Two Seattle artists face federal charges for falsely representing themselves as Native Americans, according to Hyperallegic.
As a kid, I loved watching reruns of Racket Squad, "real-life stories taken from the files of police racket and bunco squads." The show's gritty portrayal of cops and confidence men captivated me.
My series, set in 2050 in a dystopian Seattle (the city is largely underwater), follows the adventures of Special Agent Kai Hogan, an undercover investigator who works for the Indian Arts & Crafts Board, an agency of the Interior Department.
Agent Hogan's job is to chase down fraudsters in the Native American crafts industry. He carries a molecular scanner in an antique leather holster that, when inserted into a suspect's mouth, instantly detects the suspect's ancestry. Whenever he uses the device, Hogan snarkily says to the suspect, "23 and bite me.”
Meanwhile, Kai harbors a dark, personal secret: by purposely scanning himself one day, he has learned that he's less than 1% Native American, which means he's lied to the government to qualify for his job.
Hollywood, I hope you're listening.
But there's nothing funny about this kind of fraud.
Lewis Rath and Jerry Van Dyke, the two real-life bunco artists, claimed they were Native Americans, although neither had tribal heritage, according to the Justice Department.
They were nabbed after US Fish & Wildlife agents made undercover purchases of jewelry and sculptures they were offering at two Seattle galleries.
Rath and Van Dyke have been charged with violating the Indian Arts & Crafts Act (IACA) of 1990, a truth-in-advertising law, and face four and two counts respectively of Misrepresentation of Indian Produced Goods & Products.
Each faces up to five years' imprisonment and $1 million in fines.
“By flooding the market with counterfeit Native American art and craftwork, these crimes cheat the consumer, undermine the economic livelihood of Native American artists, and impairs Indian culture,” a spokesperson for the US Fish & Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement told Hyperallergic.
