A proud General Conforti (left) with antique vases recovered in 1995.
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Michel
Hucorne*: Belgium’s wake-up call
For a long
time, Belgium has had everything it takes to succeed in the highly lucrative African
art trade. Dealers like the country’s ideal location in the middle of Europe, long-standing
links with Africa, first-rate specialists, smooth-running distribution channels–and
inefficient police controls due to a legal vacuum.
Nigeria and Mali are unsuccessfully trying to protect their terracotta sculptures,
Burkina Faso its stone statuettes, the people living on the shores of Lake Chad their
miniatures. Oddly, although it is illegal to export these works from Africa, it is
lawful to import them into Belgium, which has no laws against the practice.
Brussels used to boast about this outstanding situation. Until very recently, speculation
on the finest examples of Nok statuary was in full swing in the city, and well-informed
collectors on a narrow downtown street examined rare pieces stolen from the Kinshasa
Museum after the fall of the Mobutu regime.
However, a story that never should have affected Belgium sent shock waves through
the little kingdom. In April 2000, the Paris daily newspaper Libération disclosed
that the new museum of first arts at the Louvre had acquired two Nok statuettes from
Nigeria with an illicit provenance. At first, this was an affair between France and
Africa. But soon it was learned that the statuettes had transited through Brussels.
At the end of the same year, a report by RTBF, Belgium’s public television network,
showed the workings of the Brussels market, sparking a public outcry. A senator,
François Roelants du Vivier, questioned the government. After 30 years of
indifference, which encouraged unbridled trade, officials finally decided to ratify
the UNESCO Convention.
In explaining why it had taken so long to do so, the ministry of foreign affairs
pointed to institutional complexities. First, he explained, the federal system has
to decide which authority has competence in this area. “I wouldn’t say,” the minister
replied to the senator, “that [this wait-and-see attitude] was the best decision
our country ever made.”
* Director
of the “Nok in stock” TV documentary made for RTBF
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Italy
was the first country to set up a special police squad to crack down on art trafficking.
Its investigators go as far afield as Jamaica to pursue art traffickers, and serve
as a model across Europe
Each time we’ve found
works abroad, which number 8,000 so far, international police cooperation was essential,”
says General Roberto Conforti. To make his point, the head of the carabinieri squad
specialized in protecting artistic heritage tells the story of the Virgin, painted
by Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1479).
In 1995, the painting was stolen from the Pieve di Calci, a church near Pisa, and
vanished into thin air. One day, a detective from Scotland Yard who had infiltrated
a drug ring thought he’d found a suspect. He contacted the Italian police, who identified
the suspect as an infamous trafficker. His phone was tapped, and he was arrested
in front of a London gallery carrying the painting under his arm.
Conforti follows up with the story of 29 paintings (including a Perugino) that were
stolen in 1987 from the municipal picture gallery in Bettona, a village near Perugia,
in central Italy. The investigation required the participation of law enforcement
officers from six countries on three continents. The trail led them all the way to
Kingston, Jamaica, where they arrested a former Jamaican senator, who was sentenced
to two years’ hard labour. The 29 paintings suffered no damage.
On
the heels of a Van Gogh
The
carabinieri also join investigations initiated on foreign soil. In 1986, an armoured
car was robbed in Dublin. It was carrying 18 paintings belonging to an Irish collector,
including a Vermeer, a Goya and a Rubens, with an estimated worth of 50 million pounds
sterling ($33.3 million). “That theft,” says Conforti, “once again led us to drug
trafficking and money-laundering circuits in offshore areas such as Antigua, in the
Caribbean, and the Isle of Man, in Great Britain.” The Turkish police found one of
the paintings in Istanbul in 1990. Their English counterparts recovered three others,
which had been moved to London. Four–including the Goya and the Vermeer –were pawned
in return for a loan to a diamond dealer and deposited in a Luxembourg bank. The
carabinieri found them while investigating a money-laundering scheme. Three paintings,
including the Rubens, are still missing.
Set up in 1969, the art trafficking squad is the oldest of its kind in Europe. Its
creation was largely spurred by the scope of looting in a country with tremendous
archaeological and artistic wealth. The carabinieri have recorded over 630,000 thefts
in the past 30 years, and their investigations have enabled them to find 180,000
art works and 360,000 archaeological objects. “Forty percent of the stolen art works
are taken from private collections and churches,” one police officer explains. “In
churches, paintings are not the only items that are stolen. Objects from mass are
very popular. Counterfeiters recycle benches, which are then used to stretch the
canvas of fake paintings. Analyzing the wood is used as proof that it’s several centuries
old.”
“Each
year, our police recover 30,000 items,
enough to fill a whole museum.”
The art trafficking squad is growing: its 145-strong force will soon increase to
185, spread out in 11 cities. “We’re neither archaeologists, nor art historians.
We’ve had just a few months’ training in those fields,” says Conforti. “We’re senior
investigators, and we consult with the cultural affairs ministry when we need an
expert opinion.” The squad manages the world’s biggest Internet-accessible databank:
it includes 1,100,000 stolen art works, of which 300,000 are outside Italy’s borders.
Over the past few years, European countries have joined the international UNESCO and Unidroit conventions, making
it easier for police to cooperate with each other across borders. Italy has often
been held up as an example. France has set up a similar, although smaller structure,
while Spain is poised to follow suit. Before Great Britain joined the 1970 Convention
on March 14, 2001, the issue stirred a national debate, during which Conforti was
invited to explain his point of view before the House of Lords–a first for an Italian
military officer.
Italy’s example is a model beyond the European Union. “We’ve trained a Hungarian
team,” says one law enforcement officer. “The Iranians and Palestinians have asked
if they can take our courses. In Bangkok recently, the 11th session of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Restitution
and Return Committee adopted our recommendation to outlaw Internet auction sales
of archaeological pieces.”
Although it is impossible to count the thefts of archeological pieces from illegal
excavations, their estimated number is falling in Italy because of better surveillance
methods. “Each year, our police recover 30,000 items, enough to fill a whole museum,”
says the same officer. “But elsewhere, the looting is getting worse. Archaeological
thieves are setting their sights on Libya, Lebanon and Cyprus.”
The carabinieri’s operations sometimes lead to spectacular successes when it comes
to both Old Master and modern paintings. It took them just one month to recover two
Van Gogh paintings (The Gardener and Woman from Arles) and a Cézanne (Cabanon
de Jourdain, the last work the artist painted before his death), which were stolen
from the national gallery of modern art in Rome. “We’re not always so successful,”
says Conforti. “I won’t be satisfied until we find Caravaggio’s Nativity, which was
stolen in Palermo in 1969. We don’t believe the painting has been destroyed, but
we fear it’s in the hands of the mafia.”
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The
illegal traffic in cultural property is such a cancer and evil in our country that
it is only equalled by the traffic in drugs. It is a borderless network which does
not cease in the face of criminal action and methods.
Alberto
Massa,
Peruvian foreign affairs minister
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