Australia Australia - Marion Barter - Missing After Trip to UK - June 1997 #22

[KathPlumber]

Back on the art theft

Self-publishing is also known as an act of vanity. So I can see this book as a lark spearheaded by RB, his daughter, and their Bali buddies. (a reader, a proofreader, a hostess, etc) This jives with criminals who can’t stand the world not knowing how smart they are. It also jives with the slowdown in RB's life, since he can't con women the way he used to. What to do with all that mad energy?

So yeah this was also a thought I had, especially since there was a bit of an air of privilege to these people in terms of where they have lived and been educated.

 

[KathPlumber]

Just wanted to come back to art theft for a bit. I went looking for a link in relation to a different case today, and came upon this article:

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/t...s-story/3bdc23e8f008648895250d2cad43c25c?amp#

It includes information about a guy called Julian Ratcliffe who tracks stolen art worldwide.

Radcliffe “has also recovered millions of dollars in stolen art and cultural works sent to Australia from the UK in shipping containers by criminal gangs.”

He runs The Art Loss Register (ALR) and his agency also tracks down expensive and sentimental items eg. medals and watches

He has worked on:

- theft of an expensive Rolex Submariner watch stolen from an Australian man while he was visiting Paris

- a criminal gang in Britain stealing art and antiques “on a huge scale” and smuggling container loads of it into Australia

- a collection of bronze statues stolen in a truck hijacking between Belgium and France that turned up in a Melbourne auction catalogue

- a rare kids Austin pedal car stolen in England, also found in Melbourne at auction

- an expensive porcelain collection shipped by the same bunch of criminals [as the above gang, I assume they mean]

So… this gang, hey?! Would love to know more, has this been covered here and I forgot? I know someone here was deep on gangs in the UK and Europe for a while there.

Separate case in the same article:

The 17th century Dutch masterpiece by Frans van Mieris, A Cavalier, was taken from the Art Gallery of New South Wales 16 years ago (article was written in 2023). Woman who wrote her phd on the painting said it was not known exactly when it was taken as CCTV was not working and the guards didn’t notice. Delay in notifying police (and in them responding, shock) gave thief plenty of time. However, a private detective received word that someone had tracked it down to northern NSW. No further info.

I also read today that Japan in the 90s was a big market for selling stolen fossils and other palaeontology artefacts due to them having different regulations about buying and selling things in this area.

It’s really hard to find good intel on stolen art and artefacts because galleries often don’t publicise that something has been taken lest it deter people from loaning them art for exhibitions, increase insurance costs or encourage the actions of other thieves.

I guess Joni et al would be all over this already?

 

[KathPlumber]

Btw not saying any of the above would be related, just that it’s always good to know of things that overlap thematically in case any more bits of intel emerge that make them go from a coincidence to something of actual note. IMO

 

[MrsEmmaPeel]

Lots of good food for thought, @KathPlumber. The 1980s-90s must have been rife with that kind of theft with no repercussions. I vaguely remember from that time reading about wealthy people abroad (I'm in US; Japan was mentioned and the Middle East) who would pay for treasures and didn't care where they came from. Not unlike the Brits who looted Greece and Italy. So there must have been a market, especially for small things like coins or things that could fit inside a tea chest. And Australia would have been so far way. Just transporting stolen goods to and from Australia formed a perfect smoke screen.

 

[Ooohm]

I have read of a billionaire cult leader in Japan who almost single-handedly drove up the prices of high-end Art in the 90s and into 2000s. Under his decades-long leadership the group has amassed many poorly maintained “community centres” dotted around the world. The whole religion was started from the beginning as a way to launder money. Buying Art at ridiculous amounts, running a religion at huge financial loss, making excuses for why the top brass is moving around the world and then building ludicrous events around these movements—-it all helps shift enormous sums of money. Quite mind-blowing. So AKA can assemble his own network and do something like this on a much reduced scale and I could see Marion’s Art disappearing into this criminal machine.

So if there is much much more money involved than what we even know about then Marion’s death has a crystal clear motive. But we don’t even know that right now, there is reason to believe there is a level of theft which the police are maybe/maybe not aware of MOO.

 

[Lord Peter Flimsy]

Just wonder what others thoughts are on his real reason to move to sleepy village Burwash in East Sussex for 3 years (1983 to 1986?) under the deH name?

We have MCs comments to the reporter about his criminal acquaintances in Europe and allegedly stealing from old properties in the UK.

We also have the suspicious neighbour from Burwash mentioned in The Australian. Remember the neighbour wondered whether his nighttime activities were something to do with drugs. The family soon hotfooted it back to Australia when she reported him to the Police (have Sussex Police ever been asked what they did with that report and any follow up?)

JMO the sofa business was a front to transport contraband across the English channel. Possibly using the sofas themselves to hide stolen items etc? There is no evidence he ever used the English Channel again. He took JO the long way round via Harwich in Essex.

