the two were arrested on Thursday at the Ritz Carlton Hotel
as they attempted to sell paintings, which they claimed were originals
by Modigliani and Degas, to a federal agent posing as a drug dealer.
Alan M. Stewart, a Stamford, Conn., art dealer who was not present during
the undercover sting, was charged with conspiring to set up the transaction.
Court papers identified Ms. Sack as a wholesaler of art and jewelry,
and principal of Shirley D. Sack, Ltd., 300 East 56th Street, and Mr.
Katzen as principal of American European Art Associates, 1100 Madison
Avenue. Federal authorities said their investigation began in March
when an informant, who would later act as a go-between in Thursday's
operation, told them that Ms. Sack had been attempting to sell a painting
by Raphael and was prepared to accept payment in drug money or from
organized crime figures."
Four Israelis Arrested
Here for Stealing Judaica in Europe. museum-security.org.
[originally from the Jerusalem Post], February 28, 2001
"A gang of Israelis is suspected of stealing valuable Judaica,
ritual objects, and holy books from synagogues, museums, and private
collections all over Europe, smuggling them into Israel, and reselling
them. Tel Aviv police arrested four suspects on Monday and yesterday,
central unit head Asst.- Cmdr. Menahem Frank said. Additional
arrests are expected, he said, adding that at this point all the members
of the gang appear to be Israelis. Police found $2 million worth of
valuables that are believed to have been stolen in the Jerusalem home
of one suspect."
Israeli
Police Probe Art Theft Ring. museum-security.org,
May 11, 1997 [original source: UPI; scroll to this article just below
the middle of the page]
"Israeli security forces have located some 85 objects d'art slated
for distribution in the underground circuit. The loot includes 76 Christian
icon paintings and nine paintings from the 16th to 17th centuries valued
at several hundred thousand dollars each. The investigation began when
a local dealer reported that a colleague tried to sell him five famous
paintings stolen from a Paris museum in February. Police contracted
a dealer to meet with one suspect in a Tel Aviv apartment and pretend
to close a deal. The alleged art trafficker, his partner, and dozens
of works of art were captured in the sting operation. The two suspects,
one a bank official and the other a supermarket owner, face charges
of accepting stolen goods ... Police believe the group is part of a
larger international ring of thieves and dealers."
Israeli
Memorial Smuggles Murals. Washington Post.
June 20, 2001
"In a secret operation, Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial
has smuggled out of Ukraine fragments of murals by Polish-Jewish artist
Bruno Schulz, sparking an international controversy. Yad Vashem
maintains it was merely exercising its right to preserve the works of
a prominent Jewish writer, artist and Holocaust victim, but Ukrainian
and Polish officials say their removal was a crime."
An Ugly Real-Life Drama for Producer Garth Drabinsky.
Business Week, Septembe 29, 1998
"Garth Drabinsky's torturous fall from grace at Broadway
production company Livent Inc. over the past four months has
been one of the theater world's most spectacular declines. The wunderkind
who brought the current hit Ragtime to the elegantly refashioned
Ford Center in New York City had long been known as a lavish spender.
But his indefinite suspension in August as Livent's creative
director and vice-chairman -- amid allegations of 'serious' accounting
irregularities -- stunned theater insiders. Lately, it has spawned frenetic
legal action ... Embarrassingly, the news of Drabinsky's suspension,
along with that of Vice-President and longtime Drabinsky associate Myron
Gottlieb, was made public promptly that morning. A Livent
press release damningly reported that 'an internal investigation has
revealed serious irregularities' in company records that had been uncovered
late the prior week. The release, which made news across North America,
said 'millions of dollars' were involved and added that it was 'virtually
certain' that results for 1996, 1997, and early 1998 would have to be
restated."
Auction
House Agrees to Settle Civil Lawsuits.
Art in America, November 2000
"Sotheby's and Christie's recently agreed to a settlement in the
civil lawsuits brought against them by art buyers and sellers. According
to the agreement, the auction houses will pay a total of $512 million
to customers who accused them of fraud in a 1997 price-fixing scheme
... According to the Wall Street Journal, Sotheby's reached a
separate agreement with its former chairman A. Alfred Taubman
[who is Jewish, and a real estate mogul], requiring him to pay $156
million of the company's $256-million share of the civil settlement.
He will also pay $30 million to the company's shareholders in a separate
security-fraud lawsuit. The burden of Taubman's fines, however, will
likely be offset by the increased value of his substantial holdings
in Sotheby's stock, which has been soaring in the wake of news of the
settlement."
Taubman
Sentenced To One Year--Plus A Day,
Forbes, April 22, 2002
"A. Alfred Taubman, one of the highest-ranking American
businessmen ever to be convicted of a serious crime, was sentenced to
a year and a day in federal prison today for his role in a price-fixing
scheme between his Sotheby's auction house and archrival Christie's.
Taubman, the former chairman of both Sotheby's and Taubman
Centers, a real estate trust, was convicted of the charges Dec. 5, 2001.
