The site, known as Sahinici One, is a target for investigators from the international war crimes tribunal who are in the area seeking evidence to support indictments for genocide and crimes against humanity following the Bosnian Serb capture of the town of Srebrenica last July. And January saw the launch of the Gemprint Appraiser database which uses laser “fingerprinting” technology in an attempt to reduce the insurance industry’s pounds 800m a year bill for jewellery losses.. The banality of evil is in full view on a patch of waste ground near a hamlet west of Zvornik and the Drina river, the border between Bosnia and Serbia, despite the best efforts of those who would bury a crime that was too great to hide. The Equipment Register, set up in March 1995 has led to the recovery of construction equipment including a number of compressors stolen in Germany and brought to Britain. One dealer in Gloucester asked a man who brought in six paintings worth around pounds 35,000 to come back the following day.

As a result of checking with us, the police were alerted and man was arrested when he returned.”Such is the success of the ALR that the principle is being copied for other goods. “Because dealers often work alone, there is a personal risk if they confront somebody and suggest checking the item against the ALR,” explains James Emson. “We need to convince them that it is in their interests to check the database rather than to risk buying stolen property or turning away something that might not be stolen We have had spectacular results. One man moved all his works of art from one of his homes to another and then reported a theft Another registered as stolen a painting he had never owned. We can also detect multiple claims if more than one insurer registers the same loss. And we register items lost in fires: if the article appears on the market, we know a fraudulent claim has been made.”As the ALR database has grown – 1,500 new items are added each month – a potential purchaser who checks with it before he buys a particular work of art is seen to be exercising a minimum of due diligence.

The Metropolitan Museum in New York already runs a check on all acquisitions over $35,000 before purchase. It is hoped that if the Unidroit Convention is ever ratified, a reference to the ALR will be included.While auction houses are scrupulous about checking the provenance of items put up for sale, dealers are noticeably less so. They lay low for a few years and then put the item up for sale. By setting up shop in the police warehouse, the ALR identified 200 pieces. The owners of these, in turn, claimed a further 2,600 items – three-quarters of the total haul.Combating fraud is a growing area of the ALR’s work, says James Emson “People maintain they have been burgled when they haven’t. It was matched to a listing on the database and on the basis of this information, police traced four handlers and seized 3,800 stolen articles. In 1992, the register was asked to search for a Queen Anne chest put up for auction in Nottingham.

Some 20 per cent of items are located outside the country of ownership. One of the most spectacular recoveries, a still-life by Moise Kisling, was stolen in an armed robbery in Paris in 1979 and spotted in a routine trawl of a Sotheby’s catalogue for a sale in Tel Aviv 16 years later.At a more parochial level, ALR staff frequently visit police “Aladdin’s Caves” with their laptops. If stolen works cannot easily be sold – even abroad – they will be less attractive to thieves. The minimum value criterion – originally pounds l,000 but more now pounds 250 – was dropped on the basis that the identification of an item of low value can sometimes lead to a significant haul. A scan takes from 10 minutes to just under an hour, using “fuzzy matching” of key words in the catalogue description against items in the database The office identifies two items every three days. It is a moment of excitement when a match occurs.”Working here is not just a question of sitting looking at a computer all day,” says James Emson “This is an operations room.

It depends on people listening and putting two and two together. Computer technology is not enough.”One vigilant member of staff spotted two George III hall chairs that looked remarkably familiar in a gallery near the ALR office. She recalled scanning a photograph of the chairs on to the database a few months previously. She returned to the dealer with a camera, took some pictures and matched the two images from the grain of the wood and a chip on one seat.With art theft thought to be the largest international crime after the drugs trade and a favourite method of laundering money, the deterrent effect of the register is valued by insurers. Today, 75 per cent of the insurance companies who have subscribed since the beginning have recovered more in financial terms than they have paid out.