The art of recovery

At U.S. Customs, finding and retrieving stolen paintings takes an old master -- and sometimes an aesthetic connection with the thief.

By Rebecca Segall

Dec 21, 2000 | It's not every day that you find an FBI agent savoring the smell of a carton of bright green marijuana leaves. Nor is it easy to imagine a DEA officer impressed by the audacity and precision of a smuggler who slit his own thigh open, inserted 300 ecstasy pills and sewed it up himself. With most crimes, law enforcement agents don't share an aesthetic passion for contraband with the perpetrators they're trying to collar.

But in the world of art theft, such moments are commonplace. Take this month's seizure of the magnificent depiction of Christ by Venetian artist Jacopo de'Barbari -- a 16th century painting stolen from the Weimar Museum collection in Germany by American soldiers in 1945. "The suspect carefully described Christ's 'captivating' eyes in detail over the phone to me and I just couldn't wait to see it ... I couldn't stop reading everything ever written about the artist while I anticipated the seizure," says Joseph Webber, a special agent in charge at the U.S. Customs Service.

This slow-talking, cowboy boot-wearing, gun-carrying detective has been busting international criminals for 26 years. But as he begins to describe his role in recovering the Jacopo painting, his demeanor softens. "Have you seen the Jacopo painting?" he asks enthusiastically. "It is stunning. We made a copy and blew it up for our office."

At 6-foot-4, Webber greets me with a big, gentle smile. As he meticulously repeats his main points in a slight drawl, he comes across more like a politician than a James Bond -- oozing the simplest charm while speaking of the most complicated and highly sensitive matters.

"We're rural folk, my family," he says. "But I bring my toddlers to art and history museums every weekend. I love learning about art. I love figuring out puzzles, and art theft poses the greatest, most multileveled ones around." Webber handles all kinds of crimes, but has been one of the few at customs specializing in art theft cases over the last 10 years. He originally volunteered to work on those because he had fond memories of his college art history classes.

In the wake of the recent Jacopo recovery, Webber is taking art theft investigation to a new level. Beginning last week, Webber convened a unit of six agents who will undergo special training to handle such cases. Art theft seizures demand an ability to recognize valuable art, verify the authenticity of a piece and properly preserve it, and the job requires a masterful grasp of international regulations and the ability to work with people of astounding wealth and expertise. As in the case of the Jacopo piece, there are possibly hundreds of masterpieces hanging illicitly in living rooms or churches across the country.

"The first step is really raising awareness," Webber says. His unit has already launched the first "Most Wanted" list on the Customs Web site. Over the past few years, Webber has seized over $30 million worth of stolen art and artifacts -- in addition to making thousands of narcotics busts.

At first glance, Frank Vaccaro, owner of Master of Furniture in Baldwin, N.Y., and the man arrested in the Jacopo case, doesn't come across as an aesthete either. And certainly not someone who could spot a classic Renaissance painting out of a pile of posters and tacky frames. But he did: In 1998, a school art teacher, Sister Rose Mary Phol, brought the Jacopo painting to Vaccaro to have the frame restored. He noticed that the structure of the frame was anachronistic. He carefully removed a family photo that the nun had glued on top of Christ's portrait and began to research the painting. He returned the frame to Phol without the portrait, telling her he had thrown it away.

Meanwhile, Vaccaro had already contacted the Weimar Museum, determined that the painting had indeed been stolen in 1945 and proven in photos that he had it. He demanded a $100,000 finder's fee, and museum officials considered the request extortion. They called the U.S. Customs Service for help.

Next Page: He could have been a hero

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