Brazilian authorities appear to have successfully stamped out an organized crime ring that pilfered sacred colonial-era images from churches and museums in Minas Gerais. For two decades the thieves stole images for delivery to domestic collectors and perhaps also to foreigners.
An 18th-century gold rush in Minas Gerais (literally “General Mines” in Portuguese) spurred a building boom of Catholic churches, monasteries, and convents. Local artisans, who usually remained anonymous, produced artifacts to decorate them. As a result, Minas Gerais boasts the country’s best examples of colonial-era baroque religious art and architecture: about 60% of the historical objects protected by Brazilian preservation legislation are located in Minas Gerais, according to the state Department of Culture.
In a few short months beginning in July 2003, officials celebrated the recovery of more than 200 missing objects stolen from churches and other institutions in the state. Just one recovery was made in 2001 and two in 2002. The criminal gang had been looting churches and museums in the state since the early 1980s, said Tadeu Moura, chief investigator of the Minas Gerais regional office of INTERPOL, the global law enforcement network.
Most of the recoveries were made in three separate raids, one each in Brazil’s two largest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and another in the country’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul. The São Paulo raid recovered 128 items, including some from Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Portugal. In Rio Grande do Sul, the items were discovered in a truck presumably headed for the Uruguayan border.
The artifacts include small wooden sculptures of Catholic personages and angels, devotional paintings, and religious decorative arts like silverwork and alms dishes. With its “appeal to the senses and intense emotionalism,” as curator Edward J. Sullivan once wrote, colonial-era Brazilian baroque art marks a defining moment in Brazilian art history because it affirms an independent style rather than mimic Portuguese metropolis. French scholar Germain Bazin called the most prominent of the 18th century artists, Aleijadinho, “the Brazilian master.”
Most of the known collectors are of this baroque art are Brazilians. Many are located in the country’s economic hub, São Paulo.
Artwork and artifacts have been disappearing from Brazilian colonial churches for decades, if not centuries. Strapped parish priests would sell items to raise cash to cover operating expenses, say law enforcement officials and politicians. The first federal law to protect the country’s historical patrimony was passed in 1937.
The organized criminal gang had been operating in Minas Gerais since at least 1982-1984. The gang worked together with antique dealers and restorers in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and elsewhere. They would alternatively target specific objects requested by collectors or opportunistically steal potentially-valuable items.
The thieves took advantage of lax security at many churches, museums and other institutions. They used a variety of schemes, but one novel tactic was to have one member of the gang enter and hide away in a church during visiting hours. At night be would open the doors from the inside and let in his colleagues.
Some members of the band had been arrested and convicted previously. Three were arrested late last year and await trail. “There hasn’t been a single theft in Minas Gerais since,” said Tadeu.
Sporadic looting of churches continues elsewhere in the country, but police believe these thefts to be the work of independent thieves not connected to the Minas Gerais gang or any other organized crime operation.
In October 2003, Luiz Roberto Nascimento Silva, Minas Gerais state secretary of Culture, established a statewide public-private task force of local and federal officials, police, and Catholic clergy to coordinate information on investigations, help boost security at churches, and increase public awareness. The country’s leading television network and its sister philanthropic foundation launched a pro bono public service advertising campaign, and Nascimento Silva’s agency inaugurated an interactive website and telephone hotline to help citizens make reports about suspected stolen objects. The federal government maintains its own online database of missing objects.
The members of the organized crime ring would often accept orders from collectors for particular objects, according to authorities. Antique shops and restorers, especially in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, acted as middlemen. Presumably to conceal their origins, many objects were adulterated. An ear might be chopped off of a figure or a statue given a new paint job. Saint Michael became a roman soldier, said Nascimento Silva.
Documented cases to date have all occurred on Brazilian territory, but some officials suspect that at least some items find their way abroad. Rogério Carvalho, head of the Missing Cultural Objects Department at the Institute of National Historic and Artistic Preservation (IPHAN), a federal agency, said that stolen Brazilian images have appeared for sale on at least one leading foreign online auction website, but he was unable to provide specific evidence.
Officials are noting an increase in the number of spontaneous, often anonymous, restitutions of allegedly stolen objects presumably acquired in good faith. In December 2003 two 18th century images arrived via special delivery mail at an IPHAN regional office in Minas Gerais. According to an anonymous note that accompanied the items, they were purchased in a São Paulo flea market, and the buyer learned that they were stolen while visiting an exhibition of recovered objects that appeared in two cities in Minas Gerais in late 2003.
Police recently recovered an 18th century wooden, gold-leafed object worth an estimated US$80,000 that was stolen from a chapel in the northeastern town of Nazaré da Mata, Pernambuco state, a decade ago. The ostensible owner loaned the piece to the Brazil+500 Rediscovery, a mega-exposition in São Paulo in 2000. Authorities found it in the exposition’s catalogue. (The popular Brazil Body and Soul exhibition at New York’s Guggenheim Museum in 2001-2002 consisted of a selection of items from the Brazil+500 Rediscovery show. The Brazil 500 show in São Paulo in 2000 provided a grand overview of Brazilian art history to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Portuguese landing in South America.)
“I think there’s a growing understanding among collectors,” said Nascimento Silva. “They’re beginning to feel uncomfortable about having these things in their homes.” Collectors who voluntarily return stolen art are immune to prosecution under Brazilian law.
The traffic in colonial-era objects is the most visible part of a much larger problem, said Luiz Antônio Boicato Custódio, an IPHAN architect and president of the Brazilian committee of the Paris-based International Council of Museums (ICOM). Archaeological sites throughout Latin America are looted even before officials discover their whereabouts and record their contents. “Eventually these items find their way to museums,” he said.
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