I have mentioned drugs previously. Amsterdam is a well known route for criminal gangs dealing in drugs in Europe. Bali is another hub. The South East Coast of England is in the frontline of UK drug trafficking. Hastings has a major drug issue of its own disproportionate to its size. He has mentioned North Africa to one of his victims too. It does make you wonder.

 

[mishy66]

....
" Hastings has a major drug issue of its own disproportionate to its size. He has mentioned North Africa to one of his victims too. It does make you wonder."

We must be traveling the same path today @Lord Peter Flimsy


In regard to my previous post below - the Wouters o'Plint*** are back on the table for me.
Definite link to the family I mention below and the WdoP family mentioned some time back @Carovb5 - which of course includes South Africa ( not North as he says) - something really odd going on with this UK family and their extended family some of whom lived in NSW
He definitely knows this family or is related somehow - or DdeH is - too many areas the same where they lived in the UK
Wondering if SL team is all over this???? I hope so!

Yes, they are legit family from the UK
One of the sons PdeG did marry a girl from Bali - they lived in Bali for some time you could see on pages but now in UK
This PdeG did not write that ad - he was too young in 1994 and wasn't living in Corinda QLD

The family are linked to a man who we have sleuthed previously who owned a cash register business and Mauritius food business in WA - they are from Mauritius.
That man GdeG is the brother of Michele the artist from Northern NSW -

SOMEHOW there is a link to AH meeting this family and using the name in the advert in 1994 and also a link to this Bali Book - the book was published in Melton Mowbray - where the family from the UK live

 

[Ooohm]

Please correct me if I am wrong and I will edit. There must have been an established connection between them in the early 90s if Michele placed an advert for F Remakel (sp?) to get in touch with her (what year was that?) back then. He uses her family name in 1994 in an advert.

Then her family name or family publishing business is connected to the book about ex-pats living in Bali, in 2013 or so. And this book has similar sounding stories to what we know about AKA.

Just trying once again to get this timeline correct in my mind.

 

[mishy66]

Please correct me if I am wrong and I will edit. There must have been an established connection between them in the early 90s if Michele placed an advert for F Remakel (sp?) to get in touch with her (what year was that?) back then. He uses her family name in 1994 in an advert.

Then her family name or family publishing business is connected to the book about ex-pats living in Bali, in 2013 or so. And this book has similar sounding stories to what we know about AKA.

Just trying once again to get this timeline correct in my mind.

The UK PdeG would have been a child when that 1994 advert was published. And he was NOT living in Corinda, just a few suburbs over from the Chandler swimming pool that held ALL Swim meets for titles at that time, and still does.

The book was published 2017
"No connection"...atm, to the family other than the real PdeG who married the Bali bride lives in Melton, the same area book is published. Kind of ironic that the book is published there right. Melton +Bali. (The UK family dont own the publishing house)

(My line of thinking is the bride knows the real author of book and between the 2 families, the authors family and the UK deG they made a decision to write a book using his 2014 new alias of Blum to get square after he ripped them off - proof none- but thats what I'm going with)


If anyone else has found something different hopefully they will post up.

From what I can see the UK deG and the WA deG families are definitely related. Have mapped the families.
One leg of them lives in NSW

What is interesting though is theres something there about DdeH and this family. Im now wondering if this is a family she knows/ is related to and AH took advantage of that.

Its difficult because the deG family also changed their surnames as does diane/ Anne/ Annie/ diannes family as you move down the line.

It is DEFINITELY a very long family trait with various name changes.

 

[mishy66]

You know they read all this right?
The truth will always find a way DdeH.

 

[Newby171]

You know they read all this right?
The truth will always find a way DdeH.

I somehow hope LE read this

 

[Ooohm]

Oh criminal families always change their names, that seems to be a popular ploy.

Thing is, I went to apply for a new bank account the other day, one of the questions they asked was “Have you ever changed your name?” They asked me that repeatedly. So if there are people changing their names nowadays it really is quite the security flag. Once you get past the number one reason—marriage—it becomes more specious to them. Imagine having relatives caught up in some deeply criminal enterprise and getting heat from the community, then having to change your professional name to get some distance? Quite inconvenient and might even affect one’s career forever, because of all the records being kept now in so many crisscrossed ways. Not like in the 1990s where bits of paper could be altered in a backwater garage.

And like so many others, I just can’t understand how one person could apply for and receive so many passports, and travel over apparently borderless borders, how? That is such an abuse of Australia’s sense of fairness it isn’t funny. Not to mention the whole Centrelink rorte. And never being charged for ripping off so many women around the world??? Are there not a fair few Australians who have legitimate complaints about AKA? I’d imagine quite a few police officers/detectives would be privately fuming about AKA at this point. Not a good look for NSW police either.

I believe in the Art theft angle in this case and possibly provenance fraud because of AKA’s criminal skills. In which case DdH could plausibly be criminally involved for receiving or holding stolen items IMO.

 

[mishy66]

I believe in the Art theft angle in this case and possibly provenance fraud because of AKA’s criminal skills. In which case DdH could plausibly be criminally involved for receiving or holding stolen items IMO.

