Behind the Scenes of Art Crime Investigations: Randy Deaton’s Pursuit of Stolen Art

What drives someone to steal priceless art and cultural treasures? And how do investigators bring these works back to their rightful place?

In this episode of Fed Time Stories, hosts Dave Brant and John Gill sit down with Randy Deaton, a former FBI Supervisory Special Agent who spent years unraveling high-stakes art crimes. Randy shares stories of chasing down stolen masterpieces, exposing elaborate forgery schemes, and collaborating with international experts to recover cultural artifacts from across the globe. Tackling these crimes required not just investigative skills but also an insider’s grasp of the art world and its many complexities.

He also shares insights into the teamwork behind these operations. From coordinating with art historians to collaborating with international law enforcement, Randy explains how these cases depended on the collective expertise and persistence of everyone involved.

Randy’s career, which started off with a desire to be a Louisiana State Trooper, instead led to working high-profile art crime investigations, and highlights a fascinating and lesser-known side of law enforcement. It’s a look at how passion and precision come together to protect the world’s cultural heritage.

Fed Time Stories is brought to you by Kaseware, an investigative case management solution. Learn more at www.kaseware.com/fedtimestoriespodcast

Transcript

0:05

From the halls of your federal government and the corridors of power, secrecy and duty. This is Fed Time Stories. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Fed Time Stories. We are your hosts, Dave Brant and John Gill with Kaseware. Dave and I come to you with over 40 years of experience in public safety and private security spanning the Secret Service and NCIS. And we are excited to share insights and inspiration from our time in public service, in our post public service careers, but more importantly, getting valuable insight and inspiration from the variety of guests that we have on the podcast today. We are very excited to have as our guest Randy Deaton, who had a very interesting and productive career with the FBI where he held many positions, but none, I don't think, more interesting than the one that he held as program manager and supervisory special agent with the FBI's Art Crime Program and the National Art Team. We are very much looking forward to diving deeper into that and to other things during today's podcast. Randy we're so very grateful to have you on Fed Time Stories today. I think to start with, for me and I think for many people that are drawn to art theft cases, not least of which because of how many of these cases have been romanticized through novels and in Hollywood. But there does seem to be a lot of mystery and intrigue in these cases. And of course, the stakes are so high because the high value of the artwork and the historical impact of these steps. It would be very interesting to know if the truth matches up with some of the Hollywood stories that we've all been seeing for decades. So it'd be great if you could maybe share a story or two of some of the more memorable cases you've worked on as an agent with the FBI. Sure. First off, you cannot complete an art crime case in two hours or two and a half hours is impossible. These, they're great cases. I would not say that they're the highest priority of the FBI these days or ever was, but they're very interesting cases most of the time. It's a historical significant aspect to the case. The property matters to the people because a lot of people have emotional attachments to the items that they collect. So I was lucky enough to be selected in 2016 as a member of the FBI's national or Crime team. It's a selection process. You just don't raise your hand and you get the job. You have to be a dedicated investigator. You have to have a proven track record of putting cases together and having success. And I don't have a background in art history I never worked in a museum. I like to go to museums, but I never worked in a museum. And so let's see, 2016, I had had about 6, 17, 18 years in at the time. And in 2008 is when I had my first or crime case. And that's one of the cases I'll talk about today, because that was the first time I really got a introduction to the world of our crime. And where were you stationed at the time, Randy, you were stationed? I was stationed with the FBI New Orleans division. And more importantly to this whole story, I was in a small resident agency, a little satellite office where there was me and like two other agents at the time. And so in Alexandria, Louisiana, is not necessarily the hub for art crime of the world. New York might be Miami, Louisiana, Chicago, you know, but not necessarily Alexandria, Louisiana, population 60,000 at any given time. Now, the first time I was ever introduced to an FBI investigation that involved and had an art crime aspect was when I was stationed in the New York office back sometime between 1999 and 2001. My. My training agent had a fraud case that she was working, and the subject was one of her major theft subjects. And so I got to go out with her and interview a lot of collectors that had been duped into sending money to this con man. He posed as a. As a Tiffany glass expert, and he got arrested. You know, there's the story, and people send him money. So I got to see great collections and, and got my first taste of this community of people, this