European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 9, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 14 stars and stripes july 2007 Art looting ebbs in for now by Ariel David the associated press Anguillara Italy it used to be so easy for the Italy Tomb Pietro Casasanta had no Indiana Jones Type escapes from angry natives or Boob trapped he worked Undis Turbed in Daylight with a posing As a construction worker to become one of Ita Lys most successful plunderers of archaeological when he want in the convicted looter operated for decades in this country Side area outside benefiting from what he says was lax surveillance that allowed him to dig into ancient roman Villas and unearth pottery and other artefacts which he then sold for millions of dollars on the illegal antiquities nobody and there was so much Money going he i always worked during the with the same hours As construction because at night it was easier to get noticed and to make Casasanta was the Prince of the and some of his finds Are but the Tom Baroli Are police and prosecutors be Lieve they Are beginning to see results in efforts to combat the traffic of stolen or illegally excavated antiquities which they say made their Way to the worlds top museums and Giovanni who Heads the Art squad with the Italy paramilitary said that in 2006 his unit discovered fewer than 40 illegal in the late 1990s that Fig ure could soar to More than a although there is certainly a number of illegal digs that dont come to this is a significant Mistri increased monitoring of archaeological Sites has landed diggers like Casasanta in International probes have led to the seizure of treasure filled warehouses in and Italy has been pressuring some museums to return it has put the former curator of los Ange Les Paul Getty Marion and Art dealer Robert on trial in Rome Over allegations of knowingly receiving Doz ens of archaeological treasures that were smuggled out despite Laws making All antique i archaeology is a sickness once you feel the Beauty and fascination of an ancient Marble youre its like falling in love with a its w Pietro Casasanta ties found in Italy state the two americans deny new Yorks metropolitan museum of Art and Bostons museum of Fine arts have agreed to return antiquities including statues and Silver artefacts from roman and etruscan times in Exchange for Lon term Loans of other Over the last years the crackdown has been Felt on the Legal Art with buyers concentrating More on objects coming from Pri vate collections or other legitimate said Mieke chairwoman of the International association of dealers of ancient Art based in Zilverberg noted that the blame for the loot ing rests also with authorities who didst Moni Tor what was happening in their own archaeological Back for years they let it go and had no control Over the illegal Only now they Are aware of what happened in the past and Are getting it under she Casasanta agrees that his fellow Tomb raid ers have fallen on hard there Are no More Young re its become More difficult to dig and to the whole network of merchants has Digap he said at his Home town of Anguillara North of when Casasanta started out in the 1950s he would sell his finds at tiny stalls that openly dealt in antiquities on the streets of too poor to get an he used part of his earnings to buy second hand books about fueling his growing the son of a Casasanta first got interested in ancient relics at As he accompanied a Surveyor on outings in the Countryside around an an area Rich in Etrus can and roman As he surveyed the pieces of pottery and sculpture brought up by the plow caught his this revealed to me that underneath there was another Casasanta archaeology is a once you feel the Beauty and fascination of an ancient mar ble youre its like falling in love with a if s Hope he soon developed a keen Eye for promising when i dig i often know before hand what i will because i have Learned to read the he for example if you see Brambles growing tall and Yellowish you know the roots Are leaning on buried Casasanta targets were usually roman on which he worked with a Bulldozer and a couple of at such Sites he uncovered statues of emperors and As Well As what he considers his greatest find a Ivory mask representing the greek divinity he unearthed the statue in 1994 and sold it to a German based although Casas Anta maintains he was cheated and received less than a tenth of the million agreed in he reported the dealer to authorities and italian police ultimately recovered the mask in London in it is now Dis played in Romes National roman the former Raider said he has spent about nine years in jail and on always re turning easily to his old habits in years when italian police had fewer resources for the Protection of cultural in the highest profile he was caught in 1992 when one of his workers turned him in following the stunning discovery of the Capitoline a statue depicting Juno and Casasanta made millions on the illegal mar although he wont say exactly How but lost most of his Fortune to gambling and police facing Large Legal Casasanta retired with his wife in which juts out into the Waters of Lake Many townspeople address him admiringly As pro fess re when they find him Chai smoking at a cafe table along the Lake now ailing and leaning heavily on a Casasanta insists he Only dug up trea sures in areas that were threatened by development projects that would have destroyed the ancient but Paolo the prosecutor in the True said the to Baroli Are a threat to Italy cultural heritage not Only because their finds disappear but also because their dig Ging methods Are often brutal and Casasanta feels like a and its that he has made except ional discover he but the to Baroli dig in search of a specific the most important they take that one destroy the former Tomb Raider Pietro Casasanta Points out a spot near the ruins of a roman Palace in Anguillara Luis Reyes Enriquez crackdown in Mexico nets a main hit Man los Angeles times Mexico City Luis Reyes Enriquez was lying on the bed of a hotel room in a provincial town when Federal troops came for the arrest of a Leader in Mexico City of the band of hit men known As the was the latest in a series of blows in recent weeks to the organization born in the late 1990s when the Gulf car Tel of drug traffickers began recruiting mexican army is himself an army de As Well As a former Federal police officer who once was As signed to work in the attorney generals since taking office in Decem president Felipe Calderon has declared an aggressive War on drugs and has deployed thou Sands of Federal troops through out several mexican during the first seven months of his authorities have arrested five Zeta another Zeta was killed in an am Bush with the groups Leader and Osiel has been extradited to face drug trafficking charges in the United three years the mexican attorney generals office had 44 members of the zetas on its mos wanted As of with a growing number of zetas in Pris on or dead in gun Battles with authorities or rival the number had declined to analysts say Calderon crack along with a split in the Gulf is leading the zetas to seek new avenues of such As kidnapping and there has been a Clear effect on the mexican drug which in turn has reduced the Cash flow of these criminal groups and forced them to diversify their said Erubiel a Security expert at the Ibe Roamer ican University All of a Sud Den there kidnapping business that when they put them selves More at risk of getting a kidnapping scheme led to the arrest this year of Nabor another Zeta known Asel was captured in april when Feder Al agents stormed a House in Ciudad Del Carmen in the Gulf state of Campeche looking for kid napping victims and after a Brief authorities rescued a prominent local Busi Nessman and arrested 19 to the Surprise of the kidnappers were being led by Al one of the most wanted criminals in Mexico and one of the first soldiers to desert and join the