His lawyer, Robert Fiske, argued today that he should receive no jail
time in light of his age--Taubman is listed as 78, though there
is some dispute--and his failing health and history of charitable good
works, which the lawyer called 'legendary.' A U.S. Probation Department
report recommended probation only ... Federal antitrust prosecutor John
Greene argued that Taubman should be sentenced closer to the
three-year maximum. U.S. District Judge George Daniels, citing Taubman's
'lack of contrition' and his 'arrogance and greed' in heading up the
secretive scheme, said Taubman must go to jail for his crime
to show that 'no one is above the law.' But Daniels did ratchet down
the sentence because of the factors Fiske cited. The judge tacked on
a $7.5 million fine, the amount calculated as 5% of the volume of commerce
affected by the price-fixing scheme. Taubman will also have to pay for
the cost of his incarceration [Taubman's lawyer] called Taubman 'a Horatio
Alger story,' noting that his client started work at age 9 and made
his fortune by building shopping malls and in related ventures, Fiske
argued that Taubman's philanthropy was unique even for a man
with a net worth of more than $700 million, which ranks him at No. 340
on Forbes' 400 Richest Americans list ... Taubman's lawyer also pointed
to dozens of letters written on Taubman's behalf. In one letter, Leslie
Wexner [also Jewish], chairman of The Limited , called Taubman
'the best person I know.' The Justice Department's Greene argued that
deterrence demanded a jail term. He pointed out that most of the letters
were from beneficiaries of Taubman's charity and that such letters
were routine for a man of his wealth and influence. Greene also said
Taubman's health was not too bad, noting that Taubman still golfs,
hunts, fishes and travels around the world, albeit in a 'protective
cocoon.' Since his conviction, Taubman has resigned from the
Sotheby's board as well as from the real estate trust."
Los
Angeles Police Department Press Release, Los
Angeles Police Department [Media Relations Section], August
16, 1999
"On 8/13/99, a museum art thief was convicted of thefts of fine
art from two Los Angeles museums. Nureet Granott, 50, used a
fake driver’s license, a fraudulent credit card, and fictitious rental
agreement information to gain control of over $22,000 of art through
the art rental galleries of the UCLA/Armand Hammer Museum of Art and
the L.A. County Museum of Art in 1995. She then disappeared with the
art until detectives of LAPD’s Art Theft Detail uncovered her true identity
and tracked her down three years later at her fashionable home in Beverly
Hills where she was using the art to decorate the house. During the
investigation, the detectives uncovered a pattern of fraudulent practices
that were facilitated through the use of various names, business DBAs
and anonymous mail box addresses. These were used to fleece others for
an estimated $100,000 in goods and services - from a luxury car to pet
bills. During the museum thefts, Granott assumed the identity of her
sister, Hanit Peretz, who is living in Israel. During many of
the transactions, Granott was accompanied by her husband, David Yehuda
Cohen. Both are also suspected of being involved in questionable
real estate transactions. During the search warrant, detectives noted
the personalized license plate of their vehicle to be 'EARN BIG.'"
Do You Have My Genuine Fake Derein?,
St. Petersburg Times, July 16, 2000
"While foraging at one garage sale, I paid a few bucks for a book
called FAKE!, a biography of Elmyr de Hory, perhaps the greatest
art forger of all time. De Hory was a Jewish Hungarian aristocrat
and would-be artist who lived in Paris in the 1920s. He hobnobbed with
Picasso, Matisse, Van Dongen, Modigliani, Vlaminck and Derain. During
World War II, De Hory's parents were killed and the family riches confiscated.
He was stranded in Paris with no allowance -- but an undiminished taste
for high living. According to his account, a rich friend mistook one
of his line drawings on his wall for a Picasso. She offered him 40 British
pounds for it and resold it to a London art dealer for 150 pounds. That
launched a 20-year forgery career. Never successful with his own work,
De Hory cranked out a prodigious body of fakery. He could mimic almost
all of his old acquaintances. To sell his fakes, he'd drop hints that
his father had amassed a private collection in the 1930s that was later
smuggled out of Hungary. He sold to art dealers and museums. His work
started showing up in art books as originals. He forged so many Dufys
that an expert once rejected two real Dufys as fraudulent because he
mistakenly assumed that De Hory's hand and style were the correct ones.
He finally was caught in 1967 and spent a few months in a Spanish jail."
Viva
Blumberg: Lessons Learned,
Museum Security, November
9, 1999
"The arrest of Stephen Blumberg, dubbed 'the rare book thief
of the century', stunned the library community. The length of Blumberg's
career as a thief, and the sheer volume of his illegal collection, made
an immense impression on library and security professionals nationwide.
Blumberg alerted us to our vulnerabilities, prompting many institutions
on an unprecedented cultural property protection binge. Ten years later,
memories have faded, personnel have left the field, and cultural property
protection is no longer the high priority it once was. It is time to
re-visit some of the lessons learned from Blumberg, and think
about the basics of Cultural Property Protection. Let us avoid another
Blumberg ... 'Blumberg phobia' generated many questions,
including: 'What type(s) of alarm system should we install in order
to protect our valuable books and documents?' 'Is this alarm system
better than that system?' 'What do we do about keys?' 'How do we secure
our ground floor windows?' 'How can we be sure no stays behind after
the facility is closed?' 'How can we insure the safety of our employees?'
