IT WAS THE LARGEST
FEDERAL UNDERCOVER
INVESTIGATION OF
ITS KIND AND THE TARGET
WAS A NEW MEXICO BASED
COUNTERFEITING
RING.
CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE
DEFRAUDED
COUNTLESS CONSUMERS, AND
INVOLVED TENS OF MILLION
OF DOLLARS
WORTH OF NATIVE AMERICAN
ART.
TONIGHT, INVESTIGATIVE
REPORTER LARRY BARKER
TAKES YOU
THIS TRUE CRIME.
Bahti: "That's stealing.
That's stealing. They're
taking food out of the
mouths of people."
Anderson: "We were able
to dismantle a fraud
that stretched truly
across the world. That
doesn't happen
every day."
Wallace: "It was
organized crime, is what
it was."
ZUNI PUEBLO'S TODD
WESTIKA IS WORKING ON
HIS LATEST
MASTERPIECE. TODD'S
AWARD WINNING STONE
CARVINGS ARE SOUGHT BY
ART COLLECTORS
WORLDWIDE. BUT THERES A
DARK
CLOUD HANGING OVER TODD.
IN SANTA FE, NAVAJO
ARTIST LIZ WALLACE IS
HAND CRAFTING HER LATEST
CREATION. LIZ'S UNIQUE
DESIGNS HAVE EARNED HER
AN INTERNATIONAL
REPUTATION. BUT HER
LIVELIHOOD IS AT RISK.
defeated. I just my
soul, it's just like
it's so overwhelming."
about Native American
art, everything from
Navajo turquoise and
silver to Zuni
inlay. It's a huge
tourist draw and one of
our most important
industries. But today
con artists are
flooding the Indian
jewelry marketplace with
cleverly disguised
consumers out of
millions of dollars."
BRONWYN FOX IS A SANTA
FE GALLERY OWNER.
Fox: "Q. Do you find
that the average
consumer out there is
going to know the
difference between a
fake and the real deal?
A.Unfortunately not."
Bahti: "You're talking
about stealing people's
talking about deceiving
a vast
swaths of the American
public. It's outright
theft."
MARK BAHTI IS A SECOND
GENERATION ART DEALER IN
SANTA FE.
Bahti: "Q. If I stroll
the Plaza and go in a
couple of stores ... I'm
not going to see any
fakes here in Santa Fe?
...
A. You will see more
fakes then you'll see
genuine."
Barker: "Counterfeiting
Native American art is a
fake jewelry showed up
in
Albuquerque and Santa
Fe, the Feds launched a
major undercover
investigation dubbed
Operation Al-Zuni."
Anderson: "It was a very
JOHN ANDERSON IS A
FORMER U. S. ATTORNEY.
spanned all the way from
the Philippines across
the western United
States."
THE MASTERMIND BEHIND
THIS SCHEME? ALBUQUERQUE
BUSINESSMAN JAWAD
CO-CONSPIRATORS, THEY
ORCHESTRATED A CRIMINAL
ENTERPRISE
INVOLVING TENS OF
MILLIONS OF DOLLARS
WORTH OF PHONEY NATIVE
ZERO FOR THE CON GAME,
THE PHILIPPINES. HIDDEN
BEHIND MASSIVE GATES ON
A NON- DESCRIPT STREET
IN CEBU CITY WAS THE
NERVE CENTER, A FILIPINO
ACCESSORIES 4 U.
Sullivan: "Its primary
business, maybe
exclusive business was
to make counterfeit
Native American
style jewelry to be
imported to the United
States."
SEAN SULLIVAN IS AN
ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY.
Sullivan: "They were
obtaining genuine Native
American jewelry and
artwork and copying it,
creating molds so that
they could duplicate
artwork on the cheap
overseas in factories in
the Philippines
with the design of
passing it off to
American consumers as
real works of art. ...
The fakes were pretty
good. Q.
The counterfeiters knew
what they were doing? A.
They did."
THE FILLIPINO FACTORY
CHURNED OUT HUNDREDS OF
THOUSANDS OF
NATIVE AMERICAN
EDISON YAZZIE IS A WELL
KNOWN NAVAJO CRAFTSMAN
BASED IN GALLUP. HIS ART
WAS COUNTERFEITED HERE
THIS INLAY PENDANT WAS
CREATED BY NAVAJO
JEWELER CALVIN BEGAY.
