PARIS, Sept 2: A French archaeological team that was in Afghanistan to locate and excavate a third giant statue of Buddha at Bamiyan has been declared persona-non-grata by local military authorities and was summarily expelled from the country on Sunday. Last year, two 1500- year old standing statues of Buddha had been destroyed by Afghan's then pro-Taliban government in a well- publicised incident that elicited worldwide protest, notably in France where French authorities at the Musee Guimet revealed earlier this year that according to their records a third giant statue - this one lying down - was buried nearby. When, a few weeks ago, authorities at UNESCO in Paris, announced that there were no plans to rebuild the two standing Buddha statues as the cost would prove exorbitant, French authorities decided to send an expedition to Bamiyan in central Afghanistan to excavate - at a relatively minor cost - the third statue of Buddha.
The expedition was headed by Professor Zemaryali Tarzi, who said he had been authorized by Afghan authorities to spend a month at Bamiyan to locate and unearth the statue. http://www.dawn.com/
Residential burglary bags Picassos and other art worth dlrs 700,000 in San Antonio
SAN ANTONIO - Works valued at more than dlrs 700,000, by artists including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, were stolen from a physician's home.
Dr. Richard Garcia said he was asleep upstairs early Monday and didn't hear a thing. A maid, who was in the basement, heard footsteps but thought it was Garcia walking around, according to the police report.
A house alarm was set but failed to go off. No arrests had been made as of Tuesday morning.
Garcia said he hadn't insured the works because the premiums would be too high. He said he wasn't sure if it was one person or a band of thieves who hauled the paintings out a side door of his dlrs 600,000 home. "They passed over a lot of things," Garcia, 68, told the San Antonio Express-News. "But they took the flagship of the collection." He said his lawyer told him not to identify the paintings. The police report listed a dlrs 500,000 painting by Kahlo as the most expensive item taken. Garcia, who often gives parties for visiting artists and musical stars, speculated that an admirer of the stolen pieces first saw them at one of those events and then hired professionals to steal them. "I don't think I'll get them back," he said. "They will probably wind up in a private collection where nobody else ever sees them."
He said he will continue collecting.
"Of course I am slightly depressed about it, but what can I do? I will just get on with my life and make sure that I won't get hit again." http://story.news.yahoo.com/
Plundered Peru struggles to find missing treasure
BY TIM JOHNSON tjohnson@herald.com
LIMA - After more than a year of global detective work, the government of Peru has made great strides in tracing and recovering assets pilfered under former President Alberto Fujimori, retrieving $145.8 million stashed in foreign bank accounts. But Peruvian officials have hit a stone wall -- even as estimates of the amount lost to corruption during the decade-long Fujimori regime in the 1990s rise to $2 billion. As a result, Peru may soon have to turn to a private company to help it sniff out gold bullion, foreign bank accounts or hidden trusts that may contain hundreds of millions of dollars more. Peru's efforts are distressingly familiar after the attempts by other Third World nations that have ousted leaders only to see them or their relatives flee abroad and live like mandarins with huge foreign bank accounts.
Congo, Nigeria, Mexico, the Philippines and Indonesia have experienced what experts now call ''grand-scale corruption'' -- the ripping off of billions of dollars -- and faced huge difficulties in recovering the money. Transition governments that emerge following larcenous dictatorships often wrestle with vast social problems and lack expertise in tracking stolen assets in today's complex global economy. Fujimori left Peru for self-exile in Tokyo in late 2000, ending a decade of authoritarian rule. For much of his tenure, Fujimori enjoyed relative popularity. He was lauded for attracting foreign investment and bringing about the virtual defeat of the Maoist Sendero Luminoso insurgency. But scandalous revelations later revealed that Fujimori's sinister spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, and top military officers enriched themselves from huge payoffs for weapons purchases, drug trafficking, influence-peddling, blackmail, fixing court decisions and garden-variety skimming.