population, people that collect antiquities and antiques and art. So in 2008, the U.S. attorney's office came to me and said, randy, we have a case. This is a U.S. attorney's office in the Western District in Louisiana. We have a case that we only want you to investigate. And the prosecutor is a friend of mine, Alec Van Hook. And I'm like, well, Alec, why do you want me to investigate this? Well, number one, you're a good investigator, but number two, you're the only person that watches Antiques Roadshow that I know of. So that is a true story. That's good. So it was a safe. Randy, let me interrupt. John loves this, because I know you're going to get deep into this, which I'm looking forward to, but because you've already tested me, I don't have a major in art history either. I'm interested. Going back a little bit at the beginning, I assume you're an LSU fan and a graduate, and you're probably kind of depressed about that. I did talk to Somebody that teaches at Texas A and M earlier today. And I told them, thank you for the beating, appreciate that. How does one get from lsu? And as you know, this is a little bit federal focused in terms of our careers in history. But how did you get from lsu, New Orleans to the FBI and in early career, I know you probably did what most initial FBI agents do. And from there we'll get back to the art stuff. But how'd you start? So I actually wanted to be a Louisiana state trooper. And we're going on almost 29 years now since I sent him my application. I'm still waiting on him to call. I don't know if I could pass the physical fitness standards these days. But you know what? I would show up in Baton Rouge at the academy and try, well, that it's going to be a tough interview. If They've been waiting 29 years to interview, that's hysterical. I always tease my counterparts at the state police over my career that state, 16 years, 20 years, still waiting. So that's an interesting question and I thank you for asking that. The only person ever in my family that was in law enforcement was my grandfather, Randolph J. Deaton Jr. Who was a military policeman in the U.S. army Air Corps during World War II and stationed in France. So I was the only person that I pretty much knew that was in law enforcement but was in my family. And so I worked as a as when I was going to lsu, I worked for a clerk in a clerk of courts office in West Baton Rouge Parish in Louisiana. And that got me interested in a law enforcement career. And so I didn't. I went to work in the private sector for a large insurance company as a computer programmer and analyst. At the time and back in the mid-90s, the FBI was recruiting heavily from the tech sector, so the stars just kind of lined up. But the true story is I wanted to just be a Louisiana state trooper. And I owe my whole FBI career to my wife because had she not, she was my girlfriend at the time, had she not told me to apply to the FBI and set my sights just a hot just a little bit higher and applied to the FBI, I never would have had this career because I would have let small town mindset get the better of me for the rest of my life. I'm sure I love her. So my wife owed. That's great. Yeah, that's my. Owe my whole career to my wife, who again was my girlfriend at the time. And so I applied to the FBI and we got married on October 30th of 1998 and 10 days later I put her on a plane at the old Reagan National Airport there. And I got on the bus at the, at the flag pole in front of the old, the old station, the old hub. And I took the bus drive down to Quantico wondering just what I got myself into. That's a great story. And by the way, I mean you, great career, we're going to get into it here, but all of us and people, I think the public sometimes thinks FBI, Secret Service, ncis, state and local law enforcement, the folks who do those careers kind of are cut out of the same cloth. You must have been thinking about this since you were seven years old. You wanted to be a cop or a law. But in reality, each one of us has our own little story and they're really fascinating to find out how you actually got to where you got to in federal law enforcement. And then after attempting or thinking about state law enforcement, it was, it was never my dream to be. I'm very thankful for what the FBI did for me and provided for my family over all those years, but it was not, let's say, a dream for me. When I was a kid, I didn't dream about, you know, being an FBI agent. My father was not an FBI agent. It was not in my family. I just coming from small town, Louisiana, I just wanted to do something with my life, something notable, something I could leave a legacy, something that, you know, a lot of people thought I was crazy when I said, oh, I applied for the FBI and they really thought I was crazy when I said, well, I'm leaving and I'm never coming back and I'm going to the FBI Academy. And so that's kind of, that's, that's the truth of, that's how it happened. A lot of those same people may be saying when they hear what you're going to talk about right now. You did what at the FBI? You were, you were investigating. So I, I think, I don't think my mom still knows what I did for the FBI, but you know, oh, well, great background. Go ahead and continue. But I think it's great to kind of level set, you know, great history and great, great insights. Go ahead, anxious. So up to 2008, my career had been working lots of white collar cases, lots of fraud cases, public corruption cases. I worked the national security side of