Murky Provenance

According to the federal affidavits, the Feds will use information gleaned from the raids to establish whether looted goods were sold or donated to the museums and whether museum officials knew about the allegedly doubtful provenance. Investigators say they are also attempting to gather evidence about potential tax violations based on those donations in which the donors would receive artificially high charitable write-offs because the dealers and the museums approved inflated appraisals three and four times the price that the undercover operative actually paid the dealer. In one transaction laid out in the affidavits, the Park Service operative allegedly paid Olson $12,000 for two sets of Thai items that were then appraised at $44,700 and donated to the Bowers Museum in 2003 and 2004. Olson, who said he has yet to consult an attorney, denied any involvement in tax scams. He accounted for the disparity in pricing by saying that he charged the undercover operative "wholesale" prices for the goods he sold him, and the appraisals were made at "retail" prices.

In Thursday's raids, Olson said that agents also visited two of his warehouses, as well as the home of his adult son and daughter. In addition, Olson says that another federal raid took place in the Chicago area, at the home of "my best customer." He declined to name the person, as did federal officials. Agents also raided The Silk Roads Gallery in Los Angeles and the home of its owners, Jon and Cari Markell. According to the affidavits, the Markells dealt in goods from Thailand, Burma and China, and donated goods to LACMA and other museums. The Markells did not reply to telephone or e-mail requests for comment.

If the allegations are true, the investigation will prove to be another embarrassment to American art museums, which have been rocked in recent years by revelations that high-profile collections contain stolen artworks brought to them by a shadowy network of looters, collectors and dealers. Last year, California's Getty Museum agreed to return 40 items to Italy, including million-dollar statues that the Italians claim were looted by local thieves and then sold to the museum. Former antiquities curator Marion True is on trial in Rome for related charges. Charges against True, who has repeatedly said she is not guilty, were dropped in a similar case brought by Greece. Meanwhile, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Metropolitan Museum in New York also agreed recently to return looted classical art, including the Euphronios Krater, a stunning painted terra cotta urn that the Met returned to Italy this month.

Past scandals started when foreign governments brought complaints; this case appears to be the first homegrown crackdown on museums for alleged looting. Applauding "a federal sting operation like those conducted against other crime networks," archeologist Brian Rose of the University of Pennsylvania said it was "a good thing" that "looted antiquities and contraband drugs are being treated as the same thing [by investigators]." But Rose, who is also president of the Archaeological Institute of America and a curator at Penn's museum, adds that many museums have installed tougher provisions to check a potential acquisition's provenance, or history of ownership, in the wake of recent scandals. "Museums in general shouldn't be treated as villains," he added.

According to search-warrant affidavits in the case, federal agents are exploring whether museum officials and the collectors and dealers violated federal and state laws blocking the unlimited traffic in antiquities. Federal laws such as the Archeological Resources Protection Act prohibit the sale of domestic American archeological remains recovered on federal lands. They also allow prosecutors to charge a federal crime when looters violate state law. California law prohibits the sale of goods whose export is banned in the country of origin, effectively making the traffic a federal crime, according to the affidavits.

Much of the furor surrounds artifacts from the Ban Chiang culture in northeastern Thailand, which flourished between 1,800 to 3,000 years ago, producing fine ceramics and bronze works. Thailand banned the unapproved export of antiquities in 1961, and Ban Chiang artifacts only began to be excavated later that decade, according to the federal affidavits. Other works came from China, Burma and Cambodia, according to the federal documents. The Bowers Museum raid also concerned a collection of Native American ladles found in the Southwest that Olson said he donated to the museum more than 20 years ago.