SWISS MILLIONS
So far, Peru has repatriated money from Switzerland, the United States and the Cayman Islands. Peru received the most recent transfer, $77.5 million, on Aug. 20 from Zurich. ''We were able to link these funds to transfers from a Russian arms factory and we could then track the money back to the U.S. From there, we found out that this was bribe money that Montesinos had received,'' Zurich District Attorney Cornelia Cova told reporters. Much of the money belonged to either Montesinos or the former chief of the armed forces, Gen. Nicolás Hermoza Ríos, both of whom are imprisoned in Lima. Switzerland ordered the money returned after Peruvian officials demonstrated how Montesinos received bribes on at least 32 transactions, including ''commissions'' for Peru's purchase of three MiG-29 jet fighters from Russia. Peru has traced another $70 million or so to accounts elsewhere, but has yet to recover the cash, said special prosecutor Luís Vargas Valdivia, who is looking into various aspects of criminality during the Fujimori presidency. Prosecutors believe Montesinos has hundreds of millions of dollars more stashed abroad, yet they can't find it, partly because of the difficulty of penetrating Panama's bank secrecy laws. Moreover, they have yet to find any assets that they believe Fujimori himself took. ''We think Fujimori has at least as much as Montesinos,'' said Astrid Leigh, an assistant special prosecutor who focuses on financial crimes committed during the Fujimori regime. When Fujimori left, witnesses have said cohorts took valises from the palace, she said. ''Briefcases filled with money were definitely taken away. There is very little doubt about this. Maybe even boxes. And probably gold, too,'' Leigh said. ``We have to comb very carefully to determine what Fujimori is living on now. How does he pay for the movies, for his rent? How does he pay his credit card bills? ''He must have some funds. Japan is very expensive,'' Leigh said. ``This is a job that we can't do alone.'' Friends of Fujimori have told the media in Tokyo that he has found wealthy Japanese patrons willing to bankroll him. Leigh said Peru has solicited bids from several prominent firms with a global reach and expertise in asset recovery -- including Kroll Associates, Decision Strategies and Control Risks Group -- to see if they may want the contract to trace missing funds. Under an arrangement with the United Nations, Peruvian officials have ceded the selection of the firm to a local U.N. office, which in turn administers recovered money through the Special Fund to Administer Illegally Obtained Money. So far, recovered assets have paid for things like police uniforms, vehicles and a jail. The U.N. office, though, wants the winning company to provide details about its sources of information and its techniques -- a demand that investigators say is unrealistic. ''Investigators will go in and use trickery or pay somebody,'' said Eugene Propper, a former federal prosecutor who works on asset searches for Holland & Knight, an international law firm. ``You go in and look at records and talk to people. You find out what happened. You get to them and you squeeze them.''
NO EASY TASK
Recent history underscores that asset searches are not easy. Bureaucrats from Third World governments do not have the expertise to mount global searches for hidden assets. One experienced Washington investigator, Jack Blum, says it may be time for the United Nations to get involved and set up a small global agency of lawyers, detectives and bankers to help looted nations recover their money. Often, the citizens of victimized countries are so happy to be rid of their larcenous leaders that recovering the loot becomes an afterthought. ''We've been focused on getting these people out of office, but haven't worried about getting the money back,'' Blum said. ``The amounts involved are staggering and the consequences are appalling. The recoveries have been pretty spotty compared to the magnitude of the thievery.'' The Philippines has recovered some $2 billion of the $5-to-$10 billion allegedly swiped by the family of Ferdinand Marcos before his ouster in 1986. The Suharto family in Indonesia is believed to have socked away up to $15 billion before the ouster of the patriarch in 1998, very little of it recovered. Nigeria was victimized by huge scale looting during the reign of Sani Abacha, the dictator who ruled 1993-1998. In an extraordinary and brazen offer, Abacha's relatives agreed earlier this year to return $1 billion as long as Nigeria would desist from efforts to recover another $2 to $3 billion. ''Nigeria could do a lot with an extra $3 billion apart from the $1 billion,'' John Conyngham, global director of investigations for Control Risks Group Ltd., said from his office in London. ``A lot of governments were quite embarrassed that Nigeria was going around the world with cap in hand saying, 'Help us.
IN HEMISPHERE
In this hemisphere, Nicaragua is seeking to recover $97 million it says former President Arnoldo Alemán took upon leaving office last year. Argentina is inquiring whether former President Carlos Menem maintains a Swiss bank account of $10 million. Haiti was looted consecutively by Francois ''Papa Doc'' Duvalier, who ruled 1957-1971, then by Jean-Claude ''Baby Doc'' Duvalier, who fled Haiti in 1986 for exile along the Riviera. Conyngham, the Control Risks executive, who also testified, said the hurdles in recovering stolen assets include the complexity of transactions between offshore corporations or trusts and the legal differences between nations that hinder the exchange of evidence. In the telephone interview, Conyngham said international cooperation in helping looted countries is growing, but any move toward a global institution to help trace stolen assets is slow in gathering momentum.
