Illicit Cultural Property from Latin America:

Looting, Trafficking, and Sale

Donna Yates

This chapter will provide a broad overview of the theft, smuggling, and illegal sale of
cultural objects from Latin America. First, I will describe the two categories of Latin
American cultural property covered by this chapter (pre-Conquest artefacts, colonial
sacred art), and then consider the form and functioning of the illicit trade in Latin
American antiquities. I will discuss the on-the-ground devastation of the historic
trade in looted Latin American objects and present a model of a historic antiquities
trafficking network. This will be illustrated by two case studies: the theft and trafficking
of a large Maya sculpture from the site of Machaquilá, Guatemala, and of the Church of
Challapampa, Peru. The paper will close with a brief recommendation and an outline of
the various outside forces that appear to play a significant role in the continued looting
and trafficking of Latin American cultural objects. Among these important forces to
consider are deforestation, human migration, the narcotics trade, local and regional
instability, community insecurity, poverty, globalization, and developmental disparities.
If reducing the illicit trade in Latin American cultural property is our goal, then all
current and future policy must address these issues.

Latin American cultural property

Ancient items from North and South America

Before the Spanish Conquest, every modern Latin American State (in this discussion,
including Brazil and Belize) housed complex cultures which produced cultural property
that has since been looted, trafficked, and sold on the international market. However, the
primary focus of the illicit trade in Latin American archaeological objects has historically
been the formidable civilizations of the central and northern Andes, Mesoamerica, and
the ‘connecting’ cultures of Costa Rica and Panama. The achievements of these cultures
translate into beautiful cultural objects which have become desirable on the antiquities
market, especially in the last 60 years. The rise in popularity of these items is tied to
a growing Western collecting interest in so-called ‘primitive’ and ‘tribal’ art – racist
art market terms that are artificially applied to non-Western and non-Eastern cultural
objects. This obsession with the ‘primitive’ started in the 1950s, became popular in the
1960s, and was firmly established in the international art market in the 1970s. By the
1980s most major (and many minor) auction houses offered ‘tribal’ art sales and several
offered sales of specifically ‘precolumbian’ art (Gilgan 2001; Yates 2006). The term
‘precolumbian’ is not without its own serious issues, but will be regretfully used here as
it is used by the art market. Based on market analysis, certain classes of Latin American
artefacts have historically been in demand on the market and likely still are. This is a very
rough characterization of a complex market and further details can be found in a number
of studies (e.g. Alva 2001; Coe 1993; Coggins 1969, 1976; Gilgan 2001; Gutchen 1983;
Hernández Sánchez 2008; Levine and Luna 2013; Luke and Henderson 2006; Parades
Maury 1996; Pendergast 1991; Pendergast and Graham 1981; Robertson 1972; Sheets
1973; Yates 2006, 2011, 2014a, 2014b). Thus, the market in Latin American antiquities
mostly consists of the following:
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Donna Yates

• C
 eramics. Ceramics from throughout Latin America appear for sale on the
international market. Of particular focus, and thus at particular cost, are the
beautiful Maya polychrome vessel of the Meosamerican lowlands, especially
vessels with figural scenes and/or Maya writing, and Moche moulded spouted
vessels from Peru made in the form of three dimensional animals, objects, and
human portraits.

• M
 etalwork. The cultures that inhabited the area from Peru through Panama were
masterful metalworkers who produced cultural objects made of gold, silver, and
copper. The majority of these metal objects were used for ceremonial adornment
both in life and in death. They are rarely seen as true armour or weaponry, as the
material is too soft to be effective. The spectacular funerary masks of the Moche
and Chimú of Peru, the jewellery of Ecuador and Colombia, and the mythical
animals and other composite beasts of the Darien of Panama, all wrought in gold,
are among the most sought-after pieces on the market. Gold, most certainly, is the
market’s focus, although silver is also of interest, e.g. Inka silver drinking vessels
and llama statuettes. Copper artefacts are rarer on the international market as
survive poorly.

• T
 extile. Because of the arid conditions of the coastal areas of Peru and northern
Chile and because a number of ancient cultures of the region specifically
deposited their dead in locations that favoured natural mummification, many
examples of ancient textile craft survive from that area. The Paracas, Nasca, and
Wari cultures, among others, wrapped their important dead in up to 100 pieces of
textile before placing them in desert burials. These textiles are some of the most
intricate and advanced seen in the ancient world, displaying mythological scenes
in bright colours using embroidery, tapestry weaving, and printing. Featherwork
also survives. These pieces, although fragile, have been extremely popular on the
market as they are considered to be the finest in the world.

