ART LOSS REGISTER

PRESENTATION BY MALCOLM KENWOOD CLIENT SERVICES MANAGER LONDON

Introduction

The Art Loss Register was created in 1991 with the support of the major auction houses, UK and European Art Trade Associations and the Insurance industry. The Register functions on an International basis and assists Law Enforcement Agencies in the battle against art theft.

We operate offices in London, New York and Cologne. With the assistance of the Dutch Government and the Getty Foundation we hope soon to have a representative in St. Petersburg in the Russian Federation.

We currently have a staff of 12 trained art historians with 13 different fluent languages.

In 1991 we inherited the date base created by IFAR (The International Foundation of Art Research) of 25,000 stolen items. A high percentage of these were the subject of Interpol circulation’s going back to 1965. Today this database has grown to approximately 120,000 uniquely identifiable objects and we receive losses from all over the world amounting to approximately 1,200 per month.

This database is continuously being matched against the major auction houses and catalogues of forthcoming sales all over the world. In addition we undertake daily ad hoc searches for items against the database for art dealers, police and custom agencies, museum officials and banks.

During the past nine years we have assisted police and customs to recover stolen/plundered art to the value of 85 million US dollars.

At the start of this conference we reviewed the statistics of art crime reported to Interpol. As a comparison I have selected some figures we have collated and I quote our figures of the United States of America purely as an example.

In 1998 our New York office received 768 cases, as follows –

· US Police Department 134 cases

· Insurance Companies 528 cases

· Legal Profession 44 cases

· FBI Interpol 62 cases

I should state that a small percentage of these figures might be duplications whereby the insurer and the police have notified us of a theft. In addition certain Interpol reports relate to thefts beyond the USA.

This ratio reflects similar levels submitted to our other offices and perhaps will assist Interpol with their statistical analysis.

International Trade in stolen art

The International movement of stolen art is reflected in our statistics. In 1998 25% of our recoveries were in another country from the origin of theft. The figure for this year is likely to be significantly higher and underpins the ease with which property is transported.

Case Study

This is highlighted by a recent case whereby the Art Loss Register – London Office identified property stolen from the UK and submitted for auction in Australia within 1 year of its original theft.

This matter is still being investigated and therefore, I cannot disclose the details at this stage sufficient to say that this enquiry has lead to the recovery of a substantial quantity of art and antiques stolen within the European Community.

At the start of our Conference the Secretary-General stressed the importance of the submission of details of stolen property to Interpol. To re-enforce this I am delighted to report that since the commencement of this conference our London office has identified two important items circulated via these notices.

I hope these examples will encourage you to promote the use of Interpol facilities within your areas of responsibility. In addition it demonstrates the positive benefit that the private sector represented by my Company can provide to Law Enforcement Agencies.

Looted Art

With the assistance of a number of organisations the Art Loss Register has played a pivotal role in the creation of a database of looted works of art. The Art Loss Register is establishing a separate charitable organisation to be named the “Register of Looted Art” through the charity commission.

I want to stress the depth of responsibility owed to the art trade and museum community in researching this difficult period of history both thoroughly and honestly.

We have achieved some considerable success in returning these works to the claimants. Of course most of these cases relate to events occurring over 50 years ago and are largely not the concern of the police.

You may therefore ask the relevancy of these events committed yesteryear with yesterday’s crime. The answer is that the Holocaust dilemma within the art trade has significantly increased the level of due diligence enquiries submitted by the art trade.

The level of such enquiries from Dealers has increased by 80% following the heightened awareness of this issue. The ratio of these enquiries has been reflected in a corresponding increase in identifying reported stolen works whilst researching looted items.

This aspect of The Art Loss Registers services is to be employed at next years Maastricht Fine Art Fair to vet all items of Fine and Decorative Art. We are currently in negotiation with other prestigious fair organisers. Therefore the submission of data relating to stolen works will additionally benefit from this vetting service.

In conclusion we are delighted to assist all Police and Customs Authorities worldwide and can offer free assistance to you.

I hope that my brief presentation has demonstrated what The Art Loss Register can offer and our assurance to assist in the International efforts to halt the trade in illegal objects.