welcome to self and calm sophie shevardnadze he knows how to hunt down a masterpiece lost for decades no matter if it's decorating somebody's backyard or hidden beneath the murky waters of the underground art world the indiana jones of lost art historian and detective arthur brand is my guest.

still purses and wallets others might get kozel hells as well some still hold budgets but there is a criminal underworld with exquisite taste in which people steal both contemporary and selling the finest crafted treasures on the black market. why is that. more sophisticated than other speeches and how do you. to retrieve lost most the pieces. are there brand historian and are detective welcome to the show great to have you with us mr brown so. the media call you indiana jones of the art world but as far as i can tell from your own accounts your job isn't as action packed i mean it's more like dan brown no well you said that you deal with it and underworld and obviously you're risking your life sometimes so

why like the most dire threats i don't know the colombian necktie or where your family lives do you take this threat seriously. sometimes you get threats is normal in the underworld in a criminal world they cannot go to a judge they do not have access to the to justice so day have to use threats so they also do it to me but i don't take them too serious you know. if you keep your words with criminals of with somebody else most of the time you're quite safe but it does mean that i do have to keep my words and of course i have to be cautious as and keeping your word always depend on you yes because if they don't keep their words what can i do but it's very important to keep my words dispy people as says they cannot go to the police they can not go to to a lawyer or to to

a judge so they have their own criminal. laws and you have to accept those laws and those laws. keep your words. betray the things like that. and you are pretty safe around for a way out or stay and you have a reputation there right that's why they say to people trust you you are in their trust your reputation in a world like that by just keeping your words or is there something else they have to do for all for them to trust you know it's it's a reputation every time when i meet new people i have to gain their trust over and over again because i always say in the underworld in a criminal well today only trust their own mottos they don't trust each other because your friend of the day can be your enemy of tomorrow so. it's building up a reputation and they now know that i keep my words i have had some big cases and i

always kept my word so they know what i do they know how i do it but again every time you have to gain the trust again. so. tell us how it's happening so we can visualize it you sit down to talk to them is it in a fancy place like fancy restaurant in public or by the fireplace at home with a bottle of wine or i know some kind of a strip joint backroom with cocaine all over the table when we were just exchanging messages on the darn lab how do you guys communicate where do you meet to actually do business well 1st of all when i have a leads and i know which one i have to go which criminal i try to find his number his telephone number because they're not in the yellow pages so that i give them a call and they are in shock because they think how does brant know and they sent an intermediary to me most of the time these people just run us for the big bosses and they come with. the baklava or whatever and we always meet in dark

places i can get a call at 10 at night. and then somebody says mr brent's we expect you at that place. in 2 hours so sometimes you don't know who you're going to meet it's mostly in dark places is not the day. that we meet in a restaurant because there was always cameras etc there are always afraid that they are being followed so i always have to go to shady places how to twined as standard around our world with illegal art world can somebody working that solid base appraising department also do some work on the side for the mafia. you coming close is not that particular example but for example the museum directors who have changed their entire collection for fakes. the legal world the

legal world and illegal world media child of because the illegal outlawed where you make a fake for example you want to have it sold at sotheby's or at christie's if you buy antiquities stolen antiquities recently unearthed it in let's say syria which are illegal if you try to sell them at an auction house. in the past there have been examples of these 2 worlds coming together and it's not for nothing that the cia has said that the illegal art world is the 4th biggest illegal criminal. business in the world so we are talking here about many many billions and the thing is. the supply of art and antiquities is always smaller than what they want so people have to have access to the criminal underworld because they are the persons who can supply looted and

secretive for example so. it's a shame he will the articles and to be honest some of the most respected people in the legal world. have be have ended behind bus because they were doing things they weren't supposed to do so let me ask you this were you average tempted to leave the art piece you found here or self it must have been i mean. have you ever had an impulse to just own that masterpiece have it for yourself of course i had it because so my wallet was stolen and i recovered it and before handing it over i wanted to put it on my wall for one night i thought it was $25000000.00 worth put it down turns out it is worth $70000000.00 this because oh so i headed there on my wall and i was looking at it and i thought. it was a little bit tempting to keep it but i'm not like that you cannot do it is not working to recover stolen off but of course you can imagine when you are watching