the house for the FBI, the counterterrorism program for a long time, the counterintelligence program, off and on and then at the end of my career. But I Had a strong criminal background. I was no stranger because I worked in this little small office, and this is important to the work for the art crime program and the art crime team. I was no stranger to raising my hand and asking for help from my law enforcement partners. I could not have survived here in central Louisiana and had a successful career had it not been for the law enforcement partners with the local, state, and other federal and military law enforcement that I had so many great cases with and did so many things with over those years. And if I can say anything about working cultural property cases or crime cases, it takes a team. And it's not necessarily the investigators that do all the work. Okay? It takes law enforcement, it takes our prosecutors, it takes the museum professionals, the subject matter experts that we have to go to. It takes the state department people, sometimes that we have to go to to get us some inroads into something that we. To get to somebody that we need to give us information to push these cases. So in 2008, having all that experience and could put together a criminal case and a white collar case, this particular case was an art forgery case that involved the. The works in this folk art, not fine art, of a Louisiana artist, Clementine Hunter, who lived about 45 minutes away from here. And so to this day, I'm. Yet I challenge people all the time when I give presentations. Tell me about another case that somebody has worked or is currently working that involves folk art, which is a smaller than fine art, smaller area of collecting in the art world, in the art market. And no one can tell me about another case. I may have the only one. But I started this case in 2008. The case was successful because of the teamwork that was performed. More importantly, it was successful because of the victims, the good people that lost money who came forward and cooperated with the FBI. You know, they were, you know, some were embarrassed, but they. They worked through all that and fought through all that. And had we went to trial, we would have called them to testify. So this particular case involved hundreds of art forgeries. And these are not pieces that are going for, you know, $100,000 or in the millions. These are pieces that routinely sell for under $10,000, depending on the size and the subject matter. For the Clementine Hunters, work would go for. It would command bigger, higher prices. But that's kind of right for the forges. And these are forges. These are pain. When you say these are paints. These are all things that I was dealing with. It would have been a lot easier if I was Only dealing with four or five, but I was dealing with hundreds. And so. And these were for forgeries. All forgeries. Now, I will say this. It is nice when your victims and your cooperators tell you who your subject is. That is very nice. Lead you right to it. Yeah. And so, you know, like any investigation, you really don't want a lot of people to know what you're doing until you can make your moves. And. And so there was only a handful of people I could go to and interview to get me the probable cause to get a search warrant for the art forger's house, which was two hours away in Baton Rouge. But ultimately, we did that. Kept it quiet enough to where the subjects didn't find out about the case that I know of. I must stop you again, so I can understand. So somebody is painting. Her name is Clementine. Clementine Hunter. Yes. Someone's copying her paintings and they're selling them. Correct. And how did the allegation get to you? How was it determined? Did someone just see. How does one determine that those forgeries are out there? So the people that collect Clementine Hunter's artwork, it's a smaller population of folks. And so for years, you know, the market, you know, you see some different ones pop up here and there. But around 1999 or 2000, all of a sudden, you kind of had the market flooded a little bit. And there were these paintings that. There was something about them. They were fresh, they were new. They was, you know, she painted, you know, known subject. Subject matters that she would paint, like a baptism scene. And they have several forgeries that came out that were combining multiple known themes that she painted all into one. So you had some bigger paintings that they referred. The subjects referred to as the tableaus. And so they commanded higher prices. And so when that happens, people that are subject matter experts, people that know about her artwork, they start getting a little suspicious. And then next thing you know, there's. The market is kind of flooded with all these paintings. I'm guessing Clementine isn't around anymore. No. Ms. Hunter died in 1988. 