Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures
by: Robert K. Wittman (0)
In Priceless, Robert K. Wittman, the founder of the FBI’s Art Crime Team, pulls back the curtain on his remarkable career for the first time, offering a real-life international thriller to rival The Thomas Crown Affair.
Rising from humble roots as the son of an antique dealer, Wittman built a twenty-year career that was nothing short of extraordinary. He went undercover, usually unarmed, to catch art thieves, scammers, and black market traders in Paris and Philadelphia, Rio and Santa Fe, Miami and Madrid.
In this page-turning memoir, Wittman fascinates with the stories behind his recoveries of priceless art and antiquities: The golden armor of an ancient Peruvian warrior king. The Rodin sculpture that inspired the Impressionist movement. The headdress Geronimo wore at his final Pow-Wow. The rare Civil War battle flag carried into battle by one of the nation’s first African-American regiments.
The breadth of Wittman’s exploits is unmatched: He traveled the world to rescue paintings by Rockwell and Rembrandt, Pissarro, Monet and Picasso, often working undercover overseas at the whim of foreign governments. Closer to home, he recovered an original copy of the Bill of Rights and cracked the scam that rocked the PBS series Antiques Roadshow.
By the FBI’s accounting, Wittman saved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art and antiquities. He says the statistic isn’t important. After all, who’s to say what is worth more --a Rembrandt self-portrait or an American flag carried into battle? They're both priceless.
The art thieves and scammers Wittman caught run the gamut from rich to poor, smart to foolish, organized criminals to desperate loners. The smuggler who brought him a looted 6th-century treasure turned out to be a high-ranking diplomat. The appraiser who stole countless heirlooms from war heroes’ descendants was a slick, aristocratic con man. The museum janitor who made off with locks of George Washington's hair just wanted to make a few extra bucks, figuring no one would miss what he’d filched.
In his final case, Wittman called on every bit of knowledge and experience in his arsenal to take on his greatest challenge: working undercover to track the vicious criminals behind what might be the most audacious art theft of all.
The Reviews
Robert Wittman, with aide of John Shiffman, weaves a very detailed memoir that is captivating and incredibly informative. This is a must read for anyone interested the FBI's development and interest in recovering stolen art over the decades.Often times people take jobs in the public sector, spend a lifetime providing service and then retire. Everyone can say they left a mark in their own field and implemented changes that made the job for the next person more fluid, simpler or more efficient, but not everyone can say what Wittman has done. Robert Wittman through good fortune and solid investigative work and 'proper salesmanship' in the field slowly built a career not only for himself but a place for others to hopefully follow.Bob Wittman, AKA Bob Clay, undercover Art Dealer for an 'unnamed client' with a hefty checkbook, spent twenty years chasing down leads, setting up meetings in out-of-the-way darkened places, stings and apprehending a long list of people who ventured into Art Crime. Some were dangerous, others were probably more vacuous and obnoxious than dangerous, but still trouble all the same.The best part of the story that unfolds is learning that at one point the FBI gave Bob the leeway needed to see these cases through, recapture lost art and artifacts and take the lead with other Agents to generate success recovering paintings, lost swords, stolen battleflags and other antiquities. The worst part is learning by the end of the book that, like with all bureaucracies who become obsessed with core issues, the FBI supposedly lost interest in drafting a line item budget in their annual reserve policies for Bob's Art Crime Department. Perhaps if more money had been spent on the West Coast, Marion True would've been shut down years prior over at the Getty Center in Los Angeles … but that's another story.In reading the reviews, yes, I always do … I can see that Bob is unfairly taking a lot of flak for a portion of his writing style. Some readers come away a little turned off by what appears to be an oversized ego, but the truth is that when you're the first person to do something, anything you say is likely to come off that way. While Bob wasn't necessarily the first person to come along and do what he did with the FBI, he was likely the first to make a distinguished career out of it, go undercover and build an interest with FBI so they would create entire Departments which then made it able to frame the FBI in a favourable light for the recoveries. Bob Wittman does write a lot of “I did this” and “I did that” sentences, but having to protect other agents parts in cases is a part of it and the material should be read with such consideration.Some people never see the value in history or in art, but will quickly sign the permission slip to let their kids visit a museum for a field trip outing with their elementary school. Common sense can skip a generation (sometimes two) and that's okay. A good number of people understand the significance of what art and antiquities hold, and what it means about our own past.Bob Wittman's narrative of his case files make for good reading, thoughtful consideration and a warning to ne'er-do-wells who think ripping priceless art off the walls of sleepy half-forgotten museums can be profitable. Nine times out of ten you're likely going to be reselling the works to an undercover agent. So, the real lesson is clear – unless you're going to hang the stuff in your own two story home to look at and tell your neighbors it's a fake, decade after decade – don't even think about it.Five Stars. Many thanks to the author for a lifetime of dedicated service as well.
