Probe of stolen art goes national

A federal investigation into looted Asian antiquities at Southland museums has broadened to include a prominent Chicago industrialist and art collector who purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of allegedly stolen artifacts from a Cerritos arts dealer.

On Thursday, the same day federal agents raided four Southern California museums suspected of displaying stolen art, authorities also searched the private museum of Barry MacLean, a trustee of the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago. The newly revealed allegations have significantly raised the stakes of the ongoing investigation, suggesting that a suspected network of illegal art dealers extended far beyond Southern California and included objects far more valuable than those previously revealed.

The affidavit suggests that MacLean built his well-known art collection with substantial help from Robert Olson, an alleged smuggler of illicitly excavated Thai, Asian and Native American artifacts. Warrants authorized federal agents to seize Cambodian daggers and a sword, a bronze mask, many objects from Thailand's Ban Chiang culture and all records relating to MacLean's dealings with Olson.

The supporting evidence for the raid was collected by an undercover National Park Service agent who, while visiting MacLean's collection, shot photographs of certain objects.

In a phone interview Monday, Olson confirmed that MacLean was his biggest client, saying the Chicago collector purchased as much as $50,000 to $100,000 in Asian antiquities a year during the eight to 10 years they did business.

Olson said the objects he sold MacLean were recently excavated in Thailand and other Asian countries but denied that he or MacLean did anything illegal in buying them in the United States.

"I think everything he bought was legal," said Olson, 79, of Cerritos. "The people I got it from weren't doing the digging, they were buying from the diggers."

Federal authorities, however, say the transactions appeared to violate federal laws related to the import and trafficking of looted art. The affidavits cite instances of falsified import records and possible violations of the National Stolen Property Act, under which objects illegally removed from foreign countries can be treated as stolen property under U.S. law if certain conditions are met.