'How much will an effective security system cost?' 'Should we do background
checks on employees?' 'What procedures should we employ to correctly
identify rare book reading room users?' 'Should we utilize security
personnel and what type?' 'Should we arm security?' 'How do we train
library personnel to be more attentive to security issues?' 'How do
we recognize potential thieves/vandals in advance?' It continually baffles
me, however, that some security professionals refuse to adopt a proactive
approach to cultural property protection. Some folks still ask the same
questions in spite of numerous high profile cultural property offenses.
Blumberg stole nineteen tons of rare books
and documents ... Blumberg often would engage library
staff members in knowledgeable conversations. He would befriend them
to lower their guard, and estimate their vulnerabilities. Other times
he simply stole keys to areas that interested him by simply removing
them from hooks or desks in unoccupied offices."
Stephen
Blumberg and His Stolen Books,
Abbey Newsletter
(Stanford University), Volume 15, Number 7, November 1991
"An episode in the history of large-scale rare book thefts drew
to a close July 31 with the sentencing of Stephen C. Blumberg to
five years I I months in prison, with a $200,000 fine.' He had been
tried six months earlier and found guilty on four counts of possessing
and transporting stolen property-more than 20,000 rare books and 10,000
manuscripts from 140 or more universities in 45 states and Canada. (One
report said they were taken from 327 libraries and museums.) Their value
has been placed at about $20 million, making this the largest theft
of rare books in the country ... His ambition, according to [former
associate Kenny] Rhodes, was to become the greatest rare book thief
of the century, even greater than the infamous David Shim, whose
career was interrupted by arrest in 1980."
Lawyers for
Jewish Defense League Leader Want FBI Files on Alleged Scheme to Extort
Rap Stars,
TBO (Tampa Bay, FL), November 3, 2002
"In a bizarre twist to the case of a right-wing Jewish leader accused
of trying to blow up Muslim-related sites, defense attorneys have requested
records of an FBI probe into whether the suspect's group tried to shake
down rap stars Tupac Shakur and Eazy-E. Jewish Defense League leader
Irv Rubin is being held without bail along with group member
Earl Krugel on charges of plotting to blow up a mosque and the
office of an Arab American congressman. They have pleaded innocent.
In papers filed this week in U.S. District Court, Rubin's lawyers asked
a judge to order prosecutors to hand over records of the FBI probe,
claiming it provides evidence of government bias against the league.
An informant outlined the alleged extortion scheme during FBI interviews
in 1996 about the murder of a figure in the Arab American Anti-Discrimination
Committee, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. The informant
said the JDL planned to make death threats against Shakur and Eazy-E,
then offer them protection for a fee, the Times said, citing documents
obtained under the Freedom of Information Act."
[Waksal is Jewish. Gagosian?]
Art Gallery
Owner Accused of Tax Evasion,
Museum Security, March 20, 2003
"The federal government accused an art gallery owner and three
other men of cheating the government out of $26.5 million by failing
to pay sales taxes on a 1990 transaction. The civil lawsuit, filed Wednesday
in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, turned up the heat on the gallery
owner, Lawrence Gagosian, who is already under government scrutiny for
his dealings with ImClone Systems founder Sam Waksal. Waksal
pleaded guilty this month to avoiding $1.2 million in sales taxes
on art purchased from a New York gallery reportedly run by Gagosian.
The new suit concerned a 1990 sale that allegedly produced a tax burden
of more than $6 million — an amount they said has grown to more than
$26.5 million with interest and penalties. Besides Gagosian, the suit
named the Gagosian Gallery in Manhattan and Jay I. Gordon, Peter M.
Brant and Geoffrey J.W. Kent."
US accused of plans to
loot Iraqi antiques,
By Liam McDougall, Sunday Herald (UK),
April 6, 2003
"Fears that Iraq's heritage will face widespread looting at the
end of the Gulf war have been heightened after a group of wealthy art
dealers secured a high-level meeting with the US administration. It
has emerged that a coalition of antiquities collectors and arts lawyers,
calling itself the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP), met
with US defence and state department officials prior to the start of
military action to offer its assistance in preserving the country's
invaluable archaeological collections. The group is known to consist
of a number of influential dealers who favour a relaxation of Iraq's
tight restrictions on the ownership and export of antiquities. Its treasurer,
William Pearlstein, has described Iraq's laws as 'retentionist'
and has said he would support a post-war government that would make
it easier to have antiquities dispersed to the US. Before the Gulf war,
a main strand of the ACCP's campaigning has been to persuade its government
to revise the Cultural Property Implementation Act in order to minimise
efforts by foreign nations to block the import into the US of objects,
particularly antiques. News of the group's meeting with the government
has alarmed scientists and archaeologists who fear the ACCP is working
to a hidden agenda that will see the US authorities ease restrictions
on the movement of Iraqi artefacts after a coalition victory in Iraq
... The ACCP has caused deep unease among archaeologists since its creation
in 2001. Among its main members are collectors and lawyers with chequered
histories in collecting valuable artefacts, including alleged exhibitions
of Nazi loot. They denied accusations of attempting to change Iraq's
treatment of archaeological objects. Instead, they said at the January
meeting they offered 'post-war technical and financial assistance',
and 'conservation support'."
