Stealing Culture - Problems Facing the Hong Kong and China Market

Toby Bull
Senior Inspector
Hong Kong Police

Art Crime - What is it? How is it presented to us by the media? Who are the perpetrators and who are the regulators? How big a problem is it? What is Hong Kong's role and what is being done to stem this illicit activity? This introductory talk on the subject of art crime will attempt to address many of these questions, highlighting some of the problematical areas to be wary of within this famously opaque and secretive market - from the thorny issue of fakes and smuggled antiquities in the marketplace to money laundering and the financing of terrorism. It will conclude by suggesting certain measures which might be considered effective in the fight against art crime.

Hello Dalí: Anatomy of a Modern Day Art Theft Investigation

Jordan Arnold
Managing Director
Head of Private Client Services
K2 Art Risk Consultancy

In the middle of the afternoon on June 19, 2012, inside an art gallery near Central Park in Manhattan, a man removed a 1949 Salvador Dali watercolor from the wall, placed it in a shopping bag and disappeared into the streets of Manhattan. The ensuing international investigation—led by NYPD Major Case Squad detectives and a Manhattan DA prosecutor—provides an illustrative case study of how modern, technology-driven investigative techniques were paired with time-tested law enforcement methods to recover a stolen work of art and convict the thief. 

The lead prosecutor in The People v. Phivos Istavrioglou, I will present a concise narrative of our investigation into the theft of Cartel des Don Juan Tenorio, including: determining initial investigative steps; ruling out an inside job; recovering the piece; identifying the thief (a foreign national); placing him in Manhattan that day; using social media to track him to Europe (right down to his favorite café); seizing damning digital evidence of his guilt; luring him back to New York (through an elaborate undercover sting), and; securing his confession, indictment and conviction.

Exploitation through the Hong Kong Cultural Property Market

Emiline Smith
Lead researcher for the project Cultural Property in Transit:
A Case Study of Hong Kong, Trafficking Culture project
University of Glasgow

This presentation will explore how the commodification of cultural property has led to an exploitation of a non-renewable resource, in the midst of globalized flows of licit and illicit commodities. Cultural property is one of the only commodities where criminality adds to its market value: the closer to the source, the better the product, the lesser the questions asked. The trust between buyer and seller, whether it is from extractor to dealer or from auction house to client, relies on a commitment to not know, to non-diligence. Lack of information surrounding the entrance of an object onto the market and its subsequent ownership history is not only accepted within the trade, it is the norm. Provenance merely adds an extra dimension to the authenticity and potential exchange value of the piece. The mystification process subsequently applied serves a multi-million dollar market: where else would you spend several thousands to millions of dollars on an object which value and authenticity is only guaranteed by a dealer's word, not even on paper?

The upperworld and underworld come together in a market of cultural property along a spectrum of (il)legality. Objects are illicitly sourced, transported and owned. Their legal status depends on the geographical territory and time which they or their owner find themselves in. Participants of the trade make use of the spaces between national legislation to transport, trade and own cultural objects on a global level. The techniques of neutralization employed by dealers to enable and explain their participation is a tool of social construction in order to make their (illicit) business socially accepted, respected and esteemed. The commodification of cultural property is actively maintained through the obsession of newly-found, newly-excavated, singularized objects. Participants focus their efforts on making criminal goods appear to be culturally appreciated, high culture goods, thereby enriching only certain individuals and organizations.

The WISDOM of INTERPOL in the fight against the illicit trade in ivory and rhino horn in East Africa and Asia

Françoise Bortolotti
Criminal Intelligence Officer
Works of Art Unit
Interpol

This paper will explain the activities of the Interpol Works of Art Unit in the fight against art crime. In particular the paper will consider the WISDOM Project fighting against the illicit trade in ivory and rhino horn in East Africa and Asia.