such because so at your wall that you think. well i could retire if i would like to . it's tempting but i will never fall for it never say never i'm just getting so obvious so aren't. objects so are they are there are too easy to take care of and i handle painting handling pig tainting is require very good care we have to keep them at the right temperature the packaging statues came in pretty big and have we end with a well known artist or in this things could be more or less easily recognizable hollo to the move such delicate cargo around it's horrible it's really horrible when you look at a painting a picasso in a museum you see a beautiful painting they see. the dollar bill of $10000000.00 euros or whatever so sometimes they cut it out of the frame they will adopt the wrong side it's always

the wrong side and they move it in the trunk of a car they hide it in in a wounds. or under the bed of course. mother who has a very high temperature in a home so is horrible and that's disappoint normally when our thesis break into museum they still are out and the next day they think they can sell it to somebody but you cannot sell stolen art everybody knows the piece so then mostly they destroy it but in some cases they don't and they start to use it as a payment in the criminal underworld but even then after 5 or 10 years the painting falls thoughts because it's not stored will there was a very well known case a kind of odd showed it was stolen in 69 in. sicily a very important painting and somebody from the mafia just said a few years ago that they had stored stored it in a ball. and when they wanted to pick it up it was gone because tourists had eaten

it so we are not talking here with about museum curators we're talking here about. people who treat a car better than a piece or ought to have as well as the piece of art for them is just money and nothing else they doesn't represent any other values and he had a case once where the fake lack had where you prove that an artifact thought to be thousands of years old busy was a forgery now alas it has to certificates from all the bast laps is it a one of a kind case or can afford to be so good that even experts take it for a real deal it's absolutely more common than rare 30 percent on the market this fake either is complete fake or they have messed messed with it's this all make heads as you said all the lever tories in the world and all the experts had declared it to be 3000 years old they had put a value of 15000000 euros on it and then i found pictures of somebody

covering this head and as you know 3000 years ago. no pictures you could not take a picture of how this meant that the head was. new so that showed that all these experts and all these lever authorities they try to do their best but the forgers are quite good and sometimes day. the experts busy you can buy as an expert some of the time so that makes it even more complicated the forces are very good and on the other hand who can you trust in the art world because if you can sell a piece for $15000000.00. you don't ask yourself too much questions is it real or not you can make 50000000 dollars so that's a big problem in the art world all right do you prefer to deal with the high

profile cases finding big names are like researching for a less known but still high valley are or explore why then for pick asses and bottle chalice well it depends busy i found back to visit caught stone will you have stolen from a church in spain world heritage and not many people know about that the physical arts but when you start to read about it and. it's that was really dumb brown story in there was stolen from a church that dated from the 7th century the church was forgotten 4th out more than a 1000 years and it was rediscovered in 1021 so it was a time capsule so when you start to read about antiquities of odds every piece has its own beauty some people prefer because of above rembrandt or whatever but there was always a story attached to it there was always a history when you read about it every pieces is beautiful i can tell you $11.00

example there was this porcelain service which i'm normally not interested in that was stolen in world war 2 from a jewish family and i we trace it in the collection of the royal dutch family which was quite a big scandal. and no money i was not interested in parcel in but when you start to search such a beautiful piece and you find it and you read about it it becomes something. museum i look 1st at the fossil and. right after the way i take a short break right now a little while back we'll continue talking to arthur brandt art detective and historian about the dark side of the art market stay with.

this and petersburg international economic forum is a unique event in today's business world. over the last 21 years the forum has become a leading global platform for discussing the key economic issues facing russia emerging markets and the world thousands of business community members attend the forum to address today's vital issues. watch our special forum coverage on r.t.

