By BERNARD ORSMAN
Auckland police are furious about secret negotiations involving a member of the criminal underworld and a stolen glass sculpture priced at $19,000.
The underworld figure was paid an undisclosed reward through a private investigator for returning the sculpture, Oceanic Form, to the Compendium Gallery in central Auckland.
Last night
a police spokeswoman said the actions of the private investigator and gallery owner were "incredibly disappointing" because they encouraged criminal behaviour and extortion.
"This sends the message to go steal, find a criminal investigator, extort, get money for the goods and walk free."
The spokeswoman said the private investigator should have approached the police to help catch the thieves without compromising the return of the sculpture.
Because of his actions, there was no way to obtain forensic evidence from the sculpture.
The investigator could be charged with aiding and abetting a crime, but that was unlikely.
The private investigator who negotiated the reward, Dan Thompson, defended his decision to keep the police out of the loop.
He said the deal depended on anonymity to ensure the sculpture was not thrown away or destroyed.
Publicity about the theft had made the one-off sculpture "too hot" for the thieves to do anything with.
Mr Thompson, of Auckland Investigations, negotiated a reward for the sculpture by Avondale glass artist Ron Reichs after receiving an anonymous message last Wednesday on his company's electronic tip line.
He was satisfied that the Auckland man who left the message and was a member of the criminal underworld was not involved in the theft of the sculpture.
Mr Thompson said the man wanted about $10,000 to return the sculpture, but he negotiated a sum "much less" than that.
Two men stole the 20kg glass sculpture from the Compendium Gallery in Lorne St during the day on September 13.
Gallery owner Pamela Elliott was distracted by one of the men at the back of the gallery while the other man picked up the sculpture near the front and walked out.
The sculpture was one of four works by Reichs which were to go on sale.
The stolen work, measuring about 45cm by 20cm and made of glass from the former Pilkington glassworks in Whangarei, took more than 100 hours to hand-carve and polish.
Pamela Elliott would not comment yesterday on the return of the sculpture, except to say it was undamaged.
The robbery is one of several high-priced art thefts from galleries around the country.
The thefts have prompted art dealers to review their security.
