Federal
Police
General
Direction Criminal Police
Direction
Combat of Crime against Property
Art
Research Team
(NCB
Interpol Brussels)
February
4 – 8, 2001
Smithsonian
Institution
Arlington,
Virginia
Presentation
made by
Dirk
Deklerck
Specialized
Officer
Ladies
and Gentlemen,
On
behalf of the Belgian Authorities, I would like to thank the Organizing
Committee for their kind invitation to be able to participate at this most
wonderful organized conference.
Allow
me to introduce myself. My name is Dirk
Deklerck and I am representing the Belgian Federal Police. I am working as a specialized officer in the
unit called A.R.T., the abbreviation for Art Research Team, which is the
Central Office on crime against works of art.
Actually
this is a premier for you as it is for me.
Since January 1st, 2001, the three major Belgian police
forces have merged. So this is my first
presentation as a member of the federal police.
I
would like to give you, in rough outline, some ideas about museums and their
policy and what we, as a police force, can do for the museum-sector.
Museums
- policy
The security and safety of museums
In
general, museums are better protected than churches, galleries en private
owners. The number of registered thefts
in museums is but a fraction of the total number of thefts in Belgium. (1997:
17/1226 – 1998: 18/936 – 1999: 9/968)
Still
there are exceptions. A local museum
has a wonderful collection of valuable pieces.
But this museum belongs to a little town and has a very small
budget. In this situation safety might
not be one of their priorities.
To
find a balance between electronic security and the use of security personnel is
a very difficult decision. People can
be distracted. Guides, to often talk
very open about their security systems.
Routine is a bad bug. (cf. Opening-sequel of Mr. Bean – the movie).
Lots
of museums only have security at the lower level, not on the upper levels.
Guards
More
and more, guards get confronted with aggressive behavior of visitors.
The
last decade the government has put a lot of effort in making severe guidelines
for security-services on recognition of training of guards and the therefore
official certificates. A résumé has
been made for the guard himself, which appears to be a very useful tool. It gives in a for the guard understandable
language his role, the household-rules, his rights and duties, the different
aspects of security, the risks involved, his preventive attitude and the
different ways to supervise. A lot of
attention goes to the relation with the public. Also a list with frequently used words in five languages is added
Art handling and transportation
Museums
very often get confronted with transportation of works of art. The number of major temporary exhibitions is
increasing day to day. Sometimes it
concerns mega-events with international loans.
At the same time the demands for temporarily use of works of art becomes
more specific: period of loan, light- and climate circumstances, package and
transportation.
The
transport is one of the most expensive posts within the exhibition-budget. Package, ‘art-handling’ en transport bring
along damage-risks, so museums have very specific and high demands.
In
Belgium, there are a certain number of transportation-firms specialized in
transportation of works of art. The
department of culture, together with the university of Louvain made a survey on
those firms: Who are they? What service do they offer? At what price? What does
the price consist of? What is the personnel’s qualification and experience
related towards the offered services? What’s the contract like? How about insurance?
Material and know-how?
This
survey must improve the quality of the service of art handling in Belgium.
An
analysis is made on the users needs and an evaluation of the supplier. This is done to analyze the sector to obtain
more transparency in art handling and transportation.
Co-operation museums & police
In
the year 2000 we started, for the first time, to give information-sessions for
the museum-sector. We have done that in
a joint meeting with mister Ton Cremers who introduced his second version of
MUSAVE (MUseum Standard Audit Veiligheidszorg) and mister Peter Westhuis of
Westhuis Consultancy who explained how to develop step by step an integrated
plan for security management.
The
purpose of these meetings was to inform those who have responsibility in safety
and security management and make them aware of the problems that might arise
when not ready for the worst.
Prior
to the meeting we knew that there was a certain interest towards the new Musave
program. Over 70 museums in Belgium had
already obtained the book and the automated audit, a tool to evaluate the own organization. The system is very easy to use and the
subjective try-out possibilities with the “ready to use advise” help
effectively to upgrade the safety and security of the museum.
This
security and safety must be day tot day the thin red line throughout the
museum-organization and the daily routine jobs. At the same time it suggests also a continuous vigilance. The audit gives you the possibility to
determine the strengths, weaknesses, the evolution and the improvement of
security-approaches and –provisions, and gives you the push to take adequate
measures.
Legislation
In
Belgium, legislation on the safeguard of cultural heritage is very poor.
Belgium
can be seen as a turning-table of international traffic of stolen goods in
Europe. In Belgium, penal law exists
only concerning theft and receiving.
There is no specific legislation about works of art.
The UNESCO convention was not
signed.