How
drug dealers use paintings to launder money,
The Art Newspaper, April 8, 2003
"A Connecticut art broker is awaiting sentence after pleading guilty
to involvement in a money-laundering scheme intended to exchange illegal
drug proceeds for art. Two New York art dealers charged in the case
have not been scheduled for trial. The federal indictment charges Shirley
D. Sack, 74, and Arnold K. Katzen, 63, with conspiring and
attempting to sell two paintings for $4.1 million in cash to an undercover
agent posing as a drug dealer. According to the defendants, the paintings
in question are Amedeo Modigliani’s 'Jeune femme aux yeux bleus' valued
at around $2.5 million and a pastel by Edgar Degas, 'La Coiffure,' valued
at around $1.6 million. These were seized by the US. 'Katzen
and Sack indicated to the undercover agent that they could resell
the paintings overseas as part of the money laundering scheme,' said
the US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Michael J. Sullivan.
The undercover sting investigation, apparently prompted by an informant’s
tip, was conducted by the US Customs Service and the FBI. The US alleged
that the Connecticut art broker, Alan M. Stewart [also Jewish?],
who pleaded guilty in December 2001, acted in the money-laundering transaction
... The indictment says that Ms Sack and Mr Katzen promoted
themselves as fine art dealers who were 'capable of selling various
works of art to be paid for in cash, as a way to launder money earned
through illegal drug trafficking' ... According to the affidavit, Ms
Sack, seeking a buyer for a $12 million painting supposedly by
Raphael, St Benedict receiving Mauro and Placido, stated that
she did not care 'if the money was drug money, Russian organised crime
money or mafia money; she just needed a buyer,' and gave the name of
Alan M. Stewart as her agent."
[Who dominates the international art market?]
The
day of the jackals. Rod Liddle raises some disturbing questions about
the looting of antiquities from the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad,
The Spectator, April 19, 2003
"The various Iraqi museums have been looted countless times since
the last Gulf war, and an estimated 4,000 objects have gone missing,
presumably for good. Nobody, however, seems to have been very well prepared
this time around. According to one of the museum's archaeologists, Raeed
Abdul Reda, who greeted the world's media in tears, the robbers made
off with some 80 per cent of the institution's most cherished possessions:
jewellery and gold and 100,000-year-old stone tools and sculptures and
carvings, ivory furniture, tilework, textiles and coins. Indeed, they
stole the world's few remaining artefacts from the Sumerian, Assyrian
and Babylonian cultures - those that had not already been liberated,
during earlier and rather more paternalistic times, by the British Museum.
These men knew where to look. They knew who had the key to the basement,
where the good stuff was kept. So who were they? And where have they
taken the stuff? And who would be prepared to pay the sort of astronomical
sums demanded? Stealing a country's physical history, its archaeological
remains, has become the world's third biggest organised racket, after
drugs and guns. There are those who argue that it shouldn't need to
be illegal at all. There are those who say, look, the free market should
operate here. Why shouldn't a private collector be allowed to buy an
antiquity and keep it in his bathroom, maybe next to the bidet, or as
a tasteful holder for the Toilet Duck, if he wishes to do so, and if
both he and the seller are happy with the price? You will not be surprised
to hear that many of those who argue this way are American. You may
not be surprised, either, that shortly before the invasion of Iraq,
and with the spoils of war on their mind, some of these people formed
themselves into a lobbying organisation called the American Council
for Cultural Policy (ACCP). This group want a 'relaxation' of Iraq's
tight restrictions on the ownership and export of antiquities. They
object to what they call Iraq's 'retentionist' policy towards its archaeological
treasures. (I love the pejorative use of the word 'retentionist' in
this context; 'Goddam sand-niggers want to retain all their history!')
The treasurer of the group, one William Pearlstein, has said
that he would support a postwar government in Iraq that would make it
easier to have things 'dispersed' to, er, for the sake of argument,
the United States. And, on 24 January this year, the ACCP met with the
US defense department to impress this point upon the politicians and
the military. I tracked down one of the people who attended this meeting,
and asked what the archaeologists had to say for themselves. 'Hang on,'
said Maguire Gibson, from the Oriental Institute at Chicago University,
interrupting my first question, 'there was only one archaeologist there
- me. The rest were artefact collectors and lawyers, the people from
the ACCP. I only went along to put my own point of view across, which
was to plead for a minimising of the bombing of known archaeological
sites. But I wouldn't have stood a chance of getting a meeting with
the defense department without the ACCP. But I was there independently,
OK?' Sure. So, who are they, then, the ACCP, and what do they want?
