FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting : update1

[lostcauses]

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_12561194
"For two years, someone close to a large network of archaeological looters in southeastern Utah was wired with an audio-visual recorder when buying ancient baby blankets, stone pipes, seed jars, digging sticks, pots, even a pre-Columbian menstrual pad.

This "Source," as he or she is identified in a search warrant affidavit unsealed Wednesday, is an insider who worked with U.S. Bureau of Land Management and FBI special agents to nab two dozen suspects in the theft and sale of more than 250 American Indian artifacts from the Four Corners area."

 

[lostcauses]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...TOL-?SITE=CODEN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Feds say artifact looting case likely to grow

By PAUL FOY and MIKE STARK
Associated Press Writers

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Federal authorities in charge of the nation's biggest bust of artifact looting and grave-robbing are targeting more suspects ranging from those who do the digging to wealthy buyers in the lucrative black market of ancient Southwest relics.

Twenty-five people have already been charged after a long-running sting operation involving a bounty of artifacts taken from federal and tribal lands in the Four Corners region.

More arrests are likely, according to federal officials. Among the next targets could be wealthy collectors who fuel the underground trade.

"It's fair to say the investigation is looking at all levels, from diggers and dealers to high-end collectors," said Carlie Christensen, an assistant U.S. attorney for Utah.

The case was the first to deeply penetrate the murky world of American Indian artifacts trafficking, relying on a well-connected artifacts dealer-turned-undercover operative.

The man was equipped to provide federal agents with wireless video feeds from homes and shops where he wheeled and dealed over artifacts, ultimately spending more than $335,000 on bowls, stone pipes, sandals, jars, pendants, necklaces and other items.

 

[lostcauses]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13011842

American Indian linked to relics case

" A New Mexico man of Indian descent had little trouble getting his hands on sacred Puebloan artifacts: He just walked onto reservations and bought bowls, Hopi kachina masks, Sun Dance skulls, eagle feathers, knives, pots and fetishes from tribal members.

Federal court papers filed in New Mexico say thousands of dollars' worth of those artifacts that Santa Fe resident Thomas "Tommy" Cavaliere is alleged to have sold to an undercover operative -- identified in Utah filings only as "the Source" -- ended up in the hands of federal authorities during a 2½-year undercover investigation of illegal artifacts trafficking across the Four Corners region.

The documents show how an investigation spread across four states after a former antiquities dealer offered his services in 2006 to the FBI in Utah, saying he wanted to infiltrate the worlds of amateur and professional collectors to curtail illegal trading. "

More can be read at link.

Note the web site mentioned in the story at the bottom of it.
http://www.schencksouthwest.com/indian.html

 

[lostcauses]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local News/Several--S-F--homes-searched-in-artifact-probe
State the name that may be the source. They were also one of the directors of the Authentic Artifact Collectors Association.
http://www.theaaca.com/aaca/index.php

Reading further, with this case, and the one in South Dakota they are now going with the sale of cultural (religious as in modern stuff) or burial goods even if disassociated from the grave.
Using NAGPRA If you don't know what could be burial goods, or cultural, as in ceremonial, or religious goods, don't purchase artifacts.

"SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.
For purposes of this Act, the term-
(1) "burial site" means any natural or prepared physical location, whether originally below, on, or above the surface of the earth, into which as a part of the death rite or ceremony of a culture, individual human remains are deposited.
(2) "cultural affiliation" means that there is a relationship of shared group identity which can be reasonably traced historically or prehistorically between a present day Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian
organization and an identifiable earlier group.
(3) "cultural items" means human remains and-
(A) "associated funerary objects" which shall mean objects that, as a part of the death rite or ceremony of a culture, are reasonably believed to have been placed with individual human remains either at the time of death or later, and both the human remains and
associated funerary objects are presently in the possession or control of a Federal agency or museum, except that other items exclusively made for burial purposes or to contain human remains shall be considered as associated funerary objects.
(B) "unassociated funerary objects" which shall mean objects that, as a part of the death rite or ceremony of a culture, are reasonably believed to have been placed with individual human remains either at the time of death or later, where the remains are not in the possession or control of the Federal agency or museum and the objects can be identified by a preponderance of the evidence as related to specific individuals or families or to known human remains or, by a preponderance of the evidence, as having been removed
from a specific burial site of an individual culturally affiliated with a particular Indian tribe,
(C) "sacred objects" which shall mean specific ceremonial objects which are needed by traditional Native American religious leaders for the practice of traditional Native American religions by their present
day adherents, and
(D) "cultural patrimony" which shall mean an object having ongoing historical, traditional, or cultural importance central to the Native American group or culture itself, rather than property owned by an
individual Native"

http://www.nps.gov/history/Nagpra/MANDATES/25USC3001etseq.htm

 

[SoIll]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

Sounds like they could get anyone for any artifact then. What hasn't been put in a grave?