100% agree

Not to mention the necklace she had on at MdeH wedding, similar description to JO jewels

 

[Liselle]

100% agree

Not to mention the necklace she had on at MdeH wedding, similar description to JO jewels

That would be a excellent start if JO has already identified this item (or any others) as belonging to her and the police have already investigated! I think there was a contemporaneous report (at the time) done when she discovered her jewelry items missing.

 

[mishy66]

Opps

 

[KathPlumber]

Have been reading about the theft of paintings from the home of Samuel Smorgan in Toorak, Melbourne in 1988. Australia's painting thieves part of a much bigger picture

Today I learned that six of the paintings, which were found after the robbery in 1990 but which then went missing again for about six months [me: wtf?], were re-found in a police station locker at Armidale, in New South Wales. [me: of course.] The paintings were initially discovered by a cleaner near a bell tower at Mary's and Joseph's Cathedral in Armidale. The woman who found the paintings thought they were worthless and that they had been painted by school children. After being found, they lay unrecognised in a storeroom at the police station in Armidale before being rediscovered in 1990. Source:

The Age​

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Sat, 20 Jan 1990Page (paywalled Newspaper.com sorry)

Armidale hey.

The rot at the heart of NSW authorities at that time was like nothing else imo.

 

[mishy66]

NSW and QLD police have been corrupt for decades.
The very reason that MB case is still unsolved is testament to that facts that the NSW police at that time were beyond corrupt and that one of the leading investigators on this case may have indeed been related to one of the most corrupt police officers in history, spending the rest of his days in jail.

Sally L needs to be recognised as the one who has not stopped investigating her own mothers disappearance because without her, this case would never have been known about, the incompetence of the NSW police not recognised by a leading Coroner and a criminal not known to the world. It will be Sallys investigations that will bring him down, not the NSW police.

 

[VisitorDog]

NSW and QLD police have been corrupt for decades.
The very reason that MB case is still unsolved is testament to that facts that the NSW police at that time were beyond corrupt and that one of the leading investigators on this case may have indeed been related to one of the most corrupt police officers in history, spending the rest of his days in jail.

Sally L needs to be recognised as the one who has not stopped investigating her own mothers disappearance because without her, this case would never have been known about, the incompetence of the NSW police not recognised by a leading Coroner and a criminal not known to the world. It will be Sallys investigations that will bring him down, not the NSW police.

What gets me (among many other things) is that not only did they (police, immigration etc) make egregious mistakes over many years that allowed the alleged ‘reign’ to continue but that now, when it’s out in the open, they still can’t quite decide to prioritise it. The only reason it needs to be prioritised now, why it was even able to happen, was because of those earlier ‘mistakes.’ The unaccountability is astonishing. I wonder if they’re scared of what an actual competent investigation might show their ‘mistakes’ resulted in.

The continuance is what’s most egregious.

 

[mishy66]

What gets me (among many other things) is that not only did they (police, immigration etc) make egregious mistakes over many years that allowed the alleged ‘reign’ to continue but that now, when it’s out in the open, they still can’t quite decide to prioritise it. The only reason it needs to be prioritised now, why it was even able to happen, was because of those earlier ‘mistakes.’ The unaccountability is astonishing. I wonder if they’re scared of what an actual competent investigation might show their ‘mistakes’ resulted in.

The continuance is what’s most egregious.

I agree.
It would show just how incompetent they are in this case, and so many other missing persons cases. If its not their family they dont give a ship.
You just have to look at the NSW police representative at the inquest , when she continued to blame Sally. I mean that alone shows the mark of their appalling conduct.

Its like they are standing right beside one of the most dangerous monsters targeting women in this country alone, for decades, and potentially a murderer, and saying to the victims of his crime, its all your fault we arent helping you.

But the public will keep pushing for transparency and honesty until the authorities have no choice but to fully investigate.

I wouldn't be surprised after time there is a royal commission into the handling of all missing persons cases under the NSW policeforce.

SL sure has enough to bring some sort of change and justice for Marion in that area.
Not to mention a public apology from the NSW POLICE FORCE!

 

[VisitorDog]

I agree.
It would show just how incompetent they are in this case, and so many other missing persons cases. If its not their family they dont give a ship.
You just have to look at the NSW police representative at the inquest , when she continued to blame Sally. I mean that alone shows the mark of their appalling conduct.

Its like they are standing right beside one of the most dangerous monsters targeting women in this country alone, for decades, and potentially a murderer, and saying to the victims of his crime, its all your fault we arent helping you.

But the public will keep pushing for transparency and honesty until the authorities have no choice but to fully investigate.

I wouldn't be surprised after time there is a royal commission into the handling of all missing persons cases under the NSW policeforce.

SL sure has enough to bring some sort of change and justice for Marion in that area.
Not to mention a public apology from the NSW POLICE FORCE!

Absolutely all of this. It’s the arrogance of it too - astonishingly so.