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Art looting smugglers target French churches 

Jason Burke in Paris
Sunday August 21, 2005
The Observer 


The church of Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas lies down a narrow backstreet in a
quiet neighbourhood of Paris's fifth arrondissement. The patron of the local
bistro knows the priest and the priest knows the grocer, but no one knows
who stole two priceless statues, one of them more than 500 years old, from
the church just over three weeks ago.
The theft, which took place during a baptism and has only just come to
light, was the latest in a series of robberies by art thieves, many working
for international gangs, that is threatening to make France, rather than
Italy, Europe's most looted country.

'There has been a huge spike in these kinds of cases recently, largely due
to the wrong people realising that there are easy pickings to be had,' says
Charles Hill, one of Britain's best-known independent art investigators.

'Few law enforcement agencies prioritise art theft, despite it being linked
to drugs, arms and people-trafficking and prostitution. It is only going to
get worse.'

European art thieves have traditionally targeted Italy and Greece, where
classical relics, porous borders and proximity to poorly policed countries
in the Balkans help criminals.

But France's holy places, as well as its thousands of famous chateaux - many
of which which are owned by foreigners who are absent most of the year - are
increasingly a target for thieves looking for high-value targets with low
security.

Last year the OCBC, the French body fighting the traffic in 'cultural
goods', said that, according to recent figures, more than 450 chateaux and
227 religious places, mainly churches, had been robbed of more than 20,000
artworks and artifacts, twice as many as the year before.

The OCBC said most looted works were smuggled out for resale in Belgium,
Holland or the UK, where penalties for receiving stolen goods were much
lighter.

The growing scale of the thefts is worrying senior French officials, who see
preserving le patrimoine, or national heritage, as a key task for the state.
Early this month police found more than 100 works of art in one home in the
Gironde.

In one major operation in March, 150 police officers made 60 arrests and
shut down more than 70 bank accounts after a series of break-ins in the
hills of central France. Last September 12 statues between 200 and 400 years
old were taken from a church near Calais. None has been recovered.

According to Colonel Roger Lembert, head of the OCBC, there are three major
categories of thief: compulsive collectors, occasional robbers and
international specialist gangs.

The 'compulsive collectors' have included a descendant of Marshal Murat, who
was one of Napoleon Bonaparte's generals, and a 32-year-old aesthete who,
operating alone, robbed 174 chateaux and holy places over a four-year
period. When he was arrested, police found hundreds of artworks piled in his
home in Alsace and a 500-page book he had written on his 'collection'.

The occasional thieves are usually habitual burglars who, with little
forethought, find themselves in possession of extremely valuable works of
art. A year ago a gang which had stolen dozens of antique statues and
canvases by Raoul Dufy, Pablo Picasso and Paul Cezanne was arrested in Paris
as they tried to negotiate the sale of their haul.

Police are also hunting one international gang believed to be behind the
theft in Paris last year of two massive diamonds worth £7 million and of a
small painting by Auguste Renoir from a gallery in the city last March.

Under strict French laws governing the separation of church and state,
central government is responsible for cathedrals and local communities pay
for the upkeep and protection of smaller religious sites. 'We simply don't
have the means to properly protect the works of art,' said Father Joseph
Ayel, president of the commission on sacred art for the diocese of
Puy-de-Dome.

Some churches are installing glass cases to protect the most important
artifacts. But that, too, has met resistance. Dominique Peyre, who looks
after historic monuments in Poitou-Charentes, said religious art played an
important role for believers.

'In the churches, the artifacts are alive,' said Peyre. 'Putting them behind
glass would take them out of their environment. It would be like putting
them in a museum.'