• S tonework. Latin American stone sculpture is both rare on the market and highly
sought. Historically the most prized and most looted type of stone sculpture from
the region have been the stelae, altars, and other architectural pieces produced
by the Maya. Many of these sculptures are massive. Smaller pieces, such as
zoomorphic grinding stones from Costa Rica, are also seen, as are various kinds
of statuary from Central Mexico. There is a particular price premium on Aztec,
Toltec, sculptures (among others) that depict such things as skulls and sacrifice.

• F
 igurines. Both ceramic and stone figurines are commonly seen on the market.
A particularly popular category of these in the past have been the various styles
of human and animal figurines from western Mexican shaft tombs, particularly
those that depict dogs. Olmec figurines of any type are prized, perhaps because
of the popular mystique associated with that culture. Maya figurines thought
to be from the island of Jaina are sought for their intricate, lifelike scenes. In
Ecuador, the schematic figurines of the Valdivia culture have been a particular
focus of collecting. Figurines are some of the most common but most varied Latin
American object type on the market.

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It should be noted that since the very earliest days of the Latin American antiquities
market massive numbers of fakes have polluted the corpus. While there are a number
of techniques that can be used to determine if an object is fake, none are fool-proof
and examples exist of fakers fooling every technique and every expert. Even those items
that are difficult to fake can be used to produce fakes, e.g. portions of ancient textiles
have been refashioned in to marketable ‘ancient’ dolls. Estimates of how many and
speculations about which objects are fake fill the literature and some experts have gone
as far as to declare that most Latin American antiquities on the market in a number of
the previously mentioned categories are fake (e.g. Bruhns and Kelker).

Colonial and republican sacred art from Churches

Although little discussed in the academic literature and rarely a focus of international
discussion, there exists a strong demand for colonial and republican period art, primarily
from Latin American churches. In some locations, the incidents of cultural property
theft from churches have far exceeded incidents of theft from archaeological contexts.
Evangilisation was a core concern of the Spanish Conquest and it was a conquering
technique: pre-Conquest temples were razed and churches were built in their stead often
out of the same stone, to harness the power of the already holy place. As indigenous
populations were reduced into villages, each village was given a church. Over the years,
these churches would filled with both local and international religious art, often in a
unique local style. There has been a market demand for these objects for decades, however
early work on this subject indicates that there was an uptick in demand starting in the
1990s and continuing into the 2000s, which perhaps coincides with popular interior
decorating trends that favour many of these objects. There are a number of terms that are
used to describe these pieces and, for the sake of clarity, I will use the term ‘sacred art’.
The following categories of object have historically been on demand in the market and
likely still are:

• S ilverwork. For much of the Colonial period, Latin America produced the majority
of the world’s silver, both from Central Mexico and, more significantly, from
the silver mountain of Potosí, Bolivia. The result is that a significant number of
Indigenous craftspeople had experience with the metal and the metal was locally
available. Thus in the Andes, and to a lesser extent the rest of Latin America, even
the smallest churches in the poorest communities contain sacred silver items. In
demand on the market are silver monstrances, candle sticks, altar pieces (even
very large ones), and other ritual items from all colonial periods. Also of market
interests are the jewellery, crowns, resplendors, spurs, and other adornments of
figures of the holy family and saints. If it is colonial and silver, there will be a
market for it.

• Icons/Figures/Sculptures. These pieces are sold under a number of names, but they
are sculptures of the Virgin, of Christ, and of the Saints, wrought in a number of
different materials with a core of polychromed wood, which would be the object of
directed worship within a church. Particularly fine, and thus particularly desirable
figures have inlaid eyes, elaborate dress, or previously mentioned silver or gold
accessories.

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Donna Yates

• P
 aintings. Both European and indigenous paintings adorn the churches of Latin
America, with many of the indigenous ones displaying techniques assigned to
various local ‘schools’. It is this sense of the foreign and the parochial, the idea of
arts at the periphery of the European model, that drive the demand for colonial
paintings in general and colonial church paintings specifically. Some of the most
sought are those that represent indigenous themes within Christian contexts,
e.g. dark Virgins as mountains, angels with large guns, etc. The historic frames
that contain these paintings are also sought on the market.

