[MSN] Churches are easy prey for art thieves

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Churches are easy prey for art thieves
BY DANE STICKNEY AND ASHLEY HASSEBROEK
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITERS

Chances are, thieves aren't taking paintings from Omaha churches to 
enhance their spiritual lives.

More likely it's to enhance their bank accounts, investigators say.

But though the motivation seems clear, much about the yearlong rash of 
thefts of church paintings puzzles art scholars and investigators 
locally and nationwide.

Since last May, thieves have taken works from St. Cecilia Cathedral and 
First Covenant, All Saints Episcopal, Immaculate Conception Catholic, 
St. Thomas More Catholic and St. Joseph Catholic Churches.

The thefts don't tie into any particular national or global trend. Most 
of the works don't have a large resale market.

So they're tough to figure out.

John Wilson, head curator of Omaha's Joslyn Art Museum, said art thefts 
from churches are widespread in South America, Italy and other places 
abroad.

"But why is it happening in the middle of America, in Omaha? I don't 
have a clue," he said.

It's not happening in other Midlands museums or churches.

Anna McAlpine, a spokeswoman for the American Association of Museums, 
said galleries across the country have not been seeing thefts of 
religious art.

Representatives of the Catholic Archdioceses of St. Louis and St. 
Paul-Minneapolis and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., say 
they haven't heard of thefts of art from their churches.

Omaha may be a surprising spot, but churches aren't. They are often 
notorious for having lax security.

"Churches don't see these artworks as investments," Wilson said. "They 
hang the paintings for spiritual purposes, and sometimes they may be a 
little too trusting."

The criminals aren't drawn to the works because of spirituality, said 
Bob Spiel, a Chicago-based private investigator, security consultant and 
former art theft and forgery investigator for the New York City branch 
of the FBI. He has worked dozens of cases similar to those in Omaha. The 
motivation is always the same.

"It's always about money," Spiel said. "Someone is looking to turn the 
painting around for some quick cash."

It doesn't have to be lots of money. The value of the artworks snatched 
from Omaha churches ranges from about $500 to the $100,000 painting of 
the Virgin Mary at St. Cecilia Cathedral, said Brother William Woeger, 
executive director of the Cathedral Arts Project.

Most works will reap at least some cash.

The black market is the most common outlet. The thief could sell the 
painting for a small fraction of its value to a collector or dealer. 
Often, a single painting is swapped a number of times with gradually 
increasing prices until it reaches an auction house, a dealer or a 
private buyer.

The more quickly the artwork gets outside the United States - especially 
to Latin America or some European countries - the lower the chances it 
will be recovered.

It still happens, though, said Beth Kocher, a New York-based art 
historian with the Art Loss Register, an international organization that 
recovers artwork.

The organization, which is working on the Omaha cases, recovers more 
than 150 stolen works each year, mostly at auction houses. About 40 
percent of the recoveries are made outside the country where the piece 
was stolen.

Many buyers, dealers and auction houses check the works with the FBI's 
National Stolen Art File, Interpol or the Art Loss Register before they 
buy, Kocher said.

Because of that, the risk of selling artwork on the black market is 
increasingly outweighing the reward to thieves.

Even if they don't get caught, they hardly ever get anything close to 
the value of the works.

"We have had cases where a work is worth $1 million and is sold on the 
black market for $800," Kocher said.

Though black market profits may not be huge, the sales are easy to cover 
up, said John Geppert, a finance professor at the University of 
Nebraska-Lincoln.

Businesses that deal with a lot of cash have been known to buy stolen 
artwork at deep discounts, then sell them for closer to the full price.

"Because they deal almost exclusively in cash, it's very easy to hide 
that transaction in an audit or an investigation," Geppert said.

Artwork doesn't even have to be sold to make the thief some cash. 
Increasingly, art is being used for collateral in drug operations, Spiel 
said.

A thief without cash could give a drug lord a painting for collateral. 
Once the thief sells the drugs, he keeps a profit, pays the drug lord 
and gets his painting back.

"That's certainly a possibility," said Raneta Mack, a criminal law 
professor at Creighton University. "Anything that has value can be used 
as collateral in drug deals. A painting works just fine."

While the motivation is clear-cut, profiling an art thief is much 
harder, Spiel said.

The Omaha Police Department is treating the first five burglaries as 
related, but are investigating the most recent - the theft of a piece, 
said to be worth $50,000, from First Covenant Church sometime between 
October and this month - as an unrelated incident.

Spiel would be surprised if the same person - or group of people - 
committed all the church break-ins.

"You've probably got a copycat phenomenon going on," he said. "Each time 
a burglary gets some publicity, the churches look like easier targets."

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