First published in The Arts Surveyor (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, November 2009), this article examines the 2008 theft of irreplaceable gold, ivory, and argillite works by renowned Haida artist Bill Reid from the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology. (7 min. read)

To catch a thief
By Stephen P. Sweeting, MA, MRICS

On Friday May 23, 2008 an official-sounding caller informed the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) campus security office of system-wide glitches in the video surveillance network; they were advised to ignore off-line surveillance camera alerts. The staff had no idea the call was a clever ruse and a key step in plans to steal Indigenous decorative art from the university’s Museum of Anthropology. Irreplaceable gold, ivory and argillite objects created by iconic Haida artist Bill Reid with an estimated value of $2 million (all values in Canadian dollars) were the principal targets.

The Crime
Shortly after the call, two to three surveillance cameras covering the Bill Reid exhibits in the Rotunda area of the museum do in fact go off-line. No response follows and when the museum’s lone security guard leaves his post to go outside for a smoke the thieves make their move. They remove a glass lower panel from a door on the northeast side of the building and enter wearing gas masks. Once inside they douse the interior with powerful bear repellent to slow down any followers – a tactic that proves unnecessary. The thieves then move toward the Bill Reid exhibit through the darkened museum – blurred forms picked up by several still-functioning cameras in other parts of the museum. After removing three relatively low value gold-plated Zapotec coin necklaces from a drawer near the Rotunda, they break into a recessed, three-quarter inch thick glass display case containing twelve items of Bill Reid jewellery and decorative art including gold bracelets, brooches, cufflinks, a carved argillite pipe and an important lidded gold box with a spectacular eagle finial. With their emptying of the display case concluded the thieves exit through the same door they entered. The crime scene is not discovered until a shift change at 9:00 am the next morning. By then the thieves are long gone.

Within twenty-four hours – and prior to publication of photographs of the stolen material – an unconfirmed report indicates that someone pawns one of the artefacts at a Vancouver area pawnbroker; the item is reclaimed by the same person shortly afterward. And at some point prior to the eventual recoveries, the stolen properties are divided up and hidden in three separate locations in the Vancouver area. In their travels, one Bill Reid argillite artefact is broken and the three coin bracelets are disassembled – possibly a prelude to attempts to sell the component parts separately.

The Suspects
Labeled by the press and various commentators as slick, professional art thieves, one news service went so far as to suggest that the crime involved a known local jewellery thief, expert at disabling alarm systems. As the investigation progresses, the Major Crime Unit of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) more disparagingly identifies the thieves as unsophisticated local career criminals – although nothing concrete has been released to date. The reality is probably somewhere between the two extremes. Clever enough to execute the theft, the local perpetrators were nonetheless stymied in their efforts to sell such high-profile artefacts.

The Investigation and the Outcome

On June 9, 2008 – some three weeks after the theft – the RCMP conducts searches of a house in a Vancouver area community where they recover thirteen of the artefacts. Three men are arrested and later released. On July 23 and August 11, two further searches are conducted at unspecified Vancouver locations and the two remaining artefacts are recovered; one item is damaged. No further arrests are made and the Crown does not proceed with charges against the previously detained suspects.

The investigation leading to these recoveries is never fully explained by the police. Details do emerge, however, during a June 10 press conference when a police spokesperson states that up to fifty RCMP members worked on the case. Twenty-four hour surveillances, interviewing, the posting of a previously announced and well-publicized conditional reward of $50,000, and the execution of search warrants were cited as components of the investigation. Aside from the normal forensic investigation of the crime scene, the police also released photographs and descriptions of the stolen items to Interpol and the Canadian press, actively solicited for information from the public, and publicized the relatively low precious metal value of the gold artefacts. They later indicated that the recovered items were swabbed for DNA traces; no details on this evidence have been released to date.

Inferred or unconfirmed investigation steps include interviews with the pawnbroker who might have held one of the stolen items temporarily. As well, in January of 2009, a source indicated to CBC News that a tipster provided relevant information on the theft and claimed a partial reward of $20,000. This story was later refuted by the RCMP who claimed that their source had nothing whatsoever to do with the investigation. The tipster — reputedly a career criminal with a history of conflict with the Vancouver police — suggested to the press that the rumour was circulated by unnamed sources within the prison system and that angry First Nations’ inmates had placed his life in jeopardy. Around the same time as the circulation of the rumour, unconfirmed sources suggest that a deal might have been reached with the suspects, contingent on the safe return of the artefacts.

The investigation appears to have hinged on three key factors – a solid theory that the criminals were local and very probably known to the police, the possibility of tips coming from within the Vancouver criminal community, and surveillance of identified suspects or brokers of stolen property. If the attempt to pawn one of the artefacts is accepted as factual, the perpetrators were interested in quickly converting the stolen property into cash. It is likely that the artefacts were simply too “hot” to fence either as collectables or as gold.

Credibility of the Information Sources
Probably due to the ongoing investigation, RCMP public announcements on the crime were lacking in detail. Key aspects such as the number or thieves involved and how the camera system was compromised were never released. Initially, museum officials were less tight-lipped than the police and provided the press with some details of the crime. Collectively, however, the released information was vague – a circumstance that galvanized the press into action.

Press sources of information on the crime included the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) News, The Globe and Mail, CTV News and local Vancouver newspapers. In general terms, the CBC coverage was the most complete, sometimes citing unofficial police sources that could have been controlled leaks. But the CBC reporting was also the most “imaginative,” misleading, and in some cases dead wrong. Several times a Vancouver-based CBC reporter asked highly leading questions that were spun off by CBC News’ reports into ungrounded tangents. These tangents were later picked up by Internet vehicles and presented as fact rather than the reporter’s conjecture. Additionally, CBC’s acceptance of information from “police sources” on the involvement of the tipster in both the investigation and the receipt of a partial reward indicate that fact-checking was cursory at best.

Interestingly, all news organs interviewed various experts including lawyers, curators, art dealers, and art theft “specialists.” Almost uniformly these commentators blurred the facts of the incident by unfounded opinions on motives, international involvement, and the scope of police actions. Only through a close retrospective analysis of the reporting can these press-generated red herrings be separated from what appears to have occurred.

Lessons Learned
Lax practices both at the University of British Columbia’s security centre and in the museum itself are obvious targets for correction. Reports indicate that the museum’s extensive renovation encompasses improved security measures – including the installation of superior cases by the same firm responsible for the Louvre’s display of Mona Lisa. Obviously, the surveillance procedures need revamping.

Police control of the flow of information, the relatively rapid release of photographs, descriptions and the value of the stolen properties and the posting of a substantial reward appear to have contributed to the recovery of the items. Perhaps most importantly the investigators used their local knowledge and connections to establish the crime’s Vancouver roots rather than automatically assuming international involvement. If viewed in terms of recovery only, the RCMP’s procedures are a text book reminder that local contextualization should never be dismissed in high-profile art thefts. And on-the-ground investigative work is the key to solving local crime.

As no one was charged with the theft, there is some question as to whether or not the three men arrested and briefly detained were in fact the thieves. Neither the RCMP nor Crown counsel have released any information on the continuing status of the investigation. If a deal with the suspects was negotiated, one could make an argument that the greater good was served by the return of what can be regarded as Canadian and Haida national treasures. That said, the failure to charge those responsible for the crime has to be viewed as disturbing from the perspective of Canada’s public museums and art galleries.