• B
 ells. Church bell theft is a major issue in Latin America but, as it stands, there is
no evidence that these bells are sold intact on the international market. Although
there is some market for historic church bells, it is thought these are likely melted
down and sold as scrap.

• F
 urniture. Perhaps the most difficult type of sacred art to track because of
misunderstandings as to whether furniture should be documented as heritage (by
the law of most Latin American countries, it should), very old furniture which
can often be found in churches is sought on what is usually considered to be the
antiques market. A number of recorded church thefts include the theft of historic
furniture. The sources of these antiques are rarely questioned on the market and
this could be a much bigger issue than we know.

Unlike archaeological pieces, which can only come from archaeological sites, sacred art
is not only found in churches. Because of the continued importance of Catholicism to
Latin American culture and identity, many (but not all) of the categories of objects listed
above could be found in a private residence and thus be passed down through families.
This, perhaps, allows a buyer to imagine that the items they purchase are legitimate,
even if they are not. That said, in most Latin American jurisdictions, items of a certain
age, even if they are privately held must be registered with the government and cannot
be exported from the country without a permit that is unlikely to be granted. For this
reason, all Latin American sacred art on the international market should be treated as
suspect until it is proven otherwise.

The Latin American antiquities trade pre-1970

It is difficult to put an exact date on the start of looting in Latin America and various
activities of the late 1800s could be considered looting. However, after the early 1900s,
true scientific archaeology was conducted in Central and South America by both foreign
and local scholars and after about 1925, particularly in Peru, scholars reporting that
sites were being looted and objects were coming up for sale on the market in their
country of origin (Tello 1959). Some of this early looting was devastating, for example
the looting of the Paracas Necropolis for textiles from 1931 to 1933, but truly endemic
looting came later. At this time the market for these objects was local or international in
a local way: the objects were purchased in-country by foreign diplomats and business
people. The issues were serious enough to incite a number of countries in the region to
pass very early laws claiming ownership of all archaeological objects and prohibiting all
digging and exporting of artefacts without a government permit, e.g. El Salvador in 1903

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(Decree no. 4347), Bolivia in 1906 (Law of 3 October 1906), Peru in 1929 (Law no. 6634),
Guatemala in 1947 (Decrete no. 425 of 1947).
The scale of artefact looting and trafficking greatly increased when the market for
Latin American antiquities became truly international. As points of sale to collectors
shifted from the streets of Lima or Mexico City to New York, Paris, or Hollywood,
and as demand increased, trafficking networks (both simple and complex) grew to fill
the important middle transit stage of the antiquities smuggling chain and the pillage
of archaeological sites rose sharply. Because most Latin American counties outlawed
the export of antiquities before an international market grew for them, all the Latin
American antiquities on the market were tainted by crime and were illegal in some
jurisdictions. This is still the case.
That said, there was no desire on the part of dealers and buyers (including major
museums) to respect the law of the countries of origin at that time. It is often said that
Latin American source countries have been treated with disrespect and indignity by
the international antiquities trade. At this time pre-Conquest objects were the primary
focus of looting and trafficking. Churches were robbed and early collections of colonial
sacred art began to grow but the scale was not at the level seen today. Furthermore, many
of the countries in question had not fully clarified their ownership of, and export bans
on, sacred art at this time. Of course, sacred art that was outright stolen from a church
was still stolen property, but at least from recorded sources, sacred art trafficking would
largely come later.
Although there are a number of ways Latin American antiquities left their country of
origin at this time, a simplified model might include the following elements: a notable
site would be located by locals, either people living in a nearby village or those who move
through the jungle or desert as part of their subsistence activities. Because they know
that there is a market for ancient items, locals would either sell this information to a
local looting group or notify an intermediary who would finance illicit digging. Locals
with previous experience might loot the site themselves. The items would quickly pass
out of the hands of the locals and into those of an in-country intermediary, often but
not always an expatriate, who worked with a particular out-of-country intermediary to
smuggle the antiquities. The in-country intermediary would arrange the transit stage
of the antiquities, perhaps with the help of local corruption, perhaps because of their
own access to shipping methods. These intermediaries would either be paid upfront or
given a cut of the future sale. The out-of-country intermediary would then receive the
antiquities in the country of sale and ‘clean’ them both figuratively and literally for sale
on the ‘legitimate market’, serving as a Janus figure connecting the criminal underworld
and the respectable market (Mackenzie and Davis 2014).
These intermediaries might be dealers themselves who would then sell the object on
to a museum or collector, particularly a collector that they had a working relationship
sourcing particular objects for. They also might be dealers to dealers, supplying objects
to the established store-front and catalogue style dealerships. Oftentimes, it was these
out-of-country intermediaries would supply a plausible back story and false paperwork
to legitimize the smuggled objects. Finally, the object would be sold to a ‘legitimate’
collector or museum who was fully aware of the illicit nature of the market they
engaged in but would specifically choose to neither ask too many questions nor notify
the authorities of suspect behaviour. There was almost no risk of punishment for any
individual beyond the stage of in-country intermediary.