'These are very, very well-connected people. They are able to get a
meeting with whoever they like, when they like. You know, I believe
they met with the President last week. They are very affluent people,
too. One of the leading lights is a former state department man, Arthur
Houghton.' They sound terrific, I said. And Maguire replied, well, that's
not all. 'You have to understand that some of the members of their organisation
are among the biggest collectors and dealers of illegal artefacts in
the world....' So, here's what seems to be the deal. A very short while
ago an organisation was formed in the USA representing people who enjoy
a lucrative or aesthetically rewarding trade in stolen historical artefacts,
as well as artefacts traded legally and above board on the open market.
The organisation was formed in some haste precisely because of the forthcoming
war in Iraq. That's before we, over here in Britain, knew for sure that
we were even going to war. And this organisation had the power to demand
a meeting at defense department and even presidential level. How'd the
meeting go, Maguire? 'Well,' said Maguire. 'It was very cordial. My
job was to raise the consciousness of the military about being more
careful, and I think it pretty much worked.' And what about ACCP? 'They
were very straightforward. They didn't press the retentionism stuff.
They kept saying that they just wanted to help.' It almost goes without
saying, of course, that people like Maguire Gibson - in fact, anybody
who works closely with a legit museum - is a little suspicious of the
weight and motives of the ACCP."
US
government implicated in planned theft of Iraqi artistic treasures,
by Ann Talbot, World Socialist Web Site,
April 19, 2003
"As the full extent of the looting of Iraq’s National Museum in
Baghdad emerges, it becomes clear that there was nothing accidental
about it. Rather it was the result of a long planned project to plunder
the artistic and historical treasures that are held in the museums of
Iraq ... The role of the ACCP In the aftermath of these two devastating
attacks on culture, attention has focused on the activities of the American
Council for Cultural Policy. Even the British press that works under
some of the toughest libel laws in the world has been willing to suggest
that the ACCP may have influenced US government policy on Iraqi cultural
artifacts. The ACCP was formed in 2001 by a group of wealthy art collectors
to lobby against the Cultural Property Implementation Act, which attempts
to regulate the art market and stop the flow of stolen goods into the
US. It has defended New York art dealer Frederick Schultz [Jewish?]
, who was convicted under the National Stolen Property Act, and opposes
the use of the 1977 US v. McClain decision as a legal precedent in cases
concerning the handling of stolen art objects ... The ACCP’s inaugural
meeting took place at the Fifth Avenue apartment of Guido Goldman,
a collector of Uzbek textiles. Among those present were Arthur Houghton,
the former curator of the Getty Museum at Malibu in California, which
is notorious for displaying works of suspicious provenance. Hawkins
himself retired in 2000 as vice president of the trustees of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York, an institution that, according to its own
former director, Thomas Hoving, holds many artifacts looted from Etruscan
tombs. Before the war began, the ACCP met with Pentagon officials, declaring
their great concern for Iraqi antiquities. What that concern means is
evident from the remarks of William Pearlstein, the group’s treasurer,
who also describes Iraqi laws on antiquities as 'retentionist'. The
ACCP deny that they want Iraqi laws changed, but the looting of the
museum and library will effectively circumvent that problem if US law
on stolen art objects and archaeological material can be changed."
[About the author of the following article, from Jewish
Los Angeles: "Hollywood comedian Larry Miller recently
returned from a trip to Israel, where he visited children, victims of
terror and healthcare professionals in Israel. Miller is an active
participant in the Los Angeles Jewish Federation's Jews in Crisis Campaign
that has raised over $18 million in support of victims of terror in
Israel ... Miller, who appeared in such hit films as Pretty Woman,
The Runaway Bride and The Nutty Professor, spoke about the creative
process in film production, and his endeavors to mesh his writing with
his support of the State of Israel."]
In Addition
to Which, They'll Probably Need New Docents Another museum you can't
see in just one day. Or maybe you can,
by Larry Miller, Weekly
Standard, April 21, 2003
"I have a feeling I'm about to make a lot of people mad. I don't
want to, you understand, but there's something I've had on my mind,
and I think it'll make a bunch of folks angry. Maybe not so much angry,
as horrified. Yeah, that's it, horrified and disbelieving. Aghast; agog.
They'll gasp, stagger back, clutch their chests, and pinwheel their
arms for balance, all the while looking around for someone to confirm
their indignation. As I said, I'm not going for this reaction, but if
that's the way it is, that's the way it is. So. Here we go. I don't
give a rat's crack about what has or hasn't happened to some damn museum
in Iraq. I'll pause here to allow readers to be held up and fanned by
stouter relatives, and others to complete their swoons, back of the
hand pressed to foreheads, muttering, 'My salts, my salts . . .' Everyone
all right? Good. First of all, I don't know about you, but I didn't
know the place had a museum."
