We used the occasion of the painting's repatriation to announce the establishment of the U.S. Customs Art Recovery Team with its own dedicated office space at the Customhouse in the World Trade Center in New York. In addition to a group supervisor, the team includes an art fraud coordinator to conduct training for other Customs personnel, to coordinate investigations and intelligence collection and render assistance to field agents. The training has already yielded promising leads in new art smuggling cases.

The team also includes additional special agents to conduct investigations; import specialists to review entries, make threat assessments and target shipments; inspectors to conduct art-related examinations; and an associate chief counsel to research case law and otherwise support the team's legal needs.

While the Art Recovery Team will be housed in new permanent quarters in New York, it is available to assist art fraud cases wherever they arise.

Why New York? Because it is the center of the art world. Sixty-five percent of all artwork entering the U.S. passes through the port of New York. The big auction houses are there, as is the highest concentration of art dealers in America. That's where we also find traffickers in stolen art and counterfeits.

The return of the de' Barbari was just one in a string of Customs victories in combating fraud in the trafficking of art, antiques and counterfeits. Art fraud is big business and getting bigger. No one in law enforcement has done a better job combating it than the Customs Service. Now is the time to build on our success.