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Raids suggest a deeper network of looted art
Even after scandals, Southland museums pursued suspect artifacts, =
warrants
say.
By Jason Felch
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

January 25, 2008

Coordinated raids on four Southern California museums early Thursday =
suggest
that the involvement of art institutions in the purchase of looted =
objects
is far more extensive than recent high-profile scandals have indicated.

Even as the country's most prominent museums were embarrassed by =
revelations
of stolen artifacts in their collections, several local museums =
continued to
pursue objects they had reason to believe were taken illegally from
Thailand, Myanmar, China and Native American sites within the United =
States,
according to search warrants served Thursday.

Dozens of federal agents descended on the Los Angeles County Museum of =
Art,
Pasadena's Pacific Asia Museum, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana and =
Mingei
International Museum in San Diego.

The raids marked the first public move in a five-year undercover
investigation of the alleged smuggling pipeline.

Museum officials defended their practices and pledged to cooperate fully =
in
the investigations.

The detailed warrants gave the agents broad authority to search the =
museums'
galleries, offices, storage areas and computer archives. They were =
looking
for objects and records related to the primary targets of the =
investigation:
an alleged art smuggler, Robert Olson, and the owner of a Los Angeles =
Asian
art gallery, Jonathan Markell. Markell's Silk Roads Gallery on La Brea
Avenue was also raided.

No arrests were made, but legal experts say the surprise search warrants
suggest prosecutors are collecting the final elements to seek criminal
indictments against Markell and Olson.

The action comes after several years in which the art world has been
hammered by claims from Italy and Greece that major American museums -- =
most
prominently the J. Paul Getty Museum -- purchased art that had been =
stolen
from and smuggled out of those countries.

The Getty agreed last year to return 40 of its most prized objects,
following similar deals by museums in Boston and New York. The Getty's
former antiquities curator is on trial in Rome, accused of knowingly =
buying
looted art, a charge she denies.

This case could go further. The warrants served Thursday show prosectors
have carefully laid a foundation for the possible indictment of museum
staffers allegedly complicit in the looting schemes -- which would be a
first under American law, experts say.

The warrants are based on a five-year undercover investigation by an =
unnamed
agent with the National Park Service, who presented himself to Olson and
Markell as an eager collector.

Olson and Markell told the undercover investigator they regularly bought
Thai antiquities from looters and smugglers, sometimes smuggling them
personally, the warrants state. They then allegedly sold them to clients =
in
Los Angeles. They also admitted running an elaborate donation scheme,
selling their clients looted artifacts with forged appraisals that =
inflated
the value of the objects by as much as 400%, the warrants state. They =
then
allegedly helped these clients donate the objects to local museums, =
which
provided a tax write off at the inflated value.

The scheme appears to have spanned the last decade and generally =
involved
repeated donations of objects with values of just under $5,000, the =
value at
which the IRS required additional documentation.

In the case of the Bowers and the Pacific Asia Museum, the warrants =
clearly
suggest that officials were aware that the objects were looted and
overvalued but accepted them anyway.

A senior curator at the Bowers Museum, now deceased, regularly accepted
donations of Thai and Native American antiquities from Olson that he =
knew
were removed illegally, the warrants say. The documents describe the
longtime curator, Armand Labb=E9, smiling and chuckling as he told the =
agent
he could accept the donations because "he could not determine" what =
rules
the museum was supposed to follow.

The Bowers' current director, Peter Keller, told the undercover agent he
knew Olson and had visited his warehouse. An appraiser, described as =
Labb=E9's
girlfriend, told the agent that she regularly prepared appraisals of =
objects
for Keller to donate to his own museum. Keller denied wrongdoing =
Thursday.

In the case of the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, the agent met with =
two
museum officials in in November 2005 and offered to donate Thai material =
he
had purchased from Markell.