The
Kid is Alright,
by David Ansen, Newsweek, July 22, 2002
"Three years ago I was over and out," declares the producer Robert
Evans. "I was a 68-year-old, infamous, over-the-hill Jew trying
to get a job. There are miracles in life' ... But if Evans's
escapades with glamorous women have gotten the most headlines, the true
secret of his success may be his talent for seducing some of the most
powerful men in America. These are the relationships upon which his
career is built: Zanuck, Bludhorn, Henry Kissinger, the
late mob lawyer Sidney Korshak and Sumner Redstone, chairman
of Viacom, which now owns Paramount, where Evans has his current
deal. Korshak may be the least well known of these men (which
was how he wanted it) and the most powerful. They met at the Racquet
Club in Palm Springs in 1955; in 1996, Evans gave the eulogy
at his funeral. "From the '40s through the '70s, organized crime was
controlled by one person, and no one knew it," Evans says with
casual authority. "He was totally legitimate and he was not Mafia. The
Mafia went to him. He could press a button and close down Las Vegas.
The country was Sidney's and I was his godson' ... Is it any
wonder the movie Evans most wants to make is about Korshak?
"It's the quintessential story of power."
[Who is Joseph Braude? “For all the continuing debate about
the dangerous present and indeterminate future of Iraq, there has been
no analysis of that nation’s history and actual potential for transformation
into a just society that comes close to Joseph Braude’s crucially
illuminating book, The New Iraq. He is a scholar, a humanist,
and a realist.” -- (Jewish Village Voice columnist) Nat Hentoff]
Author
charged with smuggling of Iraqi artifacts,
By Donovan Slack, University of Chicago site (originally
from the Boston Globe, August 10, 2003
"Joseph Braude, the 28-year-old author of ''The New Iraq,''
was released on a $100,000 bond yesterday. He was arrested Friday night
after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York
on a flight from London, US Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf said. The former
Middle-East consultant allegedly bought the stolen artifacts for $200
during a visit to Baghdad in June, authorities said. ''These items are
not souvenirs, but stolen goods that belong to the people of Iraq,''
said Martin Ficke, special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement office in New York. The looting of Iraqi museums after the
war prompted international outcry, with many experts concerned that
the treasures from one of the world's earliest civilations would be
lost forever ... Braude allegedly had not declared any of the
items and insisted he had only traveled to Kuwait and England, and not
Iraq. Federal authorities then questioned Braude at his Cambridge
home June 18, when he admitted visiting Baghdad and purchasing the seals,
acknowledging to investigators that they were probably stolen from the
museum, Mauskopf said. Braude resigned from his business consulting
job at Cambridge-based Pyramid Research June 30, saying in an e-mail
to friends the week before that he wanted ''to focus full time on Iraqi
reconstruction issues'' and to work on a second edition of his book
... Joseph Braude did not return e-mails, and his mother, reached
at home in Providence declined to comment. Braude's book was
released in March. His expertise landed him numerous newspaper and television
appearances. Braude told The Globe in an interview that
month that he had talked to a number of prostitutes and smugglers for
his book, in which he talked about the competition between small-time
smugglers and importers in Iraq."
[And, ho! What is fraud/thief/scholar/visionary Joseph Braude's
ethnicity?]
Author
Paints a Picture of Iraq's Future After Saddam,
By MAX GROSS, [Jewish] Forward,
March 28, 2003
"Braude's connection to Iraq is in his blood. His mother
is a Baghdad-born Jew who hails from a prominent Iraqi Jewish family.
Braude's great-great grandfather was the chief
rabbi of Baghdad during the 1930s ... Growing up in Providence,
R.I., Braude, whose father is a Reform
rabbi, went to Jewish day school and later Yale University, where
he was a Near Eastern studies major ... Being a Jew in the Middle East
was, for Braude, anything but a lonely experience ... His book is filled
with all the wild possibilities of what a society as rich and diverse
as Iraq could become after the war. In writing the book, Braude
and his seven researchers — one of whom was his younger brother, Yoni
— spoke to hundreds of Iraqis in refugee camps in Saudi Arabia, Jordan
and Iran, as well as in the United States and Europe. Braude
also spoke to Iraqi officials whom he knew through his work at Pyramid
Research, where he worked with Arab heads of state in privatizing state
phone companies. "Basically we get information that no one else can
get," Braude said of Pyramid Research. His team raided the Iraq
Research and Documentation Project at Harvard University, where tens
of thousands of documents about Iraq are stored. Braude lays
out the long litany of issues that will face the future Iraq: religion,
the army, Saddam's politicos, the media, entertainment, globalization
and — perhaps most important and controversial — oil."