''I think it's quite likely a long way off,'' he said. http://www.miami.com/ From: "Art Mark" To: securma@xs4all.nl
Subject: Tagging your Treasures
Dear Sirs,
Your E-mail sent to "Museum Security Mailinglist" was brought to my Attention by Peter Osbourne from the "Bureau of Cultural Protection". It was suggested that I sent this in response for your consideration and I would be most greatful if you could give me some kind of response. Art~Mark is the Fine Art Division of Datatag ID based at Weybridge near London, England. Datatag, as part of Yamaha UK was set up 11 years ago to help act as a deterrent and identification system for the high value motorcycle market. Over the past 11 years Datatag has become the largest property marking company in Europe if not the World. Using a multi layered system, Datatag can offer a broard selection of Transponder electronic taggs plus Datadots for marking iether overtly or covertly items of high net worth. Since the creation of Art~Mark last year under my direction we have added to the Datatag portfolio a range of DNA products that are invaluable for marking items of Fine Art. DNA is ideal especially as it can be applied without being invasive. All this is backed up by the Datatag database that has had considerable investment put into it to make it one of the most flexible systems available. As an experienced restorer of oil paintings over many years I believe we have the best system and products available for the marking of Fine Art. This in tern is backed up by a sound financial base. Since January 1st. 2002 Datatag has been owned by Mitsui & Co. of Japan. Mitsui is one of the worlds top trading companies with a projected turnover during 2002 of 180 billion US Dollars. Datatag is now being used in many countries throughout Europe and offers the safest and best deterrents against theft making property Too Hot To Handle.
Please contact Andrew Finlay iether by E-mail or telephone and Fax on. Tel. 01242 620785 Fax. 01242 621014
The Art Newspaper.com
This week's top stories:
BERLIN MUSEUMS CONSIDER THE FLICK COLLECTION REJECTED BY ZURICH
BERLIN. Negotiations are in train between Peter Klaus Schuster, director of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, the administrative body of the Berlin State museums, and the millionaire, Friedrich Christian (Mick) Flick over the latter’s collection, for which he would like to find a home in Berlin. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9955
HOW THE QUEEN CAME TO OWN A LAGOS MUSEUM PIECE
LONDON. The Queen has found herself the fortunate owner of a Benin bronze head—an astonishing gift from the Nigerian government. The magnificent sculpture of a king was presented by president General Yakubu Gowon during his State visit in 1973. Since then it has been regarded as a modern replica, and this summer it went on public view for the first time, in a special Jubilee display of State gifts in the Ball Supper Room of Buckingham Palace. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9954
FOUR REASONS WHY THE MARKET COULD BE HEADING FOR A BUST...
LONDON. When will it end? This is the question everyone is asking about the art market: prices have been on a roll for the last three years, culminating in Lord Thomson’s spectacular purchase of the Rubens for £49.5 million in July. At the same time, stock markets are plunging, the international situation is tense and currencies are jittery. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9953
REDISCOVER CROATIA’S SPLENDID VENETIAN HERITAGE
SPLIT. The magnificent Venetian churches dotted along the Croatian coastline are one of Europe’s best kept secrets. Every bit as impressive as the buildings in Venice itself, they were erected when the regions of Istria and Dalmatia formed part of Venice’s extended territory, between 1420 and the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9952
IT WORKED!
COLOGNE. The exhibition held to celebrate the reopening of the Museum Ludwig was entitled “Das Museum unserer Wünsche”, (The museum of our desires), and contained a series of works which the museum hoped to acquire. The show closed in April and the outcome was declared most satisfactory. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9951
NO VOICE FROM THE HALL
Giles Worsley is to be warmly congratulated on England’s lost houses. He has selected 51 houses and divided them into six sections: “The gathering storm, 1900-29”, “Crumbling resolution, 1930-39”, “The wartime years, 1940-49”, “The country house in crisis, 1950-59”, “The storm passes, 1960-69”, and “The end of the crisis, 1970-2000”. Each is introduced by a short preface, the whole preceded by a long considered introduction, and finally there is a bibliography and a gazetteer of losses. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=9950 Anna Somers Cocks, Editor
The Art Newspaper 70 South Lambeth Road London SW8 1RL UK tel +44(0)207 735 3331 fax +44(0)207 735 3332 http://www.theartnewspaper.com