Chasing Thieves and Detectives Through the Secret World of Stolen Art
March 1, 2012
Skillfully rendered overview of the startlingly complex world of art fraud and thievery. Toronto-based journalist Knelman makes shrewd use of extensive interviews with figures on both sides of the law, allowing him to fully establish this hidden, high-stakes milieu. The author argues that, far from being a sexy victimless crime, art theft has a hugely corrupting influence on museums, commerce and cultural patrimony. As one thief tells him, "It's like a big shell game. All the antique and art dealers, they just pass it around from one to another." One key element of the story is provided by "Paul," a retired British art thief who has since started an angry blog on the topic called Art Hostage. Paul explains why this has been such a profitable criminal specialty: It is low-risk and high-reward, the police response is often disorganized and the purportedly legitimate art market is suffused with hidden relationships and secrecy. As the LAPD's art-theft specialist observed, "some art dealers act like drug dealers." Since the 1980s, law enforcement has coordinated tracking efforts with the industry-run Art Loss Register, yet numerous unscrupulous individuals evade their efforts, constantly developing innovations to both hide, and eventually sell, stolen art. The FBI finds stolen art at auction 15 to 20 times per year, while the few urban cops on the art detail have consistently found it being used as underground-economy currency by drug dealers and organized crime. Knelman's account is surprisingly pessimistic, but it's entertainingly written, with a fine sense of the cultural landscape that drives both thieves and a handful of cops to become self-educated art experts in perpetual competition. Engaging expose of an underground world less glamorous and more intricate than its Hollywood representations.
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February 15, 2012
Art theft is as ancient as the pyramids, but in recent decades it's become a multibillion-dollar enterprise, boosted by a lack of oversight and regulation. In his nonfiction debut, Knelman takes readers on a fascinating journey through a criminal underworld that defies logic and confounds policing agencies from Los Angeles to Scotland Yard. Knelman, a born storyteller, has discovered a colorful collection of characters on both sides of the law, thieves who happily share their methods and investigators nearly as obsessed with and knowledgeable about art as are the collectors and curators whose property they pursue. If there are villains in this true-life thriller, they're the auction houses and gallery owners. Knelman demonstrates the way their complicit laundering of stolen art and antiques, the vast majority of which are worth less than $10,000, closely resembles and frequently is linked to the drug trade. This thoroughly addictive bit of investigative journalism will have readers paying closer attention to news of Picassos changing hands for record-setting amounts at auction as they place their valuables and family heirlooms under lock and key.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)