 

[crow12c]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

authority's found 2 men face down with large locust needles rammed into their ears, their tounges were removed,(never found) their eyelids cut away, apon moving them they were shocked to find that they were also gutted and filled with the relics that they were trying to take from a site along the river bluffs. no one has ever been charged, nor has anyone returned to the site. If your grandfather lost his watch many years ago and I found it washed out into a feild, thats a good find. If I dig your grandfather's grave to take his watch, then I may end up with locust needles for ears.....

 

[Airborne80]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

Wow! I read things like this and am suddenly happy that most of what I post here is junk glass and geofacts according to many of you hahaha. I may need these transcripts for my defense some day! But really....... while I fully understand the law and think that its wrong to dig for artifacts and I never would do that.... it bothers me that if I am walking along a trail in a national forest and see a arrowhead laying on the trail.... I am supposed to just leave it. Who could do that?!!!! I mean.... come on man! If I pick it up, take it home, place it in a case where it is preserved with honor and dignity... I am a criminal? If I leave it there for the next kid to come along and throw it into a box with old keys and rocks and lost forever in a garage........ what a waste that is! If I carry it to the ranger station.... he will no doubt put it in a bigger box with the thousands that he finds on patrol. It just seems frustrating that a good person with good intentions who will protect and respect an item of antiquity that would otherwise never be seen by humans again..... is a bad guy!

As I have said before.......... I made a real promise to the Indian spirits that I would never sell or trade anything I find and that I would catalog, protect, honor and display their items with dignity and respect for as long as I live. I meant it. I will leave the few points that I have found to my kids (who share my respect )and they will maintain them with honor. i just think thats far better than having the points broken, lost, sold, or never seen again. I don't know. I just wish that the law made it clear that if you see a point on a trail.... you can keep it. If you turn the earth with a spade, your breaking the law. That makes more sense. This kind of news kind of depresses me about the whole thing.

 

[rginn]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

Indian spirits, cool. There are no Indian spirits here, and if there are, they are bad, since they have been confined to walking the earth in death, for whatever reason. Grave offerings have sentimental value, and we should respect that. A lost point is no different than a modern day lost pocketknife. You can scream all day long it's sacred, it's my culture, it's my religion, but when it gets down to it, it's not. It's either trash or something you lost. It gets down to ancestor worship, which the missionaries told us was wrong. Along with dancing.

 

[Airborne80]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

Indian spirits, cool. There are no Indian spirits here, and if there are, they are bad, since they have been confined to walking the earth in death, for whatever reason. Grave offerings have sentimental value, and we should respect that. A lost point is no different than a modern day lost pocketknife. You can scream all day long it's sacred, it's my culture, it's my religion, but when it gets down to it, it's not. It's either trash or something you lost. It gets down to ancestor worship, which the missionaries told us was wrong. Along with dancing.

No Indian spirits here but bad ones? Your belief, your right to have it.... I disagree. The part about the loost pocket knife? yea man...... that makes sense.

 

[crow12c]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

I would of loved to been there to see the look on the faces of the human beings when the missionarys got to the part in the bible bout the devil (bad) came to steal, kill and destroy........ could you imagine, apon understandin this what and WHO they would relate this to? LOL!!! had to been hard for those missionarys to try and devert that image away from themselves (as a race)

 

[uniface]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

I suspect that 90 % of this is 20th century agitprop that people of Indian descent are repeating because some slick agitators have sold the idea to them as if it were their own.

I got to hang out a couple times with a Shaman of the Susquehannock people who had grown up the old way. (It's a long story).

I asked him if his people had ever collected the relics that turned up in their gardens and fields. He thought for a minute to come up with some way of putting it and said, "When you're digging your garden and find an old bottle or a broken cup, do you save it like it's something special ? Well, that's what that stuff was to us. What would we want with a stone tomahawk or an arrowhead when we have steel hatchets and guns ?"

 

[lostcauses]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

Raids cast pall over dealing in antiquities
Seems all of this stuff is having more effect on the art market than the relic hunter.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local News/Raids-cast-pall-over-dealing-in-antiquities

 

[Tnmountains]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

Raids cast pall over dealing in antiquities
Seems all of this stuff is having more effect on the art market than the relic hunter.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local News/Raids-cast-pall-over-dealing-in-antiquities

That is the best article by far on how much the government has run loose and out of control.
Great read lostcauses. I liked it all a good report. This kinda stood out from the beginning....

Even Jim Baca, the Clinton administration's director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the chief agency involved in the two-year investigation, said he believes the recent raids went too far.

