The FBI’s Art Crime Team: In the Beginning…
Who would have ever thought a major looting of Baghdad, Iraq’s National Museum (thousands of works were stolen in April 2003) would eventually lead to the demise of Mastro Auctions? What could these two events possibly have in common? Answer: The FBI’s art crime team.
The U.S. had invaded Iraq that year and then looked on helplessly as precious art worth millions of dollars was carried out by Iraqis and eventually shipped to countries around the world, including the U.S.
It was a stunning wake-up call. A loud one. It took a couple more years for the government to get organized but this “rape” of Iraq led to the March 2005 formation of the FBI’s art crime team. Fifteen months later this group of experts (today numbering 15) started investigating Mastro Auctions. In February 2009 the country’s largest online sports memorabilia auction house closed its doors for good due in large part to its shill bidding activities.
Trafficking in stolen works of art costs governments across the world billions of dollars a year. Verifiable numbers are impossible to determine. Although this activity has been occurring for hundreds of years, it took the events in Iraq (almost 18 years ago now) to compel the FBI into action. Fortunately it had among its agents a select few with an appreciation of art and a passion to not only preserve it but also keep it where it rightfully belonged.
And it took a key special agent’s appreciation of baseball cards and sports memorabilia to stop Bill Mastro. This special agent, Chicago-based Brian Brusokas, wasn’t the first one to be made aware that Mastro was ripping off customers. And as he pursued this case he had a lot of help from fellow agents. The accusations against Mastro fell on deft ears for years. And even when Brusokas was made aware of this case he knew he would have to do a lot of homework to fully understand his modus operandi.
What do members of the art crime team need to possess? You’re not just randomly assigned to it, after all. It has to be something that the agent wants to do because he or she has a true passion for the items in question, whether they are a vintage baseball card or the Warka Vase (a 5,000-year-old narrative relief sculpture) from Iraq.
Members of this team need to know the dealers, collectors and auction houses. If they’re dealing in art they must have the numbers of appraisers and curators on their iPhones. Forming partnerships is also critical.
Flexibility and speed are important, as crooks and the items they steal or alter can move around the country very quickly. Unfortunately, the team has undoubtedly been hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic but now that vaccines are slowly rolling out this setback shouldn’t last much longer.
Brusokas has been involved in much more than sports memorabilia fraudsters, of course. He has investigated computer crimes and corporate and mortgage fraud. While on the team he helped to stop a multimillion-dollar global fine art print counterfeiting operation that resulted in 14 individuals being charged in the U.S. and eight individuals being charged in Europe. He aided the White House in getting back a stolen Presidential Medal of Freedom that was to be awarded to Apollo 13 Astronaut James A. Lovell after his crew’s 1970 mission into space. And more.
For many years a founder of the art crime team, Robert Wittman, pursued art criminals throughout the world. True, he never worked in the sports memorabilia arena but his book, Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures, is still well worth reading. He put his life on the line, once buying a $35 million masterpiece while pretending to be an appraiser working for the Russian mob.
Although it has been a while since I read his book, I do remember he had to practice a lot of patience waiting for these thieves to feel as if they could trust him. I’m sure the book is required reading for any new art crime team member.
If you’re part of this team today, do you have any worries about not having enough to keep you busy? No. Why?
“Everything that you can imagine that has a monetary value or cultural significance is subject to theft or fakery,” states Bonnie Magness-Gardiner, the team’s manager when the FBI posted an interview with her in February 2015. Today she’s semi-retired but still active in cultural property protection.
Is the team currently pursuing cases in the sports memorabilia field? Although I have no inside information, I believe the answer is yes. You have the PWCC/PSA/Gary Moser case that COVID-19 might have slowed but not stopped.
“They [PWCC] may get off on everything or close to it because Jeff Lichtman [PWCC’s lawyer] is such a great lawyer and is having them do all the right things,” says an industry veteran who has worked with the FBI in the past. “But it’s multi-faceted in that it involves shill bidding and a whole laundry list of other types of fraud relating to doctoring cards as a business model.”
Obviously, this case has tentacles; no one knows where they will reach.
Then there’s the Don Henkel case that I detailed in my December 2020 blog (see “The FBI and Fraud Cases: Slam Dunks Required.) He’s an alleged forger whose Traverse City, Mich., home was raided by the FBI last summer. Are there more? Who knows.
“If it wasn’t for Brian {Brusokas] it might be that none of these [sports memorabilia] cases would have been pursued properly or at all,” stresses the aforementioned veteran. “He’s a true expert. But he didn’t start off on day one being an expert.”
If asked about his accomplishments, Brusokas would surely deflect any credit and instead paraphrase Magness-Gardiner, who in her FBI interview said, “A big part of our success is the team approach because it allows us to work throughout the entire country with a highly-trained group of individuals who communicate with each other and are passionate about the work they do.”