RUINS IN RUINS: Pueblo Indian ruins near Blanding, Utah, the town where an FBI sting took place last week.
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Last week, federal agents swooped in on 23 of the 24 people indicted on charges of stealing archaeological artifacts from public land and Indian reservations in the Southwest. But after a 60-year-old physician committed suicide over the weekend, Utah senators are saying the raid was overkill.
The arrests were made following a two-year operation codenamed “Cerberus Action,” after the multi-headed dog in Greek mythology that guards the underworld. The case involves 256 Native American artifacts including woven baskets, pots, sandals, and an ax, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation values at $335,685. Defendants were charged with violations of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA), which prohibits the excavation and sale of artifacts from public land or Indian land, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which requires items retrieved from burial sites and other sacred objects to be returned to Indian tribes.
Throughout the Four Corners region where the operation was centered, the University of Utah once paid locals $2 for an ancient pot, and the artifact-collecting mentality never seems to have faded. “I’m guilty of arrowhead collecting,” 60-year-old defendant and Moab, Utah, resident Brent Bullock told ScientificAmerican.com, “as is two-thirds of this town.”
Bullock, a former oil worker on disability who lives with his wife, is ticked off about finding himself in the spotlight. And he's not alone in complaining about a raid that also hit Durango, Colo., and Blanding, Utah. One sheriff has called the feds’ tactics “heavy-handed,” and on Sunday Utah senators Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett demanded a Congressional investigation of the raids that included 300 federal agents, including a SWAT team.
The sting began in October 2006, when the FBI recruited a longtime dealer in archaeological artifacts, whose name has not been revealed, to purchase artifacts under video and audio surveillance. The challenge was not only to purchase artifacts, but to have the seller admit their provenance on public land. Melody Rydalch, the U.S. Attorney spokeswoman in Utah, would not comment on whether their "confidential source" had been implicated in previous crimes, but that is often the way agents recruit sources.
According to one affidavit, on December 11, 2007, the FBI’s dealer visited the house of a 55-year-old high school math teacher named David Lacy. Lacy’s home was filled with “hundreds of illegal artifacts,” and Lacy sold the dealer $11,200 worth, including a blanket made of turkey feathers and yucca leaves. But before the purchase was complete, the dealer pulled out a map of public land, and Lacy pointed at the spot where the blanket was retrieved. Then, the FBI’s dealer requested that Lacy sign a document, called a Letter of Provenance, indicating that the items were actually found on private property.
Bullock has a similar tale. According to court records, on July 26, 2007, he tried to sell a blanket fragment, fireboard, and stone hoe known as a Tchamahia. In a phone interview, he said that, like Lacy, he was also asked to identify the spot where the items were obtained and he subsequently signed a Letter of Provenance. He says agents later showed up at his house, placed his arrowheads and other artifacts in bags, and photographed them although they did not have permission to seize his or any other artifacts yet. “They ripped this place apart,” he says. “This town is all stirred up.”
Although Archaeology magazine has attributed a spate of looting in the Southwest to methamphetamine users, only two defendants had records of drug possession. Over the weekend, James Redd, a 60-year-old physician who has previously been caught trespassing on Native American burial sites, committed suicide. For the most part, however, many of the defendants, who ranged in age from 27 to 78, were like Bullock and appear to have clean records, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
But federal agents dispute the notion that those arrested were mere hobbyists, and professional archaeologists are pleased the artifacts could one day be placed in public collections. That’s no consolation for Bullock who could be looking at jail time for five felonies. “I’ve been treated like a felon, and I hope I’m not a felon,” he says. “I made the wrong decision.”
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12 Comments
Add CommentDoes anyone consider the fact that these "artifacts" do not belong to either those private citizens who have stolen them or a museum? When will we acknowledge native peoples of this hemisphere as people rather than "other". These items, especially those of a religious nature, belong to the descendants of those who live on these lands.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course people are complaining about being treated like a felon. Grand theft is a felony. Stealing from public lands or worse - lands that belong to the Native Americans IS a felony. Cry me a river thieves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's always interesting when crooks are caught and exposed. The "better off" tend to make excuses and use their political connections to avoid getting a record. Those of the "right" wave the flag of government overstepping poor honest citizens who just made a little mistake.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGrave robbers are thugs and cheats of the worst sort of human flotsome--------hang um high!
pot hunters are the scum of the earth. the information that could have been learned from the sites the bulldozed or dug are lost forever. thats what at stake here. these laws have been in effect for a long time everyone knows them that are busted. i agree swat teams might have been overkill but then maybe not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe land is your's or you don't have squawt,but the gods might think otherwise,this should interesting, perhaps the proof of the god's.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe way to break the commercial cycle in artifacts, products of endangered species, and so on (for that matter, illicit drugs, too) is simply to decriminalize fraud in the sale of those materials. When somebody pays a large sum for an object, finds out it's counterfeit, and has NO recourse of any kind, the market value of those goods ought to take a nose dive. Of course, museums will have to play by the same rules.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMade a wrong decision? WTF? Bullock was charged with 5 counts, that means he was CAUGHT 5 time stealing artifacts. He went on another persons property and took things that were not his. How is that different just because it is stuff that is outdoors? Does that mean I can go to his house and take his car 5 TIMES and not get charged as a felon? Idiots, they all knew what they were doing was wrong. Orrin Hatch needs to STFU and let criminals be punished!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere was a similar raid in Blanding in 1986 ., so these people
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisknew about the laws stating that artifact collecting on Federal Land is illegal . There is no excuse for their actions . I do not blame the FBI for going in with guns drawn . Most of the locals own guns and might have used them if they felt threatened .
Many of the people arrested are from well-known local familes ;
I will be interested to see if they receive jail time !
Where do these people get off going onto property that is not theirs and taking artifacts that do not belong to them?? I have an avid interest in ancient American history, and stories like this make my blood boil! STEALING IS ILLEGAL, and cases like this are compounded by the tragedy that history itself is being abused and destroyed. THOW THE BOOK AT THEM!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere do these people get off going onto property that is not theirs and taking artifacts that do not belong to them?? I have an avid interest in ancient American history, and stories like this make my blood boil! STEALING IS ILLEGAL, and cases like this are compounded by the tragedy that history itself is being abused and destroyed. THOW THE BOOK AT THEM!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes they know it is illegal, Yet they risk all to do so, WHY, it is not about the money like most think.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYet it is still looked at as for the money, Which is why they puny numbers in busting actual looters. Since the laws have been on the books, so few have been busted, so many archeology sites have been damaged or destroyed.
It is about time they look a lot closer at the looter, like in a behavior profile of them. A pattern exists, therefore a behavior exists!
It makes sense that the artifacts should actually be the property of the native culture rather than private collectors or anglo museums. If not that, it is hard to imagine who they belong to.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe people in Blanding who were "targeted," good folks all no doubt, obviously have problems with respect, if it isn't about respecting their own rights. Too bad, so sad, pay the fine and walk.