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Donna Yates

The following case study illustrates an extreme version of this model which, due to its
relatively late date, was fully exposed. This represents a rare example of traffickers being
caught and brought to justice and there is every reason to think that previous networked
trafficking incidents from Latin America were much like this one, only with a lot less
hesitation on the part of buyers.

Network case study: Machaquilá Stela 2 (Guatemala)

Machaquilá is a Maya site located in an isolated part of Guatemala’s Petén department (La
Porte et al. 2009). It is a difficult site to access due to rough terrain and a lack of natural
resources (Just 2007: 3). Its remote location appears to have buffered it from the fallout of
the endemic conflict of the Classic period, and it experienced a brief florescence during
the 9th century AD in the wake of the Tikal-Calakmul War (Just 2007: 3). Afterwards
it fell into decline along with the rest of the Petén, although the people of Machaquilá
produced stela for nearly 40 years after other sites were abandoned (Just 2007: 3).
Numerous sculpted stones were found by archaeologists at Machaquilá, e.g. Ian
Graham found 17 stelae and six altars in the 1960s, but as of the time of writing there
are no carved monuments at the site (La Porte et al. 2009). Many were looted during the
endemic pillage of the Petén in the 1960s and 1970s and the rest were removed for their
own protection by the Guatemalan government.
Two Costa Rican brothers working for the Union Oil Company discovered
Machaquilá some time before 1961. Archaeologist Ian Graham contacted the men and
they confirmed their discovery by showing him a carved stone they had brought from
the site that was being using as a doorstop (Graham 2010: 250). In May 1961, Graham
visited Machaquilá, which he named after the local river, and recorded the presence
of stelae. In 1962, he spent considerably more time at the site specifically to record the
various carved stelae via photographs, drawings, and latex moulds (Graham 2010: 254).
Thus, Machaquilá Stela 2 was discovered by Graham, who drew and photographed the
sculpture in situ, establishing that it was, indeed, in Guatemala after Guatemala had
declared ownership of all archaeological objects within its territory. Unless otherwise
stated, the following account of the trafficking of Machaquilá Stela 2 is derived from the
memoirs of Ian Graham (2010: 436-438).
In 1971, Dr William Bullard of the University of Florida contacted Ian Graham to
inform him that Machaquilá Stela 2 had been looted, trafficked, and exhibited for sale in
Florida. The stela had been bought from looters (who cut it to pieces) by Jorge Alamilla,
a Belizean who was known to be involved in the antiquities trade for around $3,000.
It was passed on to three men: Ed Dwyer, according to Graham, the brother-in-law of
the owner of a lumber company that operated in the Petén; Johnnie Brown Fell; and his
cousin Harry Brown, who were both in the shrimp-exporting business. The stela was
stored in Fell’s fish-packing plant in Belize City for a period of time (Hughes 1977: 149).
The men moved the stela, which was in fragments, to Miami, Florida in a boat concealed
by a shipment of shrimp. The fragments of the stela had been packed into boxes labeled
‘personal effects’ and marked with the address of restorer Clive Hollinshead in Santa Fe
Springs, California (Hughes 1977: 149). Once in Florida, Hollinshead was brought in to
restore the piece.
After the restoration, Fell and Dwyer bought a station wagon (Graham recounts that
it was Fell and Alamilla, but the court record reports it was Dwyer), put the stela in it,
and drove to New York City. They offered the stela to the Brooklyn Museum, to dealer
André Emmerich, and then to dealer Leonardo Patterson. All three declined to buy it, but

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 Illicit Trafficking in Latin America