89, I believe that was a fresh senior in high school that she couldn't look at the artwork. Right. And tell us whether or not she painted. So we. We have to rely on experts. Surprised you didn't know that, John, with your history and, you know, your expertise. I know you had to rely on Randy to tell you, but that's okay. Yeah. Her collectors start seeing this, for lack of a better term, they start seeing this, and they start asking questions. And they. They get together and they start talking about it, and then finally the subject's name pops up. And that's a subject. His name was William Toy. He was originally from New Orleans. He ended up living in Baton Rouge. He was arrested, ironically, he was arrested in the night in 1974, I believe, by the New Orleans Police Department for selling forgeries for the Louisiana folk artist Clementine Hunter. So he got arrested, but he was never prosecuted. Was he. The. Did he actually do the paintings or were there a number of co. Subjects? So he actually wasn't artist who just copied. He was an artist, okay. And he. And he painted. And he painted. He painted the forgeries. His wife was also indicted in our federal case, and there was a man by the name of Robert Lucky who was also indicted. He was kind of the middleman. Mr. And Mrs. Toy were not good sellers, but Mr. Lucky, he was a really good salesman. And so you had three subjects that were ultimately indicted, and all three pled guilty and were convicted, and all three were sentenced in the case, and none of them were with us anymore. But it was a very fascinating story because I got to see all this great Louisiana artwork. You know, LA is known, you know, for LSU, public corruption, food, you know, a lot of great things. But one of the artists that really stands out in Louisiana history is Clementine Hunter, who lived on Melrose Plantation in Natchitoches Parish. So in the world of art crime, and this is a more generic question, is art theft, art crime a big problem? I mean, what is the industry out there? Well, if people. If people have things of value, people are going to steal it and they're going to make forgeries of it. And so the FBI, decades, long before there was ever an art crime team, an art crime program, there was some very successful FBI investigators and investigators with other federal agency that were working art theft cases and forgery and fraud cases involving artwork. The FBI's Art Crime Team was kind of founded in 2004. I think it kind of. It officially began in 2005 or about that time period. And then there was this national. The FBI is still the only US Federal agency that I know of that has a designated art crime team of investigators stationed around the country that work these very specific matters. And I know you retire this past year, so today, is it still. There still would have been work for you? There are still significant amount of art crime? Oh, absolutely, yeah. The FBI, I mean, there's all these databases that you find that's public and private. The FBI has an FBI's National Stolen Art file with thousands of works of art, sculpture, paintings, drawings, prints, you name it, that all this stuff is stolen and it's still out there somewhere. And it pops up every now and then and the FBI makes a recovery or somebody makes a recovery. And then there's all these private art databases of art stolen from around the world. Now, all these databases don't necessarily talk to each other, but there are. And then you have all the looting from World War II, which will lead us into the next, the next case I'm going to talk about. But there are this and this. There's so many things that are stolen that are not recorded anywhere that people have not reported to law enforcement, you know, over 100 years or whatever. And so there's no shortage of crime in the art world. The FBI's Art Crime Program, in the whole scheme of things is a very small program, but it does get results. And you know, I've had people say, oh, it's just rich people, you know, having, you know, art, you know, stolen, it doesn't mean anything to them. Or they got a lot of money, they can take the hit. No, no. And the case I decided, the Clementine Hunter art forgery case, these were not rich people. These are people that were buying these forgeries thinking they were real so they could, you know, send their kids to a better college. And all of a sudden they don't have any money to send to their kids to the college because it's all in forgeries. Or the person that takes their retirement invested in forgeries, thinking they can, you know, sell them later on, and all of a sudden they find out their forgeries and now they don't have a retirement. So it matters to people. That's what I was going to ask is there in your kind of profiling is whether it's a forgery or a theft, that whether it's a high end value or medium end value, is it, does it come typically from someone within the art world, meaning they know art, they are either an artist themselves or a connoisseur. Or is it can just be a random thief, for instance, who you see the movies, who does the massive break in somewhere, how often, how does that all fit in the world you lived in? Right. It runs the gamut. I mean, it could be the person with the crime of opportunity. They don't, they break into a museum, steal some, they really don't know what they steal. And the next thing you know, they, you know, selling it for $10 and it may be worth a hundred thousand dollars. Right. And then they, you have the more sophisticated thieves that, you know, plan out these high, these high end heists in these, in these burglaries. And they're going after very specific works of art. And you may not see these pieces that are stolen today until 20 years from now. And the prime example is the theft from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston back in what, 1991. None of those pieces have popped up and they're still outstanding. It may happen tomorrow. One may pop up or all of them may pop up. You just don't know. When I was in D.C. it would have been a major headache, but I sure was hoping that at least one would have popped