Precious Objects: the case for a legal ivory trade in Hong Kong

Steven Gallagher
Associate Professor of Practice in Law
Faculty of Law
The Chinese University of Hong Kong

This paper considers the proposed "ban" on the sale of ivory in Hong Kong. The paper considers the effectiveness of the existing law and regulation in Hong Kong and considers what form the proposed legislative changes might take in the light of restrictive measures proposed and introduced recently in other jurisdictions. The paper concludes by considering the need for an exception to any ban on the trade in ivory products for "antiques".

Looting and Illicit Trafficking of Asian Cultural Artefacts:
Domestic Strategies, Regional Cooperation, and International Treaties

Dr Stefan Gruber
Associate Professor
The Hakubi Center for Advanced Research of Kyoto University

Many parts of Asia continue to suffer from the devastating effects of illicit art trafficking, the looting of cultural artefacts and art theft. These problems are exacerbated by the continuous demand of 'new' items by the globalised art market, which is supplied by a highly organised network of international auctioneers, art dealers, organised crime, middlemen and looters. The damage goes far beyond the material damage, as looting culturally impoverishes societies and destroys heritage sites and archaeological context.

While all Asian jurisdictions feature laws dedicated to the protection of their cultural property, many face significant problems regarding their enforcement. In addition, there are significant problems in relation to the cross-border regulation of the art trade and the tracking of cultural artefacts once they have been smuggled across the border. This particularly applies to China, as its antiquities are believed to be the largest single class of smuggled items, mostly via the Special Administrative Regions Hong Kong and Macau. The enforcement of laws related to looting, art theft and the trafficking of illegally obtained cultural artefacts has become even more difficult in view of the increased trade within and beyond the region, simplified circulation of goods, and increasingly sophisticated methods of looters, middlemen, illicit art dealers and smuggling networks. 

The presentation argues in favour of enhanced regional cooperation between neighbouring countries affected by the cross-border smuggling of cultural artefacts, increased international solidarity and the development of further bilateral agreements under the 1970 UNESCO Convention between market and source countries, such as the treaty between the United States and China and Cambodia respectively, rigorous enforcement of existing laws, regional assistance in investigations and prosecutions of related crimes, stricter control of the art market, and easier repatriation of illegally exported artefacts. Several case studies from Cambodia, China, India and Thailand are discussed.

Temple looting and statue trafficking in Southeast Asia:
the craft and the industry

Simon Mackenzie
Professor of Criminology
Victoria University of Wellington
Member of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research
The University of Glasgow (Trafficking Culture)

Based on accounts gathered from participants in the cross-border trade in looted antiquities from Cambodia to Thailand, this paper suggests that the distinction between the ideas of 'craft' and 'industry' is a useful heuristic device to apply in thinking about the people and practices involved in looting and trafficking. The reflections of looters and traffickers on their roles in the illicit trade are reminiscent of the distinctions between these two modes of production. In looting as craft we may find relatively small-scale theft, key individuals as masters of the techniques required, entry to the trade by inductions comparable in some ways to apprenticeship, and rudimentary but finely-honed methods that are not indiscriminately destructive. By contrast in looting as industry we see a version of mass production, using machinery and larger labour forces to extract precious resources quickly and efficiently, accepting the destruction that goes along with such methods as a cost of doing expeditious business. In this microcosm of the study of stories about historical practices of looting and traffic in Southeast Asia we can see many of the themes of contemporary debates about global looting becoming clearer: from issues around so-called subsistence digging, to concerns about the industrialization of looting in conflict zones.

DHS/ICE Homeland Security Investigations combatting art and antiquities crime

Michael Simpson,
Assistant HSI Attaché
Homeland Security Investigations
Hong Kong, Macau & Taiwan

This paper will provide a short overview of the work and operations of Homeland Security Investigations. The paper will then detail how HIS's work as a U.S. federal law enforcement agency includes the investigation and enforcement of laws concerning the trafficking of arts and antiquities. The paper will conclude with a case study of such investigation.