A member of the FBI's national Art Crime Team on Thursday defended the federal government's actions in last year's Four Corners artifacts busts.

David Kice, a special agent in the Santa Fe office, said federal law enforcement officials continuously investigate looting of artifacts on federal or Indian land — estimated at 800 to 1,500 cases a year.

But the Four Corners investigation, resulting in 26 indictments and many seizures of artifacts in private collections, including four in Santa Fe, was made possible because of a well-connected confidential source, he said.

"It's only when we get a case of this magnitude, particularly with a good source who can get us information on multiple people all at one time, that we do these big take-downs," Kice said. "It's not a conscious effort to curtail the trade. It's not a conscious effort to intimidate people who are looters by doing big ones every 10 years."

Kice's lecture on "Federal Art and Antiquities Crime in the Southwest," sponsored by the Renesan group, drew more than 80 people to St. John's United Methodist Church. They included several local antiquities dealers, including Forrest Fenn, one of four local artifacts collectors whose homes were raided last summer. A buffalo skull, a feathered talisman and a basket without a bottom were seized from Fenn, but no charges were filed against him.

Agents also searched the homes and seized items from the collections of Christopher Selser, Thomas "Tommy" Cavaliere and William "Billy" Schenck of Santa Fe, but did not charge them. The only Santa Fe resident among the 26 people indicted was Steven L. Shrader, 56, a salesman and amateur collector who committed suicide shortly after his arrest.

James Redd, a physician in Blanding, Utah, also committed suicide, as did Ted Gardiner, the confidential source who wore a wire to gather evidence against many of those arrested. But Kice said the evidence Gardiner accumulated continues to be used in the prosecutions. He said about half of the 26 people charged have pleaded guilty and have been sentenced to probation.

Kice, who has an educational background in archaeology and anthropology, joined the 13-member FBI Art Crime Team four years ago after 11 years as a forensic investigator with the Los Angeles coroner.

The Art Crime Team was formed in 2004 to respond to the suspected looting of the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad during the U.S. invasion the previous year. Kice said many of the Iraqi artifacts that were believed to have been stolen turned out to have been hidden away for safekeeping by conscientious museum employees.

Kice said that although some of the biggest art thefts have been from museums, most art thefts in the United States result from residential burglaries where art is stolen along with cameras, computers and electronics.

In his PowerPoint presentation, Kice explained the labyrinth of federal laws that regulate the trade in antiquities and how each law applies to different types of objects taken from various types of land at different times. Artifacts from private land are usually legal if they were taken with the landowner's permission, despite some "gray areas," he said.

"My advice to people who deal in (artifacts) ... who want to pass them on to their heirs who might sell, is to be very careful," Kice said. "Check your records very carefully. Make sure you have information ... that it came off private land.

"If you don't know where it came from, if there's any doubt in your mind that it might have come from public land, but you don't really know that, or you kind of closed your eyes to it or nodded and winked when you bought the item, then keep it in your collection and don't sell it. Then you don't expose yourself to criminal liability. That's the bottom line."

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.