“Success breeds interest,” says Special Agent Robert Wittman of the FBI’s Art Crime Team by way of pointing out that that since 2004, the agency has recovered some 750 artworks worth more than $60 million. That means, of course, that art thieves are flourishing as well. And while their line of work might seem glamorously elite, the international black market for art is, in fact, surprisingly large and prosperous, ranking right up there with drugs, guns, and wildlife. That partly explains why Wittman, the senior investigator for the team, keeps such a busy lecture schedule, educating both art world insiders and layfolk on the issue. Despite that public profile, he still often works undercover and thus isn’t allowed to be photographed. Last year, in Copenhagen, he arranged the purchase—and then arrested the sellers—of a stolen Rembrandt self-portrait worth $36 million. Other highlights of Wittman’s eighteen-year FBI career include tracking down ancient golden body armor in Peru, recovering purloined Norman Rockwell paintings at a farmhouse in Brazil, and locating one of the fourteen original copies of the Bill of Rights, which had been stolen by a Union soldier during the Civil War.
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The FBI’s Art Crime Team is only a couple years old. How did it come to be?

There was always a lot of interest in this area, since the numbers of stolen artworks and their dollar value is so huge. But especially after the thefts at the National Museum of Iraq in 2003, there was a lot of understanding about why it was important to do this. So we started with eight agents in 2004, and we have twelve now. We’ve worked in a number of countries: Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Japan, Ecuador ... it’s really a worldwide endeavor.

But the FBI is a U. S. agency. Is there resistance from people who don’t believe in using U. S. resources to help other countries with their art thefts?

Not really, because it works both ways. Take the case of those five Norman Rockwell paintings that were stolen from a gallery in Minneapolis in the late 1970s. We recovered two of them in 2000 through a dealer, and in 2001, the last three were recovered at a farmhouse in Brazil. That was done with the help of Brazilian authorities; we set up a mutual legal-assistance treaty request with them, which we didn’t have before. So just as we recover art for other countries, they help us as well.

How did Norman Rockwell paintings end up in a Brazilian farmhouse?

The house was owned by a dealer who bought the Rockwells. He was trying to sell them, so he contacted the Norman Rockwell Museum up in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. That was when he found out they were stolen.

So does someone who turns out to have bought stolen paintings just take his loss, or can he demand his money back from the person who sold them to him?

Tracing the chain of sales can be complicated. Sometimes people can try to get their money back. But more important, this shows why you have to know whom you’re buying from, to know you’re dealing with someone who’s reputable, who has good title to the work.

Famous paintings make the news when they’re stolen, but the FBI’s National Stolen Art File includes everything from books and musical instruments to stamps and weapons. What types of art are the most common—or vulnerable—targets? And how do you decide which cases are worth taking on?

There is no specific category. Famous paintings are just a tiny proportion of what’s stolen. Most of the material is taken from people’s homes, and most of it is valued at less than $10,000—but it’s still very important to these people. A lot of material is stolen from private galleries, too.

Once a thief has a painting, how does he find someone interested in buying it?

It depends on the circumstance of the crime. A lot of art theft is tied up with other criminal enterprises, like drugs and guns; art is just one of their operations. Then you’ve got people who exclusively steal art, and from there you might have someone who is just interested in antique maps. There’s a number of different psyches that we deal with, too. Art thieves are different from car thieves or bank robbers in that there is often some emotional involvement in the artwork—you might have someone who only steals Renoirs because he’s got some affinity for that work. But there’s always some motivation involving value, too.