. we're back with our saran architected know a nasty indiana jail in the last hour it's talking about the shadow art market so i just recently found an actual castle stolen ears ago from a saudi shape's yacht and say you heard the rumors of the painting being used as a collateral and it dutch underworld then got in touch with the people all that's over there and basically had it delivered right to your home but why would they just do that i mean drop it for free you must see it like this in many cases when

it's stolen is being used in the underworld as a payment so one criminal owes another criminal money and he keeps him a painting a picasso and says this because it was from my grandma though it's very beautiful. i'm going to going to bring you the money in a month but they don't come so disguised things i have this because so then he starts to sell it and people tell him to stoughton. so then he do so same tricks with the next criminal and it goes around and around in a vault and sometimes when i know who has it at a certain moment i approach them. they come for a fuse i tell them look. this because so is stolen i know you have it i know you are not a thief you had nothing to do with the theft. and we have the might be a way to wait with the op but what might have been my question is if this is like a well known technique where people just gave paintings

a collateral instead of money and then he'd figure out it's stolen and the one who owns the money never comes back with money and it's a it's a common thing you're saying so criminals must be aware of that so why is it still like a thing of paying off if you know that you can't sell that painting and if you know that probably they're giving you the painting and the money will never follow yeah well in some cases one criminal can or paid you're a criminal so the other criminals well then give me because whatever anything better than. no money so there are a lot of reasons why. this is being accepted as a payment in the not only in the underworld also in some legal deals. used as payments of course not stolen paintings but they're being used as payment so is there are people who have a nice all this collection to go to a bank and are for a loan. for this for this so it's painting statues are

commonly used. to get money for a loan or whatever or spaceman's and deal in the world has adopted that and also does this. follow does this thing how they did it so the picasso you found. is really to have changed up to 20 owners before you recovered it in cases one artworks are tracked after decades of disappearances it was impossible to define who had stolen them in the 1st place. no and that's one of the reasons why i think we in holland are quite successful the dutch police because you know after 2 years of 5 years or 10 years the piece has been changed hands so many times that the current owner has no idea he might know who gave it to him but it could also be an unknown criminal group so you never come back to the previous the original thieves

so forget about debts what we did in holland is after a certain period of time let's focus on the arts to recover the art and not go after the thieves and don't forget in most cases this art is stolen without anybody get murdered or anybody get harmed is it's quite like a. normal burglary only dead in this case they don't steal your television they steal a because of but officially it's just a burglary so after a couple of years 10 or 20 years it's not about getting the thieves you'll never get them probably the statute of limitation has ended so you cannot even prosecute them so then the focus should be get the art back and especially because these guys carry these around in the trunk of the cars so. you have to hurry to get this back at all because if not it's. so in $28.00 in the united

nations warned that isis was doing some industrial scale looting in iraq in syria and the general concern is that the stolen artifacts could soon surface whether on the black market or even legitimate auction houses did you encounter any objects of this kind in your work or are they easier to smugglers to these is for smugglers to get in. absolutely i was wanting for this already in 2006 when i wrote a book and i already mentioned it nobody took it serious but now it's quite serious they call it blood on ticks the problem is these. these groups like the taliban al qaeda and i says they. conquer a certain area which is full of treasures so days start to dig and sell these treasures on the black market and they use that money for funding funding though attacks and the problem is this the greek face for example is not that they are

only found in greece because 2000 years ago greece was an empire they traded with everybody so the greeks face that is found for example in syria or greek statue which might come from ices it's very hard to prove that this greek face comes from syria and not from let's say greece or italy so dela lot of ways for these people to falsify paperwork etc so that it comes on a market legitimate and people buy it's museums have bought it in the post you can find at auction houses you can find. deals we made a few documentaries about that with hidden camera and some of these of the less confessed that these pieces came. recently from let's say afghani stumm so dead is a quite a big trades and busy it says because they used these beautiful busy treasures

from the beginning of civilization from 234000 years old they use it to phones to destroy civilization so how sad is that so you actually had a case oh stolen artifacts to to stones relieved from the church known as sundown muddy and the ladder that you returned in this case that saved couldn't sell their release. for what they were so they sell them as garden ornaments could they walk into their own artifacts also are now being sold as some exotic nothings like how hard would it be to. actually tracked them down someone garden friends very hot because there was a difference between the case you just mentioned this physical at will us from spain believe they were world heritage there were known pictures existent so they could not sell it anymore for what it was they sold it as god anonymous but with the stuff that is coming from the soil in let's say syria these pieces have been in

