Dr. Saskia Hufnagel, a Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security (CEPS) at Griffith University in Queensland, presented “Harmonizing Police Cooperation in the Field of Art Crime in Australia and the European Union,” at ARCA's third annual International Art Crime Conference in Amelia.

Her research project was originally meant to focus on the collaborative effort of Australia and the European Union, but became a project centered more on the need for cooperation in both systems. As Dr. Hufnagel said, she was doing “the dance of presenting a research project that doesn’t exist.” Her project, therefore, became more focused on the comparison between Australia and the European Union concerning perception, priority, policing, and reactions towards art crime.

Dr. Hufnagel demonstrated in her presentation that Australia, in general, does not put a policing priority towards art crime, because of the perception that art crime is a financial matter compensated by the insurance companies.

“Generally there is a lack of recognition which leads to a lack of resources,” Dr. Hufnagel said.

Australia’s nine territories therefore do not allocate funds towards investigation and prevention of these crimes, Dr. Hufnagel said. Accordingly, they also do not feel the need to enhance cooperation amongst the states and territories to combat the problem. It is difficult to generate support for the problem because in Hufnagel’s words, “we don’t know how much art crime is going on in Australia” due to the fact that most crimes are not reported.

Dr. Hufnagel stated that there is not a strong focus on art crime research in Australia and that the last funded research related to art crime from a practical policing perspective was conducted in 1999 by a single individual, who was not granted sufficient resources to finalize his research, which undermined the effectiveness of his conclusions. Art crime is a very sensitive issue and cooperation is not only necessary between different law enforcement agencies, Dr. Hufnagel said, but also between the museums and galleries and police, which is probably even more difficult.  Police cooperation between Australia and neighboring countries concerning drug smuggling is relatively high, but unfortunately, when it reaches the bounds of art crime, the differences in culture seem to impede effective cooperation. Dr. Hufnagel compared this to the European Union, which has divisions of laws to each of the countries that do not aid fellow countries in the fight against art crime.

Speaking passionately about the need for appreciation of art crime, Dr. Hufnagel said, “Art is really important to our lives because our lives are so limited…art allows you experience a vast range of emotions, cultures and situations you could never perceive otherwise.” She intends to continue her research into art crime and to raise the field’s status in the realm of police enforcement with the hope that something will be done to further cooperation and collaboration in Australia and the European Union.

by Mark Durney, founder of Art Theft Central

Ludo Block, a former Dutch police officer and current investigator at Grant Thornton, recently submitted his doctoral dissertation on the topic of police cooperation in the European Union. While his dissertation focuses on EU policy-making in relation to police cooperation, Mr. Block focused his panel lecture at ARCA’s third annual International Art Crime Conference on transnational police cooperation in crimes against art.

Unfortunately, art crime is often overlooked by law enforcement due to the lack of political priority. Whereas most members of the European Union do not maintain law enforcement units to investigate art crimes, a few countries such as France, Spain, Greece, and most especially Italy, maintain special units to curb the problem. Italy has organized its data management capabilities, its art crime experts, and investigative capacity under the Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela del Patrimonio Culturale with over 300 staff. Furthermore, it has trained officers at the local level in order to enable them to effectively investigate crimes against art. Also, the Carabinieri play a major role in the annual art crime courses offered to senior law enforcement by CEPOL, the European Police College.  Some other EU Member States maintain centralized units but these are usually staffed with only a handful of experts.  In mother Member States, data management on art crimes is insufficiently organized and as a result, reliable statistics on the scope of art crime are hardly available.

Throughout his research, which featured interviews as well as extensive research, Mr. Block found that the countries that placed art crime high on their policing agendas largely drove the European Union’s cultural heritage protection policy. In spite of various attempts since 1993, only recently in 2008 the  European Union passed new policy aimed at increasing police cooperation; however, as yet it did little to enhance the cooperation between the member countries. Mr. Block stated that in practice law enforcement efforts in a majority of the member countries rely on the personal dedication of a handful of specialized art crime investigators. In cases that involve transnational crimes, most investigators take advantage of their informal relationships with other investigators in order to pursue crimes that extend beyond their borders.

The European Union is in the process of developing an art crime database for its member countries.  In 2008, Europol, the European Union’s criminal intelligence agency, declined to participate in the project but Interpol, which has a long history of supporting the fight against art crime, quickly agreed to  convert their database to the EU member states' needs. According to Mr. Block, combatting art crime starts with proper data management on the local level where art crimes are usually first registered.

by Molly Cotter, ARCA Intern

Judge Arthur Tompkins opened the 3rd annual ARCA International Art Crime Conference with an engaging discussion on the positive and negative aspects of paying ransoms or rewards in order to recover stolen art. He utilized the 2007 theft of 96 rare medals from New Zealand’s National Army Museum, valued at NZ$5-$6 million, as a case study to examine the arguments in support of and against ransom payments. He first noted that readily paying a thief’s ransom may seem to be ideal solution. The art is returned quickly; it limits the potential for the work to be damaged; bad publicity for the institution is avoided; and the necessity of having to make, or pay out on, an insurance claim is prevented. In the New Zealand museum’s case, a substantial private reward was posted for information pertaining to the theft and the medals were returned within a few months.

Judge Arthur Tompkins Amelia, Italy

Though this seems like a storybook ending, the arguments against ransom payments suggest that this behavior not only encourages, but endorses future crimes. If a ransom is paid or a reward given, the chance of a repeat offense is much greater. Also, it perpetuates the gentleman art thief myth, and reduces the level of moral turpitude attributable to the crime. Simply put by Judge Tompkins: “The thief is happy, the owner is happy, the police are happy, and some wealthy insurance company has paid, but will get its money back from its customers, so everyone wins.” The payer also becomes complicit in the crime, and the transparency of the transaction can be lessened.

Judge Tompkins also discussed the legal responses around the world to such crimes. In the most extreme examples such as in Italy and Colombia, ransom payments are illegal. Other countries only find it unlawful to offer a “no questions asked” reward; however, penalties for violating this often involve only a minimal fine.

A contemporary case-study of how ransom payments endorse crime is the activities of pirates off the coast of Somalia. As of mid December 2010, Somalia pirates were holding at least 35 ships, more than 650 hostages, and had earned nearly US$240 million through ransoms. Their system has become so sophisticated that there is even a piracy stock exchange, Judge Tompkins told the audience.

A systemized ransom/reward structure does encourage and sustain illegal activity, and the direct costs of recovering stolen art have a detrimental effect on collections and access to art, according to Judge Tompkins.  However, he noted, “Legal prohibitions of activities where there is a potential for profit involved, simply do not work,” and suggested that in an ideal world, a victimized individual or institution would pay the money, get the artwork returned, find and prosecute the thieves, and then recover the ransom payment.