Patterson suggested they offer the sculpture to Marjorie Neikrug who owned a gallery in
the city. While Fell and Dwyer were discussing the piece with her, the car containing the
stela was towed away for illegal parking but they managed to retrieve it. When Neikrug
turned down the stela, the two men drove to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where they offered
it to Glenn Rittenour, a Methodist minister who later testified against them at trial.
He, too, turned the stela down. Federal records indicate the men also stopped in Decatur,
Georgia, and in North Carolina in attempts to sell the piece. Fell and Dwyer continued
their drive, eventually bringing the stela to Los Angeles were they sold it to the restorer
Clive Hollinshead. The asking price for the stela during this journey is said to have been
$300,000 (Meyer 1973: 33).
After uncovering this story via a series of well-placed telephone calls, Graham
contacted the FBI who informed him that the stela could be recovered via the National
Stolen Property Act’s ban on the interstate transportation of stolen objects (18 U.S.C.
2314). He was told that at trial, it must be shown that the men in possession of the stela
knew it was stolen and had transported the object from one State to another with full
knowledge of that status. To secure this information, Graham asked a friend of his to
pose as a potential buyer interested in Maya stelae. Hollinshead showed her Machaquilá
Stela 2, which was in his garage at the time, proving that it had been transported, which
provided enough evidence for the FBI to intervene.
On 28 August 1972, a federal Grand Jury indicted Clive Hollinshead, Jorge Alamilla,
and Johnnie Fell on charges of conspiracy to transport stolen goods in interstate and
foreign commerce and causing the transportation of stolen property in interstate
commerce (Hughes 1977: 1949). According to the indictment, Hollinshead had a prior
arrangement with Alamilla for the procurement of looted and smuggled Maya objects.
The indictment stated that Hollinshead was on-hand in Belize during the smuggling
process, as were unnamed Guatemalan officials who were bribed (Hughes 1977: 149).
In February 1973, Hollinshead et al. was tried in a Los Angeles Federal District Court.
Graham, who was serving as a witness, was unable to watch the most of the trial.
However, he recounts that Ed Dwyer, who was one of the original purchasers of the stela
while it was still in Central America, turned State’s evidence and was spared any legal
repercussions. Jorge Alamilla, who was not a US citizen, did not appear, presumably
fleeing to his native Belize.
The Court found that Ted Wiener, a man based in Dallas and involved in the oil
business, had financed Hollinshead’s purchase of the stela in return for a cut of any profit
from resale. Hollinshead’s seized records showed that another stela from Machaquilá
was, at that time, in the possession of Harry Brown in Helena, Arkansas, but that stela
had been mostly destroyed in the looting process having been broken into 25 pieces. It
was impounded by the FBI in January of 1972 and was later identified as Machaquilá Stela
5 (Meyer 1973: 33). Allegedly, this piece had been offered to the Denver Art Museum
(ibid). On 14 March 1973, Hollinshead and Fell were found guilty of both counts and
in 1974 the district court opinion was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeal
for the 9th Circuit (United States vs. Hollinshead, 495 F.2d 1154, 9th Cir, 1974; Hughes
1977: 149). Hollinshead was fined $5,000, given a suspended sentence, and put on 5
years probation (Meyer 1973: 33). Fell also received a suspended sentence and 3 years,
probation. Both Machaquilá were returned to Guatemala.

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Donna Yates

The Latin American antiquities trade post-1970

There is little evidence that the 1970 UNESCO Convention had much of an impact
on the illicit trade in Latin American cultural property. The Convention’s focus on
development of international partnerships for the return of a few very high profile
antiquities does not seem to have address the on-the-ground needs of the region. Indeed
a number of sources indicate that, in parts of Latin America, looting actually intensified
after the 1970 Convention, particularly in the war-torn Petén region of Guatemala where
rampant looting for Maya polychromes and other portable antiquities which the 1970s
and 1980s left devastating scars on nearly every Maya site. Some of the highest profile
looted antiquities from Latin America left post-1970 and many of them have not been
recovered. The late 1980s and the early 1990s saw the looting of spectacular Moche tombs
at Sipán, La Mina and other locations along Peru’s North coast and only limited success
with regard to the return of objects from those contexts. As previously stated, theft of
colonial and republican sacred art increased greatly in the 1990s and 2000s and may not
yet have hit its peak. What seems to be a reduction in looting incidents in traditional
Latin American looting locations, e.g. Peru’s North and South coasts and the Petén, likely
had nothing to do with the UNESCO Convention, and more to do with some increased
local police awareness and the fact that many, perhaps most archaeological sites in these
areas have been exhausted. There is not much left to loot.
Thus in the 1970s and throughout the 1990s, it is likely that Latin American antiquities
trafficking looked very similar to the trafficking networks seen in earlier periods. That
said, we have very little evidence about the construction of these networks due to the
systematic lack of convictions for antiquities trafficking at the ‘demand’ or ‘market’ end of
the smuggling chain. An exception is the smuggling of some of the artefacts looted from
Sipán. In one route, the objects were sent from Lima to London (via official corruption),
repackaged and assigned a plausible false provenance, and were then sent to California
where they were driven from the airport to the home of a potential buyer (Atwood 2004;
Kirkpatrick 1992). In another, a large Sipán piece was taken from Peru to Panama where
it was transferred to the diplomatic pouch of Francisco Humberto Iglesias, then the
Panamanian Consul General to the United States. Iglesias knowingly smuggled the item
into the United States where it was seized in an undercover FBI operation (FBI 1997;
Wittman 2010).
At this stage, it is fair to characterize the current trade in illicit Latin American
cultural property as largely opaque. It is no longer clear who is selling these items and
no longer clear who is buying them. This is especially the case for sacred art and no case
has yet publicly revealed the middle transit stages of the criminal networks that operate
in this area now.