Marcia Page, the museum's deputy director of collections, told the agent
that given her position, she was "expected to at least put up token
resistance to accepting antiquities without proper paperwork," the =
warrant
states. She noted that Markell had donated Thai material, and that she
didn't think it was legal. She said more senior people in the museum =
would
have to sign the paperwork.

About two weeks later, Page told the agent that the bulk of his donation =
had
been accepted.

LACMA, the Mingei and the UC Berkeley Art Museum all received similar
donations from Markell or Olson over several years, the warrants say, =
but
the documents are unclear about the extent to which museum officials =
knew of
alleged theft or tax evasion.

According to the warrants, Markell at one point told the agent that =
LACMA
was "a stickler" for checking the background of pieces. But the dealer =
also
suggested the museum had pursued objects it knew were looted in the =
past.

"They knew," Markell said of one artifact LACMA wanted that was taken =
out of
Thailand after a law prohibiting exporting such items was passed there,
according to the warrants. "Markell said that LACMA had found a =
loophole,
but he was not clear on what that loophole was."

The 150 pages of warrants filed Thursday paint a picture of rampant =
fraud
and theft.

The charges that follow could include receiving stolen property, import
violations and tax fraud. In particular, the warrants show that =
authorities
are building a case that the looted antiquities should be considered =
stolen
property under American law. Thailand has claimed state ownership of all
artifacts since 1961, and American law would recognize that claim if =
certain
conditions are met, said Marcia Isaacson, a former New York federal
prosecutor who won a pivotal antiquities conviction several years ago.

The investigation targets art allegedly stolen from Thailand, China, =
Myanmar
and Native American archeological sites that ended up in museums across =
the
Southland.

The contested objects are far less valuable than those returned by the =
Getty
but they are far more numerous, and some of the alleged conduct by =
museum
officials, contained in hours of tape-recorded meetings, appears equally
troubling.

Many come from the ancient civilization of the Ban Chiang, which =
occupied
northeastern Thailand from 1000 BC to AD 200. "The original location =
where
Ban Chiang culture was discovered was named a World Heritage Site in =
1992
and is considered the most important prehistoric settlement yet =
discovered
in Southeast Asia," the warrants say.

The warrants allege that the Ban Chiang objects are probably looted =
because
they were first excavated by archeologists in 1967, six years after =
Thailand
banned the export of antiquities.

The Thai government never gave permission for the contested antiquities =
to
leave the country. Moreover, importing such objects into the United =
States
after 1979 was a violation of the U.S. National Stolen Property Act and =
the
Archeological Resource Protection Act, the warrants state.

Other objects named in the warrants came from Burma (also known as =
Myanmar),
from which the U.S. has banned imports since 2003, and China, which has
strict export laws governing its antiquities. There are also objects
allegedly stolen from Native American sites in the U.S., the sale of =
which
are controlled by federal laws.

The investigation began in 2003, when the undercover agent with the =
National
Park Service posed as a buyer and began purchasing looted art from =
Olson,
according to the warrants. Olson, the warrants say, specializes in =
Native
American and Thai anti- quities.

Olson allegedly told the agent he had been importing objects from Ban =
Chiang
since the 1980s and had never received a permit from the Thai =
government. He
said he got objects "as they were being dug up" and knew it was illegal =
to
ship them out of the country, the warrants say.

The smuggled antiquities were affixed with "Made in Thailand" labels, =
and
sometimes painted over, to make them look to U.S. customs officials like
modern replicas, Olson allegedly told the agent.

Olson also claimed to have the largest collection of Native American =
ladles
anywhere in the world and admitted that he had dug for artifacts on =
public
land in New Mexico without authorization, the warrants state.

In September 2003, federal agents intercepted a shipment from Thailand
destined for Olson and Markell. Markell and his wife own Silk Roads =
Gallery,
which sells Asian and Buddhist art. Their website shows the couple in a
photo with the Dalai Lama.

jason.felch at latimes.com

Times staff writers Ari Bloomekatz, Paloma Esquivel, Robert Lopez, David
Reyes and Richard Marosi contributed to this report.