up during my time at FBI headquarters, but it didn't happen. But I'm hopeful, and I'm sure my former colleagues with the ARC crime team are hopeful that one day, one or two or all may pop up somewhere and they can be recovered and then given back to the museum. It'd be an interesting story. They'll make a movie on that. I'm sure. It's interesting. Write a few books on that. I'm sure that Dave's insurance rider is pretty high. Yeah, absolutely. I'm looking around at my art, just works of art that he has in his home. He's playing Randy for some plan for my artworks. He knows what I work. No, I was gonna, I did want to hear, I did want to get into that other case that we had talked about earlier, Randy. But before getting there, you know, obviously thinking about other crime areas that the FBI and other agencies get involved in, whether it's fraud or corruption, national security, all kind of require specialized training. I would imagine the same would be true for the art theft group. A specialized kind of training that would have to take place. You can't just, I guess fall right into that kind of investigation and, you know, and also, you know, investigative methodologies that you might want to use in that particular field that are specialized for that, for that crime area. So be interesting to hear a little bit about that, that training and maybe some methodologies that you use that were specialized. So there are some museums around the country that will offer programs, you know, for the public, which would include the law enforcement officers that, and then the FBI, you know, they have training funds that we can get. And if it's approved, agents will go to very specific training at museums, other institutions. So that's one way it's nice when you have a background in art history or something like that and you become an FBI agent and then you become A member of the arc crime team. That was not the case with me, but we do a lot of training as a team. The FBI arc crime team usually meets once a year in a big city, usually to talk about our cases, talk about what's been working, talk more importantly, what hasn't been working. And we need to shift. We get a lot of speakers that come in and educate us. There's, you know, in the days of the world wide web and these computer boxes, we do a lot. We were doing a lot of virtual training, hearing from other agencies, not necessarily law enforcement, but other agencies and subject matter experts around the world. And the topics would run everything from provenance research, you know, art crime, from hearing about art crime in other countries, such as our strong partners there in Italy that have a lot of success in recovering their cultural heritage, hearing from museum professionals around the world, archeologists. And I can tell you, every art crime team member is and was like me, like, we would crave this knowledge because you could always apply it to something later on. Even if we were dealing with, you know, medieval paintings, the way you would investigate it would be similar to if you were dealing with, you know, stolen Andy Warhol prints or something. And you had to turn all these experts because we, we're not experts in anything. You know, you have to turn to these experts to tell me why this, what I have in front of me is real, or is it a. Is it a fake? And if it's real, why is it real? So I never missed an opportunity. What a great job I had. I could go visit museums on the. During the work day and get educated by these museum professionals. Now they, when you walk in there, they, they, they. Everybody's kind of standoffish to you at first until you make a friend and drink a cup of coffee because they, they're wondering, why are you really here? And I'm just, I'm just here to learn, you know, and, you know, there's nothing. The best education you could get is just walking around a museum and seeing why artwork is there and why it's on the wall. And if you could have somebody tell you from the museum why this piece is special to the collection. It's a great thing to have that education. So you would, you can combine, you know, different, different educational avenues to make you a better investigator. We're not going to cut you out of this story because I want to hear it. But John keeps asking these questions, so I have one more, so. Yes, sir. Because this is fascinating, quite honestly, and it's something probably like many people I had never really thought of, but post government, I was affiliated with the National Law Enforcement museum in downtown D.C. and the question is, artifact art, et cetera, in that museum is J. Edgar Hoovers tie it to you personal. So his personal. A lot of his personal effects, including his desk from the FBI and a lot of his personal correspondence, you know, personal things that the J. Edgar Hoover foundation had donated to the museum. So that's not a painting, it's the personal effects of a impactful person in history. Should someone steal some of that? I don't know how you value it, but is that something that the FBI art crime team would investigate? Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, everything has value. Certainly J. Edgar Hoover's desk would have value. J. Edgar Hoover's service weapon would have value. You know, at the end of the day, it's theft. It. Let me, if we're going to talk about a museum theft case, it could be a federal offense, it could just be a state offense. Right. I was the type investigator. Yeah. I may not have a federal offense. You know, nothing crossed state lines or it was not a, you know, the place, the institution where it was stolen from doesn't meet the state the standard for application of the theft of major artwork violation that we have, you know, we don't really have a natural, we don't have a national patrimony law and the laws that the FBI agents usually apply and the prosecutors apply to these cases, or your wire fraud, your mail fraud, your conspiracy, your Internet interstates, transportation or stolen property, and then you got your major theft from a museum. But if you don't meet that criteria for that one art major theft, work of art, that one art specific violation that we have titled 18 violation we have, then at the end of the day, it's simple theft. And so you could, you could get a state search warranty, work with your local partners and get a state warrant. But I can tell you anything that's in a museum, it's collectible, people would obviously want to steal it, the criminals would want to steal it, and then the investigators have to do the work. And unfortunately there's not enough, there's not enough investigators, in my opinion, that take an interest in these cases because they can be very fascinating. So I never miss an opportunity. If I had to refer a case to another FBI field office to find an agent that, you know, that would work one of these cases. And look, once they had some success, they were hooked and they were begging for more cases. So you gotta find the right Investigator that'll take an interest in this and have the passion to go over, you know, get through these obstacles. Because look, these cases are not easy to work. I don't care what anybody says. There's a lot of people out there writing articles and talking online and everything else about, you know, restitution and recovery and all that. But it takes a lot of work and it could take years to, even though you know where the piece is, to actually legally get your hands on it and then do the repatriation, restitution to the victim. There are not easy case and it takes a team. Speaking of that, let's, let's hear it. Let's hear your other one. I don't want to cut you. Okay, so. So recently I had the honor of getting an invitation as a retired FBI agent to go to the FBI New Orleans field office for repatriation of a piece of Nazi looted art. Now the last thing I wanted to do in my FBI career to check that last box was to be involved in an investigation just to be involved in an investigation of a piece of Nazi looted art. Well, when I was in D.C. running the AS a supervisor and program manager of the art crime program and our crime team, a referral came in from the commission for looted art in Europe. And the information was that there's this Claude Monet pastel on paper. Bois Demir Seaside is a translation, a drawing basically that was looted by the Nazis during World War II. Well, actually just prior to World War II, in the late 30s from a Jewish owner in Vienna, Austria. And the way the story goes and the research that this again talking about teamwork, this is, this is a not, this is a entity in Europe that referred the case to the FBI. I think it was in 2000, in 2022, I couldn't work the case. I'm running the program, I'm running, I'm supervising the team as best I could and. But everything was pointing toward Louisiana and that's where the artwork was last sold. And so there was an agent in our crime team member, a great guy, Chris McKeo up in the New York office who had had some cases involving non saluted art in the past. And so he was assigned the case and he started the case and it was a New York case. When I got back here In February of 2023, back to Central Louisiana, I became co case agent on the case and him and I started tag teaming this thing. But the way the story went is Germany kind of takes over Austria in late 1930s. The owner of the piece and his wife, they fled to London. They had all their possessions. They had to leave everything behind, including several pieces of art. And there was a company that packed everything up and put it in storage. Well, the Nazis got a hold of that. They ended up selling off his possessions to specifically his artwork in 1941 and 42, if my memory is correct. And then these pieces disappear and the sale of those pieces went through an auction house and went to profit, profit the Nazis. So in 2019, well before that, the heirs of the original owner go to that commission in London and they, the family had over the years, unsuccessfully tried to locate and have their pieces returned. They had zero success. But there was two granddaughters that I met three weeks ago down in New Orleans during the repatriation ceremony. They went to that commission and the commission started doing its homework. And they researched, they did the provenance research, the ownership history going back. They even found the original auction catalog when the Jewish owner bought the piece. And so this is the first time I'm seeing this, this particular part of art crime, this particular segment of our crime. And I'm fascinated that we could even get a copy of the original catalog that's in the seat. And if you had to go to court, you want to have all those documents, if you had to go get a warrant to show the judge and tell the story to the judge. So I think it was in 2019, this piece pops up in New Orleans with a very well known gallery in the French Quarter, and it's sold. Wow. And obviously this commission, they don't have any subpoena power