"If people are taking items from federal land, they're thieves," he said. "There's still a lot of this stuff going on. ... They were digging up dinosaur bones all over state trust lands when I was land commissioner. ... But the one thing I would say is I think (government agents) have to be a little more discreet on how these arrests are made. When they go in with SWAT teams and all this kind of stuff, that's over the top. It's just law enforcement out of control."

 

[lostcauses]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...TOL-?SITE=CODEN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...TOL-?SITE=CODEN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


Man enters not-guilty plea to artifacts-theft charges
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705324252/Indian-artifacts-case-progresses-slowly.html

"David Waite, one of many defendants in a wide-ranging federal case involving the alleged theft of Native American artifacts, was arraigned in U.S. District Court on Tuesday.

Waite entered not-guilty pleas to charges of trafficking in stolen artifacts, theft of stolen property and theft of government property, and he will be represented by a public defender."

 

[rginn]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

It's alright if you disagree, Airborne80. I would just feel punished if I died and I was confined to walking the aisles of Walmart. On the other hand, there is a possibility of a whole lot of fun to be had if my spirit was left here, you think? I try to believe in the government. I see that according to our laws what these folks did was wrong. I just believe it could have been handled differently. On the other hand, it has succeeded in drawing attention to artifact collecting and selling.

 

[lostcauses]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13158523

"Artifacts case: Indicted couple will turn over relics collection

A Colorado couple indicted along with 24 others in Utah as part of an investigation into illegal trafficking of ancient Puebloan artifacts has turned over an extensive relics collection to federal authorities, pending further legal action against them. "

 

[Airborne80]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

It's alright if you disagree, Airborne80. I would just feel punished if I died and I was confined to walking the aisles of Walmart. On the other hand, there is a possibility of a whole lot of fun to be had if my spirit was left here, you think? I try to believe in the government. I see that according to our laws what these folks did was wrong. I just believe it could have been handled differently. On the other hand, it has succeeded in drawing attention to artifact collecting and selling.

Hahahah. I hear you brother and your right... i would hate to be stuck on this planet for any reason. My beliefs about the afterlife and all are pretty complex and I wont bore you with them here. While I strive to earn my way off of this rock, I do belive that for whatever reason.... some do stay and/or return.... maybe to give it another go. The fun part of life is the not knowing. Not knowing makes anything possible. As for the case... yea man.... could have been handled better. Stay safe.

 

[lostcauses]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

http://www.sltrib.com/Utah/ci_13207440
"A 66-year-old Colorado man is the latest person charged in a far-reaching federal investigation into the looting of ancient Southwestern artifacts.

A federal grand jury in Denver indicted Robert B. Knowlton late Tuesday. The Grand Junction resident is charged with four counts of illegally selling archaeological artifacts and one count of transporting them from Colorado to Utah.

Knowlton is the 26th person charged as part of a federal investigation spanning more than two years in the Four Corners region. He's accused of selling and mailing three items last year taken from federal land: a pipe, a Midland point and a Hell Gap knife.

He hasn't been arrested. Federal officials say he'll get a summons to appear in federal court on Sept. 14.

Knowlton couldn't immediately be reached for comment Wednesday."


http://www.arrowheads.com/bobs/

 

[lostcauses]

Re: FBI charges 24 in American Indian artifact looting

Looks like this bust seems to be effecting Az also

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/08/27/20090827looters.html

"In Arizona, at least two prominent collectors have been subjected to raids, and others voluntarily forfeited artifact collections to a museum, sources confirm."

 

[lostcauses]

Recent events.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14498524
"Another artifacts case suicide? Source in artifacts case dead"

http://www.sltrib.com/News/ci_14634402
"Artifact cases proceed despite source's death"

 

[ivan salis]

ah a "approved" indain items local dealer --goes "underground" as a "agent" to stop "OTHERS" from illegally dealing in indain goods (depress's prices for "legal" items -- the "legal" dealers sells -- in other words --knock off your competitors . by acting as a "undercover agent" --once their back is broken --you can then charge much more for the "legal" items you sell (supply and demand 101) --and I'm sure he/ she did not work for "free" most likely some reward (part of the fines levied) or some means of fiscal profiet was paid --for "risk taken"

I'm not for "taking grave goods" from burial areas by ANYONE -- be they "professional" or not --to me its "grave robbery" (if needed to for "science"--take a dna sample ,photograph , data record and replace all items) -- I can and do believe that upon public land --it IS the publics right to find and collect non grave good objects and other fiscally valuible items so long as bulldozers and back hoes aren't used ---a small time collecter making a few bucks by finding surface or shallow finds and selling some items here and there is not the worse thing in the world -- so long as they do not let the GREED BUG bite them and make them cross the line into taking "grave goods" they should not be messed with -- however these folks clearly "crossed" that line --and for messing with the dead --often there is a "price to pay"