I liked this book for several reasons.1) the authors didn't just write about the theft of paintings, but also of artifacts such as an American Indian headress and historically important Civil War relics.2) not only did they write about the actual crime, but gave important backstory information about each theft and the players involved.3) while Wittman created, promoted and worked as the FBI's art theft division lead, he relates the struggles to keep it vital and working through his tenure touching on the evolution of the bureaucratic mess it has become.4) the Gardner theft case is the underlying theft case in the story, and the authors provide updates on the years of repeated attempts to locate the paintings to no avail.I encourage anyone interested in reading about art crime to give this book a read.
I really liked Robert Wittman and John Shiffman's account of Bob's life as FBI agent dealing in stolen art because it is down-to-earth, easy read and, for me, a page turner. One can only admire Bob's dedication and frustration at how the bureaucracy of the FBI often stopped him from doing his job, especially in regaining the paintings stolen from the Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. I used to live in Boston, visited the museum often, and, after looking up the stolen paintings on the internet, remembered viewing them. What a shame that he came so close to recovering such priceless art.
I don't normally write reviews, but this book is worth a special mention. I like learning new information in an entertaining way. This book fulfills that need. We learn about the history of the artifacts that Mr. Wittman went undercover to try to recover, along with the techniques necessary to catch the bad guys. The story takes us to exotic locales and we meet fascinating characters along the way.I think it would enhance the book if it were illustrated. It would be easy to add pictures of the stolen items that Mr. Wittman tried to recover.If you enjoy art history or true crime stories, I recommend that you read this book!
Mysterious thieves vs. detectives is most fascinating theme for juvenile novels. There is no violence in those books and parents encouraged us to read them. As a chilled, I was very busy in solving the riddles brought up by jewel robbers, who declare their projects in advance, together with embarrassed investigators in the books. Reading "Priceless," we know present-day artifact detectives are not quite different from many office workers. Only difference is they have to prepare for the sadden danger always. Pursuers have to challenge against so many obstacles like bureaucracies, turf-wars and score oriented supervisors. Sometimes Robert K. Wittman has to resign the long time warming project itself to follow an order from his superiors. He confesses "the Rembrandt might be priceless, but it wasn't worth my life." So he calls his wife even when his undercover situation, caring about his families. Nevertheless, his earnest of getting back priceless artifacts to the public communicates itself to us.This book also teach us some of American history, such as Lincoln initially declined to enlist black soldiers and barred them from carrying weapons at the Civil War, which is not familiar with non-natives. Also we could deepen our knowledge on unique arrangements of Barns collection together with the current activity of the Barns foundation.We could understand the facts so many Americans still have special feeling toward the Independence War and the Civil War. And there exist many people with strong desire to posses the memorabilia of those era. The chapter of the con artist appraisers seeking a chance to fake a segment on TV for furthering a scheme to defraud collectors turns my head to the Japanese situation. TV program similar with "Antiques Roadshow," titled "Nandemo-Kanteidan, or Appraisers Legion who appraise anything you bring in," has big popularity for nearly 20 years here in Japan. I hope Japanese appraisers aren't infested with this con artist disease.Personally I was drowned to the progress of the Gardner case as I visited there in June, 2008. I took out the museum guidebook and reread the Dutch room section. It is most regrettable event Wittman has to leave the FBI without solving the case. I hope his successor is still working on this case and advancing their steps to the settlement.
This is in general a well-written book, that is as far as I can ascertain, true. It is from a retired FBI agent, their only art specialist (when he retired). Art crime is different than almost any other crime. It's only comparison is kidnapping. The aim in both is the recovery of the art (person) first, with prosecution a secondary consideration.The FBI does not spend a lot of time or resources on art crime - people are not hurt (generally) in the commission of the crime, it generally takes a lot of time to solve the cases, and it is not glamorous, until the recovery is made. So, for the past 20-40 years (time is one of the reasons I only gave it a 4 instead of a 5 rating, as the passing of time is rather nebulous in this book) the FBI has only had one art crime specialist in the country.One of the main themes to come out of this book is that there needs to be reorganization of the FBI for a handful of situations. In the FBI, the SAIC (Special Agent In Charge) of an area is in charge of EVERYTHING that happens in his area. In most cases, this is great. But when an FBI office has to call in or deal with one of their specialists like art theft specialist Bob Whitman, he then works for that SAIC, not his home one. And that often causes problems. One of the largest art cases went unsolved largely because the SAIC of one office insisted he know more about how to solve the case than the art crime specialist who had spent 15 years on the case, getting to know every little nuance of the crooks and art crime world. In other words, hundreds of millions of one-of-a-kind art is not available for anyone to see because of the inflated ego of the SAIC. And keep in mind that sometimes art thieves have destroyed pieces so their is little or no evidence against them if they are caught. Keep in mind that Rembrandt and DaVinci are retired and not doing much painting anymore, so originals are hard to replace.All-in-all, a good book that move along at a nice pace. I would give it 4.5 stars if I could.
