[MSN] Police seek sponsors to tackle rising art crime. Britain's only specialist art crime squad faces an uncertain future because its funding is to be halved.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

 Police seek sponsors to tackle rising art crime

By Jasper Copping, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:30am GMT 14/01/2007

Britain's only specialist art crime squad faces an uncertain future because
its funding is to be halved.

The decision has forced the Metropolitan Police's Art and Antiques Unit to
look for sponsorship "from anyone who will give it".

Senior staff are already talking to two companies which may offer funding.

The arts squad warned just weeks ago that fraudsters were increasingly
sophisticated and prolific. Up to £200 million of faked artefacts and
pictures are sold in the UK every year, and police fear they are used as
currency to acquire guns, and drugs, and to fund terrorism.

However, Stephen House, the Met's assistant commissioner, has told the unit
to expect its funding to be slashed because art crime is not a priority for
the force. He wants staff to be 50 per cent self-financing by the end of
this year.

A spokesman for the unit said: "We are seeking sponsorship from anyone who
will give it. The premise is to get relevant industries behind it because we
would be providing a service for the industry. But if a lottery winner
wanted to come in and support it, we would probably say 'Yes' ."

The unit, which has 120 investigations on the go at any time, has an annual
budget of £350,000, the bulk of which is spent on salaries for its four
officers and three civilians.

In exchange for money, sponsors would be able to publicise their links to
the unit and could have their logos on police documents.

The spokesman added: "It is very early stages but we have some irons in the
fire. Insurers are one option, museums and galleries are another, although
I'm not sure they have a lot of money for this sort of thing."

The squad, established in 1969 after a series of stamp dealer robberies, is
the only one of its kind in the country and has been involved in
investigations internationally.

Similar "sponsorship" arrangements have been introduced to help finance a
specialist vehicle crime unit, which receives funding from the motor
industry, and a film piracy team, which is paid for by the Federation
Against Copyright Theft.

However, the crisis for the unit has caused concern in the art sector. Mark
Dodgson, from the British Antique Dealers' Association, said: "We pay taxes
for the police. If the authorities don't think it is worth trying to protect
this country's heritage then that is a serious issue. Art crime is already a
disproportionately low priority for the police, but this unit do a very good
job on their current resources. We would like to see them given more money,
not less."

One cost-cutting measure being introduced is the recruitment of curators and
art historians from the likes of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British
Museum, universities and insurance companies, to work as special constables.

They receive four weeks of training and are paid by their employers to work
for the police for 200 hours a year — equivalent to one day a fortnight.
They will be uniformed, have police powers and patrol areas of London
associated with the trade, such as the antiques markets of Bermondsey or
Kensington Church Street and Bond Street or Camden Passage, where many art
dealers are based.

So far, the unit has recruited archaeology and antiquities experts who
should begin next month. By April, there should be 14 trained constables.

In November, the unit organised an exhibition of forgeries at the V&A to
highlight the increasing prevalence and sophistication of art crime.

Weeks earlier, police had arrested an alleged gang of thieves responsible
for looting tens of millions of pounds of art and antiques from stately
homes. Their alleged crimes, conducted over four years, included a raid on
Lord Rothschild's home, Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, and the theft of
£30 million of antiques from Ramsbury Manor near Marlborough, Wiltshire —
believed to be Britain's biggest domestic burglary.

As the second-largest art market in the world after New York, London is a
magnet for forgers, and police believe some of their profits flow back to
the Middle East, possibly funding Iraqi insurgents.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/