Pity
the Poor Middlemen,
Culture without Context, Autumn 1998
"The illicit trade in antiquities is clandestine. Transactions
are hidden from view and provenance is lost as a result, but the economics
of the trade are also obscured and it is not clear what profits are
realized over what period of time and who, in financial terms, really
benefits. Furthermore, when collectors don their humanitarian mantles
to argue that their purchase of antiquities injects money into hard-pressed
local economies, it is not possible to assess how much of their revenue
does actually trickle down. Over the years a number of cases of illicit
trading have been investigated, usually when a valuable 'treasure' has
been reclaimed or its status questioned, and several exchange chains
have now been revealed. Although these high-profile cases are not representative
of the illicit trade as a whole, they do provide some information about
what sums of money change hands and what profit margins exist, and for
that reason they are collected together here. First there is the now
notorious Euphronius Krater, the 'hot pot' of Hoving (1993, 307-40),
bought by the Metropolitan Museum in 1972 from Robert E. Hecht
for $1 million, but now thought to have been removed from an Etruscan
tomb in 1971 ... The golden phiale of Achyris, from Caltavutoro in Sicily,
and presently impounded by US Customs, was bought for $1.2 million in
1991 by Michael Steinhardt from the Zürich-based dealer William
Veres with Robert Haber acting as intermediary ... Also from Sicily
are the Morgantina acroliths, excavated in 1979 by clandestini who sold
them for about $1,100. The pieces were subsequently purchased in Switzerland
by Robin Symes who sold them on to Maurice Tempelsman in 1980
for more than $1 million (Robinson 1998; D'Arcy 1998). In 1988 a Turkish
farmer sold a broken marble sculpture of Marsyas to the dealer Ali Kolasin
for $7,400. The pieces was then smuggled out of Turkey and displayed
for £540,000 in New York by Jonathan Rosen. After he was shown
that the object was stolen, Rosen donated the statue to the American-Turkish
society and it was subsequently returned to Turkey in 1994.".
[Are the Osbornes Jewish too?]
BRITISH
STAMP DEALERS AND BRITISH COMPANY INDICTED ON BID-RIGGING CHARGES WASHINGTON,
D.C,
U.S. Department of Justice, May 29, 2002
"A federal grand jury in Manhattan today indicted two British stamp
dealers and a British stamp company for conspiring
to rig bids for stamps purchased at public auctions held in the United
States and elsewhere, the Department of Justice announced. The
indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, charged Anthony
Feldman, a British citizen; Stephen Osborne Ltd., a British corporation;
and Stephen Osborne, a British citizen and president of Stephen Osborne
Ltd., with conspiring to rig bids for the sale of stamps at public auctions
from the early 1980s until at least June 1997. Feldman is also
charged with bid rigging in 1999, and Stephen Osborne and his company
are charged with bid rigging in 2000. This is the third case stemming
from the Department's ongoing antitrust investigation involving collusion
by stamp dealers at auctions. Stamps are often sold at public auctions
at which the highest bid price determines who will purchase the stamps.
Auction houses located throughout the U.S. and Europe hold periodic
auctions for stamp lots. According to the charges, Anthony Feldman,
Stephen Osborne Ltd. and Stephen Osborne, and
their co-conspirators carried out the bid-rigging schemes by participating
in secret pre-auctions to determine which stamp dealer would be the
bidder for specific lots of stamps at the subsequent public auction;
by agreeing not to bid at public auctions against other stamp dealers
who submitted the highest bid price at the pre-auction; and by making
payments to stamp dealers who agreed not to bid at public auctions when
they were not the high bidder at the pre-auction. "By rigging
bids of auctioned stamp lots, stamp dealers eliminated competition and,
thus, the right of collectors to obtain stamps at fair and competitive
prices," said James M. Griffin, Deputy Assistant Attorney General in
charge of the Antitrust Division's Criminal Enforcement Program. On
January 28, 2002, Earl P.L. Apfelbaum Inc. and John Apfelbaum
pleaded guilty to conspiring to rig bids for stamps sold at public auctions.
On April 16, 2002, Davitt Felder Inc. and Davitt Felder pleaded
guilty to conspiring to rig bids for stamps sold at public auctions.
Sentencing in these cases has not yet occurred. Anthony Feldman,
Stephen Osborne Ltd. and Stephen Osborne are charged with violating
Section One of the Sherman Act which carries, per count, a maximum fine
of $10 million for a corporation and a maximum penalty of three years
imprisonment and a maximum fine of $350,000 for an individual."
[Michel van Rijns' obsession at his own web site with "suicide
bombers" in Jerusalem, Nazis, and banning swastikas in the
same thought process leads us to suspect he is Jewish.]
The
art of crime. Booty What links a reformed Dutch fraudster, a scheming
English art-dealer, exquisite Mesopotamian artefacts and a camel's rectum?
William Langley explores the murky world of the antiquities trade,
Sunday Times (South Africa),
"In a luxurious London penthouse, the precise location of which
he is anxious I should not reveal, Michel van Rijn, the
notorious Dutch art fraudster, is sipping strong coffee from
a tiny cup and pining for the days when there were still honest people
to swindle. "I look at what's going on in the art market now, and I
feel sick," he says. "Greed rules everything. It's as bad as the arms
trade. As bad as the drugs trade." Burly, charming and of piratical
demeanour, Van Rijn was involved in some
of the most audacious art scams of the 1970s and 1980s, including an
attempt to sell (for $90-million) a near-worthless 20cm clay cast of
a male torso as the model for Michelangelo's David. At the height of
his activities an undercover Scotland Yard informant reported, "Van
Rijn is involved in 90% of major art-smuggling activity." These
days he is going straight. The renegade life, he says, became too uncomfortable
when he was linked by the FBI to the world's biggest art robbery - the
still-unsolved theft in 1990 of £125-million worth of works from the
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. "I turned myself in and took
a lie-detector test," he tells me. "It absolutely wasn't me, although,
of course, I have my theories." Ten years ago Van Rijn wrote a best-selling
autobiography, Hot Art, Cold Cash, and since then has made it his business
to investigate the illicit dealings of what he sees as an art world
growing dirtier by the day. He says the truly huge profits these days
are to be made in trafficking in looted antiquities, and this boom has
led to the rise of criminal networks that have infiltrated even the
most respectable corners of the trade. "They are pretty much all at
it, to some degree," says Van Rijn. "It's very expensive not to be.
