Forwarded from MapHist with the permission of Mr. Arader. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Profiling map thieves. Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 06:42:45 -0400 From: W. Graham Arader III <[log in to unmask]> Reply-To: W. Graham Arader III <[log in to unmask]>, To: maps-L In an attempt to be proactive it seems that studying the profiles of the maps thieves in the past might be worthwhile in an attempt to predict who will most likely be the maps thieves of the future. Lynn Glazer published books about the history of cartography and was scholarly. He loved to joke around. Andrew Antippas taught English at Tulane University and was voted the most popular professor at that institution the year he was caught by me. He was very knowledgeable and had a highly developed sense of humor. William Willingham was a librarian at the University of Georgia and stole from his own collection the year I tracked him down. He wrote a superb book about Civil War imprints. He was engaging and again loved a good laugh. Forbes Smiley was an outstanding scholar. Those of us who knew him were well aware of his love of a good joke. Clearly a high level of understanding of the history of cartography, the diligence to be able to publish a book about some aspect of collecting is a distinct prerequisite to being an effective, reasonably efficient map thief. All of these men were well known to me. They were affable, charming and certainly liked a good joke. In hindsight this may have been an attempt to mask their highly developed consciousnesses that eventually drove them into doing something that would have them be rather easily be caught. Glazer was caught the first time because he became enraged with the parking lot attendant over a minor matter at Dartmouth College. The next day when the atlases were discovered to be missing the parking lot attendant had a distinct memory of Glazer and had actually written down Glazer's license plate number. It seems that this well educated, scholarly man with a passion for maps wanted to be caught. Same pathology with Antippas - he didn't even bother to erase the "Yale Coll" stamps on the map that he sold me. Then with me wiring a wire provided by the FBI he admitted selling the maps to me. Willingham, through agents, sold most of his material to Ken Kershaw, a biology profession in Canada. Kershaw was a dealer as well and so aggressively promoted the inventory that he purchased that it was easy for me to make the connection. Again, it was as if Willingham wanted to be caught. Smiley dropped a razor blade at Yale and then admitted that the razor blade was his. What could be a more obvious wish to be caught? Dostoyevsky would have had an easy time with this. Clearly these well educated men with scholarly inclinations who would use a joke to mask their nervousness wanted to be punished for their crimes. There is an immensely successful map dealer from Wales living in Paris who is extremely scholarly, has a distinct if not somewhat quirky sense of humor who I have been tracking for over 30 years. The difference between him and the four that I have caught is that he is a sociopath without any conscience that effectively would have brought him to justice years ago. The maps that I have heard he has turned up are spectacular. But still he goes on without doing anything to make it easy for me. It is my opinion that he is a genius at preying on defenseless libraries all over the world waiting for the right time to strike. Because of his distinctly lower class background it seems that he is not affected by a bourgeoisie sense of guilt or right or wrong. I have despaired of ever getting him. He is simply too thoroughly evil. Hope these profiles help librarians all over the world as to whom to watch out for. Graham Arader