P - DX Burke Flashcards
Introduce yourself
Good X. My name is Shar Burke. I’m a special agent for the Art Crime Team at the FBI.
Could you tell us more about your work at the FBI?
Of course. My job is to retrieve stolen art. Sounds simple, but art crimes aren’t your regular smash and grab robberies– I work with police departments, networks of informants, and a lot of tech personnel.
Do you have any training in art crimes specifically?
Yes. I learned a lot when I first joined the team. First, they teach you how to crawl. You learn art vocabulary, history, styles, you know so you don’t embarrass yourself with the art professionals. Then you learn how to run. They train us in the business side: things like market trends, handling and authenticating art, and surfing the dark web.
I wanna move on and talk about today’s case. Were you involved in the investigation of what happened on October 31st?
I was.
How did you get involved?
On November 2nd my partner approached me with video footage of the Miller Tower robbery.
Can you give us a high-level overview of what you watched in that footage?
Two words. Organized and violent. I watched three masked people break into Miller Tower from the roof, knock the security guard unconscious and use her biometrics to access the vault.
What did they do in the vault?
They stole everything. There was millions of dollars worth of art in that vault.
What did you do after watching the security video?
This was a massive art robbery, and given my line of work, I gave Santa Ivo PD a call, and offered to help out.
How did the investigation begin?
The police and I worked side by side: I worked to find the stolen items, and they worked to find evidence from the scene. Our first break came when blood from Miller Tower matched a known felon. Memphis Raynes.
What did you do when you had that match?
We put out an arrest warrant for Mx. Raynes. As the search for him/her went on, we called in their brother/sister Poe Cameron for any leads.
Did you learn anything in the interview with the defendant?
Not much in the interview itself. Mx. Cameron denied knowing about the robbery at all, but we did get a DNA swab from him/her to crosscheck with the evidence.
Were there any matches for the defendants DNA?
Yep, most notably on a mask we found. It was the same white clown mask I saw one of the robbers wearing in the security footage.
Would you recognize that mask if I showed it to you in court today?
I would. (ex 23)
Earlier you told us that it was your job to find the stolen art. Did you find it?
Yes. Eventually we found some of the items and a money trail to the people who we believe stole them.
How did you start this process?
The FBI was able to buy some of these items back for around 5.8 million dollars. It was the first step in finding out who was behind this.
What did you do once you bought those stolen paintings?
Essentially, we followed the money. Here, it gets a bit confusing so I brought along a visual to help us keep track.
What are we looking at here?
This is a visual I made to keep track of the money as it flowed through various accounts.
Where did you follow the money to?
The money, from the stolen paintings, first split into two accounts, 40 and 60%. We’re just going to focus on this part today, the 60% - that was what was important for my investigation.
Where did you follow that 60% of the deal to?
We followed that 60% here, to a final account. This allowed us to get a warrant to seize that account and look into its transactions.
What’d you learn from the warrant?
This account got that 60% cut, that’s 3.5 million dollars. We then saw that this account was making payments to a bank account. So we got a warrant to figure out who that belonged to.
So the bank account you linked to the stolen paintings, who did it belong to?
The bank account was registered to a company called Bern-Steel Limited. We got another warrant and we got the names of the owners.
Who were the owners?
Two names we’ve seen before. Memphis Raynes and the defendant, Poe Cameron.
Let’s take a step back here Agent, what does all of this mean?
We were able to link money from the stolen paintings, to an account owned by Poe Cameron and Memphis Raynes. 60% of that deal went straight to their account.
Did anyone ever take money out from that final bank account?
Yes, we know that several withdrawals were made from that account leading up to and after the heist.
