[MSN] Four California Museums Are Raided. Antiquities donated to museums to receive inflated tax deductions. Affidavits say curators appeared to be aware the objects they were accepting as donations had been looted or illegally imported.

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January 25, 2008
Four California Museums Are Raided
By EDWARD WYATT

LOS ANGELES — Federal agents raided a Los Angeles gallery and four museums
in Southern California on Thursday, including the Los Angeles County Museum
of Art, as part of a five-year investigation into the smuggling of looted
antiquities from Thailand, Myanmar, China and Native American sites.

The other institutions searched were the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena,
the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, the Mingei International Museum in San Diego
and the Silk Roads Gallery in Los Angeles.

At the center of the investigation are the owners of the Silk Roads Gallery,
Jonathan Markell and his wife, Cari Markell, and Robert Olson, who is said
in the search warrants to have smuggled looted antiquities out of Thailand,
Myanmar and China.

In affidavits supporting the warrants, federal agents said the Markells had
imported looted antiquities provided by Mr. Olson and then arranged to
donate them to museums on behalf of clients who took inflated tax deductions
for the gifts.

No charges have been filed in the investigation, which was described as
continuing by a spokesman for the United States Attorney’s Office in Los
Angeles. The inquiry is being conducted by the Immigrations and Customs
Enforcement office, the National Park Service and the criminal investigation
division of the Internal Revenue Service.

Even though looted antiquities have been the subject of recent
investigations here and in a high-profile prosecution in Italy of a former
curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the raids were a
startling development. Most recent investigations involving museum
collections have involved objects excavated in Italy or Greece.

The affidavits accompanying the warrants detailed meetings between an
undercover agent for the National Park Service, who for years posed as a
collector, and the Markells and representatives of some of the museums.

In cases involving at least two institutions, the Bowers and the Pacific
Asia museums, the affidavits say curators appeared to be aware that the
objects that they were accepting as donations had been looted or illegally
imported.

The affidavit describes a process in which objects were smuggled after being
painted or affixed with stickers reading “Made in Thailand” to make the
pieces look like replicas.

Several of the museums have objects in their permanent collections that were
donated by the Markells or their clients, according to the affidavits.
Michael Govan, the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, said at
a news conference that the museum had about 60 objects related to the
investigation that had been donated by the Markells or other museum members
over the last decade.

Mr. Govan said the museum was fully cooperating with the authorities. He
also defended the museum’s process for reviewing potential donations, noting
that in the affidavit Mr. Markell is quoted as warning the undercover agent
away from a donation to the museum because officials there “were sticklers
for having good provenance.”

Yet the affidavit also cites a statement by Mr. Markell that the museum had
been able to get around the ban on imports of Thai artifacts because it “had
found a loophole” in the law. One such discussion involved a vessel from the
Ban Chiang culture in Thailand that the museum was interested in acquiring,
according to the affidavit.

Mr. Govan denied that the museum knew of such loopholes or had looked for
them. “There is no loophole that we know about,” he said. “If anybody can
identify one, we would be the first to close it.”

Mr. Govan said no objects had been removed from his museum on Thursday by
the investigators, who in the warrant said their intent was to review and
copy computer records regarding donations by the Markells or their clients.
But search warrants for some of the other institutions included artifacts
that were to be seized.

Heidi Simonian, a spokeswoman for the Bowers Museum, said that it was
cooperating with the authorities but that no officials were available to
comment. Peter Keller, the director of the Bowers Museum, and Armand Labbé,
a former curator of the museum who died in 2005, were said in the affidavits
to be aware that some of the donated objects had been illegally acquired.

Ms. Simonian said she was not aware whether agents had removed any artifacts
from the Bowers Museum.

Rob Sidner, the director of the Mingei International Museum, said in a
statement that if the investigation showed that any of the artifacts in its
collections had been improperly donated, “we will return them to the
rightful owners.”

Representatives of the other institutions and the Markells did not return
calls seeking comment on Thursday.

According to the affidavits, the undercover agent made as many as 10
purchases of items stolen from Thailand or illegally imported from Myanmar.
The Markells also showed the undercover agent a collection of antiquities
that they said had been stolen from China, the authorities said.

In more than 120 pages of search warrants and affidavits, the authorities
described one typical transaction as follows:

The Markells would acquire an object from Mr. Olson and then offer it for
sale to the undercover agent for about $1,500. They would provide an
appraisal valuing the object at close to $4,990, an amount calculated to get
around tax regulations requiring more documentation for bigger donations.
The appraisals sometimes falsely stated that the estimated values were
prepared at the Southeast Asian Museum in Bangkok. The Markells would then
arrange for the donation of an object to a museum.

In addition to the South Asian antiquities, objects taken from the Chaco
Culture National Historical Park and El Malpais National Monument, both in
New Mexico, were also cited.

http://www.nytimes.com/