The case below is characteristic of the sort of major international Latin American
cultural property smuggling cases that we see today. It features a particular factor that
was, of course, not an issue before the late 1990s: the Internet as a collector/dealer tool
for sharing new purchases and for detection of looted objects.

Network case study: Challapampa altarpiece (Peru)

Challapampa is a small indigenous village located in the district of Juli, in the Puno region
of Peru. The village is home to the Capilla de San Pedro de Challapampa, a 16th century
Spanish colonial church. The church, which was declared to be National Cultural

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Patrimony in 1972, contained a 16th century mannerist-style altarpiece carved by Pedro

de Vargas and painted by the acclaimed artist and Jesuit priest Alonso Bernardo Joan
Democrito Bitti. It was constructed some time between 1575 and 1591 out of gilt cedar
and maguay wood and decorated with polychrome paint. The altarpiece was originally
created for the Picchu hacienda in Cuzco but was transferred to Challapampa in 1700.
It is approximately 4 metres long, 3 metres high and weighs 450 kilograms (UNESCO
2006).
In January 2002, the altarpiece was disassembled and stored in a medical post near
the church as part of a restoration project. It was stolen from this facility and the theft
was immediately detected and reported. Initial speculation was that the thieves moved
the piece across the border into Bolivia. In previous years, the church at Challapampa
had been robbed of 14 paintings of archangels which some sources allege are now in
Brazil (Frasier 2006).
In April 2003, the Embassy of Peru in the United States was notified via an anonymous
phone call that the altarpiece had been trafficked to the United States and was being offered
for sale on the Internet (Bush 2005). Peru reported this to the Department of Cultural
Heritage of the US State Department and in May 2003, United States Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) traced the piece to Ron Messick Fine Arts and Antiquities,
a dealership operating out of Santa Fe, New Mexico (UNESCO 2006). On 6 May 2003,
ICE took possession of the altarpiece under suspicion that its import violated the 1997
Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Peru concerning the
import of certain classes of cultural property (Arnold 2004; UNESCO 2006). When the
piece was seized, the statue of the Virgin, which once stood in the central niche of the
altarpiece was found to be missing. It has not been recovered.
It is unclear exactly how the object was moved from Peru to Santa Fe. A report prepared
for Messick by Colorado-based appraiser Carol O’Brien English, appears to create a false
ownership history for the altarpiece. It allegedly states that the piece entered the USA
in 1961 as part of a collection from Spain and was sold to Messick by Arizona-based
art dealer Paul S. Shephard in 2002 (Coleman 2005). Shephard denies this claim and
English has stated that the story in her report was provided to her by Messick (Coleman
2005). Self-confessed former antiquities trafficker Michel van Rijn claimed that Messick
displayed the altarpiece in his home before it was seized (Coleman 2005). At one point
van Rijn offered to pay for the repatriation of the piece himself (Arnold 2004). Messick,
via his lawyer Mark Donatelli, claimed that various stolen art registries were checked
before the piece was acquired (Coleman 2005).
The ICE, Interpol, and the Attorney’s Office in New York sought a criminal complaint
against Ron Messick for his alleged hand in the trafficking and attempted illegal sale of
the stolen altarpiece. A Federal Grand Jury was convened and the criminal prosecution of
Messick was initiated by the US Attorney’s Office in New York, however the prosecution
was abated due to Messick’s failing health (Coleman 2005). After it was seized in
2003, the altarpiece was moved to El Paso, Texas where it was positively identified by
Rolando Paredes, Director of the National Institute of Culture in Puno, as being from
Challapampa (Arnold 2004; Bush 2005). It was held in there storage until 2005 when
it went on temporary display in Houston (Coleman 2005). On 20 January 2006 it was
returned to Peru, and on 27 June 2006, it was restored to the Capilla de San Pedro de
Challapampa.