THIS
IS A FILIPINO FAKE.
THE IMITATIONS WERE
SHIPPED TO THIS
ALBUQUERQUE BUSINESS
OWNED BY JAWAD KHALAF
CALLED STERLING ISLANDS.
Sullivan: "We're talking
about hundreds of
thousands of pieces of
of jewelry, bracelets,
earrings, necklaces of
that sort. ... What they
had on them were
stickers that said made
in the Philippines. But
those could be easily
removed by an
unscrupulous jewelry
store owner ... who
wants to deceive a
customer."
OVER THE COURSE OF THE
INVESTIGATION, STERLING
ISLANDS
RECEIVED TRUCKLOADS OF
COUNTERFEIT JEWELRY WITH
A
WHOLESALE VALUE OF
ALMOST $12 MILLION. FROM
ALBUQUERQUE THE
KNOCK-OFFS WERE SENT TO
A GALLUP BUSINESS OWNED
BY JAWAD'S BROTHER NASH
KHALAF.
Sullivan: "He is the
owner of Al Zuni Global
business that received
thousands of
pieces of counterfeit
Native American style
jewelry and other arts
at the wholesale
level."
FROM GALLUP THE FAKES
WERE DISTRIBUTED TO
RETAIL OUTLETS ALL
OVER THE WEST.
Sullivan: "Dozens of
examples of jewelry
stores in New Mexico
where undercover agents
posing as jewelry
customers went in there
and someone lied to them
and told them that this
was Native American when
it wasn't, it was
traceable back to a
factory in the
UNDERCOVER AGENTS CAUGHT
JEWELRY PEDDLER MOHAMMAD
MANASRA AT ALBUQUERQUE'S
FLEA MARKET HAWKING THE
FILIPINO FAKES AS
AMERICAN ART.
AND WHEN UNDERCOVER
AGENTS VISITED GALLERY 8
IN OLD
TOWN THE SALES CLERK
SAID THE FAKES WERE
AUTHENTIC NATIVE
AMERICAN ART. GALLERY
OWNER NAEL ALI LATER
ADMITTED IN COURT
DOCUMENTS HE INSTRUCTED
HIS STAFF TO LIE ABOUT
ISLANDS IMITATIONS.
OPERATION AL-ZUNI
SPANNED 9 YEARS. FEDERAL
AGENTS SEIZED 350,000
JEWELRY VALUED AT MORE
THAN $35
MILLION.
Sullivan: "This was the
biggest fraud scheme
involving Native
American jewelry and
arts and crafts maybe in
the entire United
States."
MOHAMMAD MANASRA WAS
CONVICTED FOR HIS ROLE
IN THE SCHEME. HE WAS
SENTENCED TO A YEAR'S
PROBATION AND FORFEITED
MORE THAN 5000 PIECES OF
COUNTERFEIT JEWELRY.
GALLERIES IN ALBUQUERQUE
AND SCOTTSDALE
PLED GUILTY TO
VIOLATIONS OF THE
FEDERAL INDIAN ARTS AND
CRAFTS
ACT. HE WAS SENTENCED TO
JAWAD AND NASH KHALAF
PLEADED GUILTY TO A
FEDERAL CRIME AND
WERE SENTENCED TO 2
YEARS PROBATION. THEY
FORFEITED $290,000 IN
CASH AS WELL AS THE
COUNTERFIEIT JEWELRY.
THE BROTHERS WERE
THE STERLING ISLANDS
SCHEME HAS BEEN SHUT
DOWN. BUT DON'T
THINK THE PROBLEM OF
FAKE NATIVE AMERICAN ART
HAS GONE AWAY. AS LONG
AS THERE ARE BIG PROFITS
TO BE MADE, THE CROOKS
Bahti: "I think it's a
bigger problem now than
it was 50 years ago."
Fox: "It makes me very,
very sad, discouraged
for the artists. It
makes me angry. I know
these people
and this is their
livelihood and these
fakes are directly
impacting them."
Sullivan: "The federal
government is going to
be very, very aggressive
counterfeits
from the market,
protecting Native
American cultural
patrimony and cultural
heritage. If you're a
business who wants to
cheat people we're going
to find you and we're
going to shut you down."
TO GET A CLOSER LOOK AT
THOSE COUNTERFEIT
PIECES, AND COMPARE THEM
TO THE REAL THING, HEAD
TO ALWAYS ON KRQE DOT