Engaging private eyes to track art thefts

Early in the morning of May 11, 1987, someone smashed through the glass doors of the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, removed a Matisse from a wall and fled. All it took was daring and a sledgehammer. The whereabouts of the painting - ‘Le Jardin’ - remained a mystery until the work was found last year and made a celebratory trip home in January.

But law enforcement played no role. The return was facilitated by the Art Loss Register, a London-based company that over the last two decades has evolved into a little noticed, but increasingly integral part of art investigation around the world. The brainchild of Julian Radcliffe, an Oxford-educated former risk consultant who speaks of once spying for British intelligence, the Register helps fill a gaping void: Billions of dollars worth of art is stolen every year, according to an FBI estimate, but law enforcement has too few resources to prioritise finding it.

For Radcliffe, whose other company helps recover stolen construction equipment, this presented a natural opportunity. Since it began 22 years ago the Register has  developed one of the most extensive databases of stolen art in the world, enabling it to recover more than $250 million worth of art, earning fees from insurers and theft victims. Along the way, the company has drawn criticism from those who say its hardball tactics push ethical, and sometimes legal, boundaries. Even so, the Register continues to count law enforcement agents among its supporters. “To me, they’re very important, a very useful tool,” said Mark Fishstein, the New York City Police Department’s “art cop.”

Increasingly cloudy

Radcliffe’s company operates in the dim recesses of the art world where the prevalence of theft, fakery and works of murky provenance has given rise to many businesses that promise to help clients navigate this lucrative but largely unregulated market. But for the Register, despite its official-sounding name and pivotal role as a monitor, profits have not come easily and the company’s future looks increasingly cloudy, threatening a core player in the recovery of stolen art. Radcliffe said that he hopes the Register will break even this year, but that it has lost money for the last six and has stayed afloat only thanks to his cash infusions. Now the company is losing talent, too.

During the past year two key employees resigned; additionally, the company’s general counsel, Christopher A Marinello, who has been as much a public face of the company as Radcliffe, says he is leaving at the end of this month with plans to start a rival business. Among the incidents that have drawn criticism, the Register misled a client who wanted to check the provenance of a painting before he purchased it, telling him it was not stolen when in fact it was, so that he would buy it and unwittingly help the company collect a fee for its retrieval.

It has been known to pay middlemen and informers for leads on stolen works, a practice that troubles some in law enforcement, who say that it can incite thefts.

And the company often behaves like a bounty hunter, charging fees of as much as 20 per cent of a work’s value for its return. These fees do not bother the insurance companies and other clients that hire the Register to find a work. But the company has approached people and museums with whom it has no relationship. In several cases, people say the Register contacted them, told them of a lead on a stolen work, then refused to divulge any information until the subject agreed to pay a fee.
“They do serve a purpose - they’re the only private database,” said Robert K. Wittman, a private art investigator who formerly led the FBI’s Art Crime Team. “When they get into trouble is when they overstep that role and try to act as if they’re the police.” Radcliffe, who is also a gentleman farmer, shrugs off suggestions that his business could be faltering.

A few countries, like Italy, place a high priority on art theft, but they are the exception. New York City and Los Angeles, hubs of the art trade, each have one detective dedicated to art crime. The FBI has assigned 14 agents with special training to investigate art crimes, though most have other duties as well. Scotland Yard’s arts and antiques unit has three officers. “It’s not violent crime,” said Saskia Hufnagel, a research fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security. “There are no victims, at least ones the public would consider victims. A lot of the loss is covered by insurance.” The authorities are also hobbled by limited and incomplete data.