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Donna Yates

The role of other regional forces and policy recommendation

The looting and trafficking of Latin American cultural property cannot be viewed
in isolation. It is only a very small component of some of the biggest issues that the
region faces. It is not a separate problem and should not be treated as such. Regional
instability from the narcotics and people trafficking, government failure and corruption,
globalization and neoliberalism, developmental inequality and deforestation are what
perpetuate on-the-ground threats to Latin American cultural property. To put it simply,
if the goal is to protect Latin American cultural property on the ground, we must make
people less poor, make people less insecure, and make Latin American governments less
corrupt and more capable. In other words, broad international measures that are meant
to focus on the source-end of the illicit antiquities market are likely to do very little as
the underlying problems that cause cultural property threats will remain. Small-scale
targeted capacity building may help in limited contexts (e.g. funding and training to
secure a specific church), but not the greater issues.
Thus, policy focus must be at the market end of the trafficking chain. Demand causes
supply and a reduction in demand for Latin American cultural property will result in
a reduction of cultural property theft. Our focus should be discouraging criminality
and punishing criminals rather than simple artefact recovery at all costs. Those caught
engaging with the illegal antiquities market and those committing criminal acts should
face the punitive damages for trafficking and receiving stolen gods afforded by local law
and should not be allowed to simply surrender stolen artefacts to escape any charges.
Furthermore, we should invest more time in developing better soft control techniques to
discourage the market beyond ineffectual and obtuse codes of ethics by:

• introducing doubt into the market, e.g. by giving source country experts a platform
on which to challenge the authenticity or legality of cultural property for sale,
• introducing more oversight into museum donation tax incentives,
• publicly lauding collectors and museums that do the right thing and publicly
shaming those who do the wrong thing.

Some of these non-punitive market reduction measures have the added benefit of being
inexpensive, important for developing countries. Many of them could effectively be
deployed online. Some could be organized by the countries of origin and, in a sense, this
could be a focus for funding ear-market for on-the-ground cultural property protection.
There are many possibilities but few are being effectively utilized.
When it comes to the development of future policy, I urge a departure from the 1970
UNESCO model that focuses on country-to-country bilateral agreements. Country-
specific legislation, such as the UNESCO-based bilateral agreements between the
governments of some Latin American countries and the United States (still the primary
market for Latin American antiquities), is ineffectual. It is nearly impossible to absolutely
prove that a particular artifact came from the ground of a particular country and did so
after the bilateral agreement was signed. I argue that ‘object-specific’ legislation, which
introduces import bans into market countries for whole classes of ancient object no
matter their country of origin, such as the 1972 US law that prevents the import of all
Central American sculptures, murals, and architectural elements (Public Law No. 92-
587, 19 U.S.C. § 2091), is much more effective at reducing the illicit trade in cultural

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property and is cheaper to enforce as specific country of origin need not be specifically
determined in each case. As we see, the UN is moving to impose more country-specific
bans on the movement of antiquities, I fear that we will not move away from the country-
specific model and that our international policy efforts will continue to have little effect.
Finally, more empirical academic research must be conducted on many of the
unanswered questions involved in the theft, trafficking, and market for Latin American
material. For example, there has been almost no research into sacred art theft and
trafficking in any discipline: it is happening but we do not know how or why. Non-
academic reports may tie theft and destruction of many types of Latin American
antiquities to encroachment and land clearings in protected areas, which itself is tied
to complicated issues related to poverty, post-conflict, and other criminal trafficking
activities. No academic work has focused on this. This is quite clearly due to a lack of
sustained funding for this sort of research, both in Latin America and abroad. This lack
of investment in primary research into the topic will likely ensure that most efforts to
control cultural property trafficking are both ill-advised and ill-suited for the realities of
the situations in which they will be applied.

Acknowledgements

The author has received funding for this research from the European Research Council
under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/erc
Grant agreement no. 283873 GTICO, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Fulbright Program.

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