or anything like that. So I start working. Chris Mckeo and I are working the case and we get a call one day last year, I think it was in May of last year, we get a call and we're still trying to figure out who exactly are the owners of this piece. So we can go to them and we get a call. Hey, this piece just showed up on an auction house in Houston's website. It's being offered for sale at auction in like a week or something like that or the next two weeks. So it's a typical FBI response. We start scrambling, we getting with the prosecutors, Randy, what were the prices that it was being auctioned at? I think they were, they were offering a close. I think it was around $700,000, if I'm not mistaken, was the auction estimate for that piece. And so we start working with our prosecutors down in the Eastern district of Louisiana, three and a half hours away from me, trying to figure out how we can legally get our hands on the piece and safeguard it and then file a civil claim and go through. Because we had no information that the people that sold the piece out of New Orleans and the people that bought the piece knew that it was stolen. Okay? And unless you had some kind of customs violation where somebody, you know, lied on some form or whatever, you know, you got to use the civil courts to kind of get those pieces back because we didn't. We couldn't get, you know, a criminal warrant for it. And so we try to figure everything out. And finally, at the end of the day, it took Chris McKeogh and I. Well, Chris McKeo sent the email to the. The once we found out who was the consignors of the piece, to the Houston auction house who were the owners of the piece. Today, he sent the email saying, we got an issue here. It's stolen. I can only imagine what the feeling of sinking feeling when they got there. Well, I would have thought it was like a Nigerian scam letter or email or whatever. Right. And so. And so when they got back to the United States, Chris and I had conversations with them and ultimately they got an attorney, which is great. And they waived ownership in writing to the peace. They waive ownership rights to the piece. We still went. I had urged the U.S. attorney's office because some prior experience I had, hey, let's still bring it before the court system down in New Orleans and get something from the court to cover the backside. If anybody has a claim, let it. Let them come forward then. And ultimately that played out. They filed whatever they needed to file, and that played out. You got the piece at an auction house heading towards an auction. How much investigative effort do you put into where they got it from? Backtracking, you know, who owned it, when, when, when, when, and how it actually ultimately ended up in their hands. Or once you have it secure, does that kind of slow down? Oh, no, you probably have to do more work once. Once it's secure. But again, going back to how it takes a team of people, not just law enforcement, to work these very special cases, these cultural property cases. We had that. The commission for looted art in Europe. They went and did all the provenance research. So if we had to put things in writing to go get a warrant, we would have used all their information. Now, the FBI did do interviews of folks to get where we needed to go to, but at the end of the day, it went down to good people doing the right thing. The Schlamps. The last name is Schlamp Ms. Bridget Schlamp and her husband, Dr. Kevin Slamp, who I got to meet him before he passed away. He didn't get to go to the repatriation ceremony, unfortunately, he passed away. But it was just. It goes back to, there's good people out there and they did the right thing. We gave them the information that the commission had sent us to prove to them that we're not just talking fiction over here. Make an educated decision on what you want to do with the information that we're providing you. And they did just that. And they, they consulted an attorney, which in this case was great. And then they ultimately waived ownership. And then once we had the signed documents in hand, then I picked up an agent in Lafayette. We went to Houston, Texas and picked this, this piece up and I drove it back and we went straight. It was a long day, let me tell you. You drove that piece of art in your car? Yeah, Lafayette, Louisiana, to Houston, Texas. Picking it up and driving straight to New Orleans to get it in the evidence room. Because I was. I did not want that liability on my hand one second longer than it needed. Needed to be. But I did have to stop in a drive thru and get me a sandwich on the way back. I don't know, man. I don't know. I don't know if I could stop at a Roy Rogers with that priceless work of art in the car. Yes, that 80, 80 years or so of first missing to, you know, 20, 20 something recovered that, that 80 years. Do you do anything? That's kind of what I was saying before. Do you know where it was and, and have a sense of. Yeah. So apparently it showed up several years in a very small art exhibit in a very small town in France. Wow. And then it disappeared again. And somebody selling it every time. I really don't know. Yes, that. That's probably. They're making money. But nobody, none of those people knew that it had been stolen. Not to my knowledge. Not to my knowledge. You know, everybody that we talked to that was involved here in the United States. Right. Unless. Unless somebody lied to me. They didn't know it was stolen. And that happens all the time. You