Police officers from 23 countries met in Budapest to seek more efficient ways to combat illegal traffic in art treasures, a police official said Thursday.
Held under the auspices of Interpol, the International Police Organization, the three-day closed meeting allowed the officers to make personal contact and to help their East European counterparts catch up.
``We have a five-member team working on illegal art traffic, and the group was set up only this April, while France has over 30 policemen in the same detail and with many years of experience,'' Hungarian police Col. Tamas Simon said.
Illegal art traffic is a growth industry.
In 1990, the year after communism collapsed, there were 702 registered cases in Hungary, and the total value of the stolen treasures was 71 million forints (dlrs 340,000 in present terms).
In 1993, there were in 1996, 1,025 cases involving 430 million forints (dlrs two million) worth of stolen treasures.
``This is a special area of police work as stolen art may not appear for 30 years on the market,'' said Jean Pierre Jouanny, director of the French national bureau of Interpol.
Hungary is largely a transit country for stolen art, with the line of traffic moving from east to west.
Work is underway in cataloging the country's art treasures, establishing a data base and a network of contacts among art dealers, auctioneers and museums.
(ab/rp)