The
rules and directives of the Council of Europe are law within the Belgian
legislation but still have no penal impact.
The
UNIDROIT convention has been signed as being present at the conference, but has
until now not been ratified.
Since
1996 work has been made to establish bilateral agreements on international
police co-operation with middle – and east-European countries to combat
international organized crime, which includes a specific item on crimes against
goods, thefts, traffic on works of art and historical items.
Prevention
How
can theft be stopped? By prevention and
repression. Prevention is your business,
repression is ours. Still, I would like
to make some suggestions towards prevention.
Inventory and marking
There
are some elementary precautions that can be taken. Important is a written inventory, accompanied by one or several
photographs.
Make
a description of the markings on the object.
Damages, signatures, missing parts, a.o’s. are essential to make the
distinction with another similar object.
Extra
marking can be done on the object itself: UV-pen, microchip, crystals, but then
again, the curator of your museum might not like that.
A
great number of objects being found by police in dubious circumstances cannot
be restituted, purely by lack of identification.
Physical security
This
can be a problem when the budgetary means are not sufficient and put a limit to
the physical security of works of art.
Elimination of economic stimulants
Not
possible as long as there is a demand on both national and international level.
Dissuade
Only
possible by having an accurate prevention policy, an obstinate international
co-operation and efficacious legislation.
Object-ID
No
comment on that. Known by everybody and
speaks for itself.
A theft occurs! – What to do?
How do things work in Belgium after
a theft occurs?
You
(I am addressing myself to you as you were the victim) – You take contact with
the police. You will give accurate
information on the stolen objects.
Therefore you use your inventory, standard formularies, pictures,
description, etc.
The
police will make a theft report. They
will register the event in the National Central Police Datafile, and that’s
when we are informed of the theft.
With
the information that we have at that very moment we make a national signal for
all the police forces in Belgium. Then
the stolen objects with description and photographs will be introduced into our
database for stolen cultural objects.
This database is called ARTIST, which stands for A.R.T. Information
System. Then we decide if we’re going
to ask the General Secretariat of Interpol in Lyons for an international
distribution through Crigen-Art, ASF and CD-ROM. (Cf. To JP Jouanny).
·
We
also gather all information regarding offences pertaining to works of art and
antiquities (theft, receiving, fraud, forgeries, embezzlement, author rights, etc.).
·
We
manage and operate the national and international documentation as regards all
kinds of art-related offences,
We
co-ordinate all International Rogatory commissions, executed at an operational
level in Belgium.
·
We
give technical assistance to the identification of found works of art,
·
We
lend assistance to the co-ordination of judicial enquiries by a documentary
back up. If a certain modus operandi
shows up at different places in the country, it is our job to organize a
meeting where the respective police services are invited to discuss the problem
and exchange information,
·
We
are a contact point for all police units, Public Prosecutor’s Offices and the
analogous foreign correspondents,
·
We
assure technical training for the police officers working on the field.
·
We
publish a monthly magazine, in which one can find the most important thefts,
taking place in Belgium. This bulletin
is forwarded to the different police units at a national and international
level, as well as to the Department of culture, Chamber of Antique dealers, the
Chamber of Arts-experts and the Union Chamber of Auction rooms. Each member of these institutions can
consult this bulletin. It is obvious
that our units have to be informed as soon as one of the goods mentioned in the
bulletin is found.
Conclusion
Just to end this presentation, a short
story.
About
four - five years ago, a man visits on a regular basis libraries and
archives. There, he consults old books
and documents and, with a cutter-knife, cuts out of the books, old geographical
maps. He always seems to disappear in a
perfect way. With his actions he is
actually covering a mayor part of Europe: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain
and also Belgium where he honored several libraries with his visit. And, maybe he also visited a part of this
continent.
The
suspect is a man of about 65 Years old.
Well dressed. Very elegant. Using a walking stick and presenting himself
as a university-professor. He has the
most perfect credentials.
At
last the man has been identified and arrested in Hungary in October 1999. Belgium asked for his extradition. We have been able to proof that he visited
several libraries and archives in Ghent, Bruges and Brussels and stole 485 old
geographical maps. He was sentenced for
five years of jail.
Since
his arrest, none of the maps have been found back.
Food for thought.
Thank
you for your attention.
The
Belgian Delegate
Dirk
Deklerck
Federal
Police
General
Direction Criminal Police
Direction
Combat of Crime against Property
Art
Research Team
(NCB
Interpol Brussels)
Quatre
Brasstraat 13 box 1
B
1000 Brussels
Belgium
phone + 32 2 508 68 58
Fax +
32 2 508 71 56
e-mail:
fedpol.art@wol.be