have innocent purchases all the time. And so you don't arrest these people for. They don't know that it's stolen, you know, and so you don't bring a case them. So at the end of the day, it just talks. It just. It boils down to giving somebody information, letting them think about it. And look, the schlamps could have told us, do your Work. Right. And they could have made life a lot harder for Chris McHale and I. And we, you know, we would have. This thing would still be playing out in the court system. But they did the right thing. And it was an amazing thing that they did. The Schlamps from South Louisiana. It was an amazing thing that they did. And then three weeks ago, I was down in New Orleans as retired Special Agent Randy Deaton. This great big ceremony at the field office with all the. The FBI division employees there. And then the two heirs flew in from Europe. And then the representative from the commission for Looted Art in Europe was there. I heard. I heard some great speeches. I didn't give a speech, but I heard some great speeches about why this artwork and what we were doing was so important to the bigger picture. Yeah, this was one small piece, but it represent the work that was done by the whole team. Prosecutors, law enforcement, everybody else. It sent a much bigger message than what we were there just doing in New Orleans that day. Well, that's a. That's a fascinating and special. Special story. And congrats on you and the team. Fascinating. And I think. Well, and thanks to John and his constant questioning of you. We're. We're right up against time, but we're. That's a great place to stop because that. That's really a wonderful scenario to finish. And I tell you, I gotta tell you, I don't. I don't really know that I was. What to expect, but we could go on another hour or so with this discussion because it is quite interesting, without a doubt. I did want to ask one question though, before we, before we conclude. And I remember back in my days when I used to investigate during the Secret Service years and in counterfeiting, whenever the bank would be involved, we always used to say, the bank never loses. Right. The bank's going to get their money. And I'm curious, who lost here? Who was left holding the check? Like, was it the auction house which somebody lost? It was. It was the couple In South Louisiana, Dr. Kevin Schlamp and his wife. You know, they had. They had a lot of reasons to fight us on this, but again, like I said earlier, it was good people doing a great thing. Yeah, that's. And I will go to my grave remembering this particular case because not only did I have the privilege of being able to work on one of these cases, we got a recovery and we had a success. And that it happened. The return happened three months after I retired, but it was a great, humbling experience. It had the Louisiana connection as well, which makes it even more meaningful. Last comment. And John and I represent this and several of our prior guests we've talked about. But you've love your passion, feel your passion, respect for what you've done and you've transitioned. Transition has been a theme of our discussions with other guests. Great career. You're doing something that you love. And now a year, less than a year, you're doing something totally different. How's that been? Do you miss it? Well, I'll tell you another quick story and this will be my answer. So today is National First Responders Day. Yep. So on behalf of BoM bank that I work for here, Community bank in central Louisiana, I delivered donuts to my old colleagues. That was your first time at Columbia Police Department, the Alexandria Police Department, Louisiana State Police, Troop A, and the FBI, Alexandria Resident Agency. But I will say this. Even though I've been retired almost three months, it's a very weird feeling. It almost felt like today that I was not part of that community anymore, even after almost just a short period of time. It's like I know my place now. I have plenty friends still. But it just didn't feel the same going back to those offices where I have to wait in the lobby. Well, I'll tell you what. You've got the talent and perseverance and personality. Do whatever you want to do in the next segment of your career. And I got John and I will work on something for you. Now, it may be a stretch, but based on what we've talked about, we're going to, we're going to connect to some people at the Louisiana State Police and we may want to go that application. We're going to get that interview. You better go straight to the Colonel because he'd be the only one that approve it. Seriously, on my behalf, it's been a pleasure. We may want to connect with you again. So, Randy, great discussion. Congrats on your career. Look forward to future discussions. Thank you for giving me the time to share this. I hope a lot of people listen to this podcast and law enforcement needs the public's help. Yep. Agree with that for sure. No, and I think that's a good, a good message to end with. Randy, very much appreciated. Great stories and just wonderful area that you worked on. Very impactful. In particular, that last story that was, you know, bringing that meaningful piece of art back to where it belongs. So wonderful, wonderful work. Appreciate it. Thank you. Fed Time Stories is hosted by Dave Brandt and John Gill and is a caseware production. For more information on the podcast. Feel free to reach out to us on our website at www.caseware.com fedtimestories podcast until next time.