(Likely) Theft of Art Auction

Subspace Network Communications
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To: LCDR Blake K. @Moose, CMDR Sakkhet @Nimitz, LCDR Carter, T. @siskofan1991
CC: DS13.DepartmentHeads
From: CAPT Varley, L.
Subj: Art Auction



Commanders, by now you may have heard the rumours circulating regarding the recent charity art auction held by the Addyson and Tuvya Foundation. It seems that many (perhaps all) of the art pieces sold at the auction were replaced on the night of the gala by fake copies sufficient to elude immediate detection. We will begin an investigation with three goals:

  1. Confirm that the crime as suspected has taken place,

  2. Identify the responsible party or parties,

  3. Retrieve the stolen goods.

Commnder Sakkhet

Objective number one will be your priority. At the beginning of the gala the art pieces were beamed aboard Deep Space 13 and authenticated, according to the Addyson and Tuvya representative. Please collect the log of that transport and the transport signatures of the twelve art pieces, and have your staff contact each of the auction winners to request that we take a standard scan of their prize. Compare the transport signatures of the authentic pieces to the requested scans of the probable fakes, and we'll know how many pieces of art we're looking for. I already have two of the scans courtesy of Wing Commander Miral, pieces #003 and #213, which you'll find attached.

Lieutenant Commander Carter

You may be wondering why I'm reaching out to you. Due to unfortunate timing, Commander H'ajah is presently unavailable, and for the duration of this investigation I am appointing you Acting Chief of Engineering. I'm going to require your work in an analysis of the main power outage during the evening of the gala. I would expect that a preliminary report is already filed for the incident, please ensure we have a comprehensive understanding of the cause of the outage.

Commander Blake

Please prioritize this investigation accordingly with other cases you have open. While an art theft may be relatively tame in our line of work, we could have a serious security breach on our hands, ready to be exploited for far more nefarious purposes. I'll leave the specific means of your investigation to you, though I might suggest starting with a detailed account of the night of the gala. Commander Sedai or one of our other attending officers may be of some assistance here. You have authority as far as the scope of this investigation is concerned, please advise me if the tasks I've assigned should be modified or if you require any additional resources.

Thank you for your work, keep me in the loop.

//SIGNED//
Captain Lauren Varley
Commanding Officer, Deep Space 13
38th Fleet ‘Argo’

//ATTACHMENT// scans #003 #213.sig

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Summarized Findings

Engineering Team:
  • The loss of power was limited to the single room hosting the Gala.
  • Power loss was caused by a localized dampening field, generated by a purpose-built device.
  • The device was located in the room, on the underside of one of the dinner tables. It has the general appearance of a serving tray, and had food residue on it.
  • The device was professionally constructed - not makeshift, and not inexpensive.
  • The device has been turned over to DS13 Security.
Operations Team:
  • All 12 paintings in possession of the winners are confirmed to be forgeries.
  • The authentic paintings arrived from the foundation, and were switched during the power outage at the gala.
  • The transporter inhibitors that normally prevent unauthorized site-to-site beaming on DS13 were deactivated momentarily to allow large artifacts to be transported in/out of the archaeology convention hall - The art theft was timed to occur at that exact moment.
  • There was no second transporter signature on DS13 at the time of the theft - the art was not beamed to another location on the station itself, so must have been beamed onto a nearby ship.
  • The site-to-site transport authorization in use at the moment of the theft belonged to Seres Avlin, the vendor selling the Capt. Varley teddy bears as well as the towering stone artifacts.
Security Team:
  • Two civilian contractors that worked at the gala did not have extensive background records on file:
      1. T’pluk - a Vulcan chef. She is still present on DS13.
      1. Ekahlir Th’vyvit - an Andorian server who worked Table D at the gala. Station records did not log his departure, but a search indicates that he is no longer aboard.
  • The purchaser of the artifact transported at the time of the theft is a Ferengi named Prac, a private collector who is on DS13 for the archaeology convention. His ship’s departure authorization has been revoked.

OOC To keep everyone on the same page and allow the RP to continue without having to wait for individual AARs, I’m providing a summary of findings from each investigation session here.

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