Re: Why Store objects in a Safe

I am sure that Steve Keller, the security maven, will weigh in

From: IntlArtCop@aol.com
Subject:

Britain at centre of world trade in stolen antiquities

BRITAIN has become a world centre for smuggled antiquities. The illicit art market, worth hundreds of millions of pounds, is now second in value only to narcotics. Once parodied as an industry of "likeable rogues" such as BBC1's Lovejoy, the antique trade today is increasingly likely to involve organised crime. "There's a significant illicit art trade and there are clear links between it and the drugs world," says Alan Howarth, the arts minister. Police say stolen works are often used as collateral for drug deals. Lord Renfrew, who recently retired as professor of archeology at Cambridge, warned that the problem was worse than the minister would admit. "Britain is now a thieves' kitchen for stolen art and antiquities," he said. "So much of the art being traded here now is regarded as looted because nobody knows where so much of it comes from. There's a bad smell about the whole market." According to Charles Hill, a former police art fraud expert, now risk manager for Axa Nordstern Art, British police "simply do not have the resources to deal with what is often an international conspiracy". Howarth will this week announce the creation of a panel of experts, including Renfrew, to examine the illicit trade in art, antiques and antiquities, as well as a new cross-departmental committee, which will involve the culture department, Customs and Excise, the Home Office and the Department of Trade and Industry.
The announcement will come as the Commons culture committee, chaired by Gerald Kaufman, prepares to cross-question the British Art Market Federation - which represents auction houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's, as well as the Antiques Dealers Association - on Tuesday. The committee is likely to call for dealers to be licensed. At present, anybody can set themselves up as a dealer, regardless of any past convictions. Another likely recommendation is for an "art log book", as many works of art are sold either in shops or at auction houses without any traceable record of previous owners or history. "You wouldn't buy a second-hand car without the log book, so why art?" says Peter Addyman, who chairs the Standing Conference on Portable Antiquities.
There is also growing pressure for Britain to sign a Unesco treaty - approved by nearly every other Western nation - to prevent looted art and antiquities being brought into the country. "At present you could go, for example, to Cambodia and take something from the Angkor Wat temples and, provided you got it out of that country, bring it into Britain with no questions asked at customs," said Maurice Davies of the Museums Association.
Thefts earlier this year of Cézanne's Auvers-sur-Oise from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and five LS Lowry paintings, being kept in storage in Northamptonshire, are thought by police to have been carried out by organised gangs and may also be linked to the drugs trade. Ancient coins worth at least £2m have also been stolen from archeological sites in Surrey in what police believe was a clearly organised crime.
British auction houses are being increasingly criticised for often refusing to give the provenence of goods they are selling. "They say it's because of client confidentiality," said Addyman, a director of the York Archeological Trust. "But often it is because they have no idea where the work comes from. Buyers should be told. You could, for example, buy some Middle Eastern antiquity which in fact was made in Jordan a couple of years ago." Fortnum and Mason, the Piccadilly store, has been criticised for a current sale of ancient art. The British Museum and the Council for British Archeology have written to the store to express "concern and sadness" about the sale, which features hundreds of ancient artifacts, including Neolithic pots and Mesopotamian blades.
There is no proof, however, that any of the objects on sale have been exported illegally from their country of origin.
(Sunday Times, London)

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