You lose out on the best stuff." The traffickers, he believes, can only
be fought - like terrorists - on a global basis and with the gloves
off. There is, though, a problem: the milieu the traffickers inhabit
is hard to penetrate, and the big players often have exalted reputations
to hide behind. Earlier this year an extraordinary court case in New
York shed a rare light on how the trade works. The man at the heart
of the case was Jonathan Tokeley-Parry, a 50-year-old who claims to
be a Cambridge-educated former Cavalry officer. A self-described "restorer",
Tokeley-Parry served three years in a British jail in the late 1990s
for the dishonest handling of stolen goods. Many of these stolen goods
had originated in Egypt, and for his activities there Tokeley-Parry
was also sentenced in absentia to 14 years' hard labour by an Egyptian
court. In the New York case, Tokeley-Parry was the star prosecution
witness against Frederick Schultz, the 47-year-old president of the
prestigious Manhattan firm Schultz Ancient Art, and until 2001 the chairman
of America's National Association of Dealers in Ancient, Oriental and
Primitive Art. Schultz was charged with violating international laws
against the selling of illicit antiquities; Tokeley-Parry was identified
as Schultz's "co-conspirator", but given immunity from prosecution in
return for his testimony. Specifically, Tokeley-Parry was said by the
prosecution to have smuggled antiquities out of Egypt for Schultz to
sell to private collectors."
[We don't know the credibility (or ethnicity) of the following web
site which seems to be a kind of critical gossip column about the unscrupulous
underworld art and antiquities market. The Dutch-born webmaster
of the site is supposedly a reformed major fraudster himself.
At his web site he turns into a muckraker, assailing art fraudsters
of various sorts and places. The Jewish art network appears to be well-represented,
including the likes of Jonathan
Rosen, Jean-David Cahn, Lenny
Wolfe, Shlomo
Moussaieff (same link here as Wolfe), Bernard Manhes, Freida
Nussbergr Chakos, the Israeli "Russian mafia," etc.]
Michel Van Rijn,
michelvanrijn.com
The
Russians Are Faking It Christie's jewellery expert is taking it (all
the way),
Michel Van Rijn, updated 28-19-2003
"G. Max Bernheimer is Senior Vice President and International
Specialist Head for Antiquities at Christie's, based in New York. He
is a specialist in ancient Greek, Roman, Etruscan, Egyptian and Near
Eastern art. Mr. Bernheimer has participated in archeological excavations
at Caesarea in Israel, sponsored jointly by the University of Maryland
and Haifa University ... Your inkslinger has tested Mr. Bernheimer's
great knowledge in gems and jewellery already. Remember the fake 'Greek'
hairpin that was nothing more then a rolled out Roman earring with a
newly worked Indian Garnet Pan head placed on top? Mr. Bernheimer
is also the first choice as ancient jewellery expert for US customs;
he is also on the take from major collectors whose shipments he clears
… What's important here is that the Christie's jewellery 'expert' G.
Max Bernheimer had no choice but to admit his mistake and take the
fake earrings back. That's a fact! Buyer Beware … Where is this fake
'Greek' ancient jewellery coming from? Basically the fakes started hitting
the market after the Greek jewellery exhibition in the Hermitage in
1994. The exhibition ensemble was drawn from the unrivalled collections
of the Hermitage, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the British Museum;
the works in the catalogue 'Greek gold: jewellery of the classical world'
represent the best ornaments produced throughout the Greek world. The
catalogue went into great detail to show how this splendid jewellery
was produced by the Greek goldsmiths, including metallurgical analyses,
which opened the way for a couple of smart ass Russian and Israeli art
dealers to reproduce almost perfect fakes. Frequent MvR.com scumbag
habitué Lenny Wolfe turned out to be one of the ringleaders of
this infamous gang. The works are executed in different parts of the
world. Russian and Hungarian goldsmiths work the gold. A Beirut based
forger named André works the stones and is responsible for the Indian
garnet hairpin and the Indian garnet Theodosius seal. Israeli born Lenny
Wolfe travels on his Scottish passport to Lebanon and commissions
the stones. He and his merry Russian friends are selling the fake jewellery
through auction houses like Christie's and various London based middle
eastern dealers. Big victims in the collectors department are London
Hilton jeweller, mega investor Moussaieff and his friend David
Sofer."