the soil for 2000 years no pictures exists so nobody knows that they have been just on earth at let's say last year so dispy pieces come to the markets let's say in germany they put a paper. there touch a paper 2 is in which is stated displease belongs to an old english noble family. 50 years ago and they sold it in 1982 with the current oh no so then people think this piece is legit it's not stolen recently from syria so. it's quite easy it's very difficult for the police to prove that a certain piece which is now being offered at an auction house. was recently illegally excavated in syria it's very very difficult back in 215 you were

working on the recovery of 24 paintings from ukraine now the museum that the paintings were stolen from offered the creative side at home percent fine or city but they expected to have to or some attacks fell apart back then and only 5 out of $24.00 paintings were returned i mean how often does the money issue get in a way of bringing the stolen art back what happens with art works in this case. well in many cases you know in this case to ukrainian military who have. in their possession and the ukrainian secret service that was involved to. let's say 20 people have possession of these stolen paintings out of the netherlands so what happens these people. negotiate with these paintings and they blow it up they say these paintings are worth $5000000.00 and the next $810000000.00 and then the $50000000.00 in their minds so they spend this $50000000.00 already amongst each

other and i come to negotiate on the set look we're not talking about here about 50000000 but about half a 1000000. so they don't say oh well you have them though then they can piss they start to show to start to tretton you so money always come comes in the way of these cases unfortunately people always think that when they steal money they can make money but in most cases so let me ask you something you are saying that you don't make much money out of this trade i'm actually really surprised that you're not like super rich you deal with artifacts that cost tens and hundreds of millions of dollars i mean how come there's no money in it for you well i owe my money without of things i advice ought collectors has said 30 percent only of market is fake i that's my job i help jewish families to recover stolen and well for too i

write books i give lectures that's where i make my money and these big cases that make headlines all over the world. it's not that's not about money i'm normally don't get paid maybe an hourly rates and that's because. i don't they were stolen from somebody else i am not entitled if there was a reward i'm not entitled to the reward it's not me who is the current owner of the previous owner so those stories. there are for example many cases ended in the dutch case of the dutch museum you just talked about which turned up and in the ukraine these stolen paintings they were not insured. the dutch museum was not very much is a small museum so when they ask me to do it they pay me an hourly rates and i'm happy with that and when i sometimes go because for all my wall what $70000000.04 nights it gives enough satisfaction that i'm not dying from hunger or something like that or i make an error or

a sharing only because i was worried for you anyway it's been a really wonderful interview thank you so much for this inside it's such an interesting topic good luck with everything we're talking to our survey and our tax haven historian discussing his most famous cases and the shady ways of the underworld art market that's it for this edition of said think i'll see you next. survival guide next a single malt to start. better all the. good

repatriations get arrested 7 years. bill of the federal treasury for. is donald trump's national security advisor john bolton a clear and present danger to america and the world to saber rattling in the middle east particularly against iran should concern us all we are forced to ask a fundamental question is bolton the primary architect of trump's damn policies. this footage is unique because there's only a tribal lands a normally off limits to the public erik's allowed in because he's this is his personal doctor. people here know him simply is dr eric he's rich famous some always on the move saving yachts and flying aircraft that.

he's considered one of the best neurosurgeons in brazil. that's happening. our sosa's going to busy doing nothing is going to do the population nothing is going to keep people on. the los service are allowed out. d.v.d.'s.

the world's chemical weapons watchdog is accused of ignoring leaks to ags birds assessment of last year's chemical in. which contradicts the bodies final plan to. drive from the sea for me to intelligence teams question 3 journalists. don't seem to be telling the weapon in yemeni conflict. and facebook takes found hundreds of counseling to an israeli able to my basement and legibly behind a smooth political influence campaign.