Man helped sell $1 million in fake Alaskan Native artwork to tourists, feds say
As customers strolled into a shop boasting authentic Alaska Native made artwork, a salesman humored them with stories of how he learned the craft from his family, according to federal authorities.
But it was all fake, prosecutors said of a conspiracy that sold more than $1 million in fraudulent artwork at stores in Ketchikan, Alaska. The case is the latest in the state’s decades-long problem with misrepresented native artworks.
The salesman, 39-year-old Cameron Losi from Washington state, is of American Indian descent and not an Alaska Native, and the artwork — mostly stone carvings at the store Losi worked at — were made by workers more than 5,000 miles away in the Philippines, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska said in an April 17 news release.
Now, Losi is sentenced to five years of probation and 250 hours of community service, federal prosecutors said. He is also ordered to pay more than $12,200 in restitution and write a letter of apology to the victims and the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes.
Scott Dattan, Losi’s attorney, told McClatchy News in an email he thinks Losi’s sentence is fair “given all of the circumstances.”
“(Losi) is remorseful and is committed to fulfilling the terms of his probation successfully,” Dattan said.
In a letter attached to his sentencing memo, Losi wrote: “I am deeply ashamed to have helped facilitate the exploitation of Native workers, artisans, and culture for the benefit of the financial gain of a dishonest business.”
McClatchy News reached out to the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes April 18 but did not receive an immediate response.
Ketchikan is about a 780-mile drive north from Seattle, Washington.
Artwork conspiracy
Losi worked as the lead salesperson at Alaska Stone Arts LLC, one of two shops opened by his employers in 2016, according to court documents.
Between July and August 2021, Losi is accused of conspiring with his employers to sell hundreds of falsely represented artworks, including stone carvings and wood totem poles, according to court documents.
Along with other employees and business owners, Losi would tell customers they were a “local Tlingit family that sourced their stone from Prince of Wales Island and sourced their totem poles from locally source wood,” prosecutors said.
Losi told the false story of how he apprenticed under his uncle “Kilit,” an Alaska Native Tlingit, for years before he began carving, according to court documents.
As part of the scheme, the carvings would be imported with engravings of the store employees’ names or initials, prosecutors said.
Others sentenced
Six others, including three business owners and three employees, were previously sentenced, according to prosecutors. One of the business owners’ sentences, reduced to 18 months, marked the longest sentence a person has received in connection to violating the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, prosecutors said.
“This sentencing marks a crucial step toward justice, finally holding accountable all defendants responsible for this betrayal of Alaska Native artisans, whose craftsmanship is not only their livelihood but their pride,” U.S. Attorney Michael J. Heyman said in the release.
Fraudulent Alaska Native artwork
In an economy like Alaska’s where tourism is the heartbeat, selling fake Native work has a long history.
In 1935, more than two decades before Alaska was granted statehood, Congress passed the Indian Arts and Crafts Act to address the problem, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Yet, similar cases remain common.
In 2021, a store owner in Anchorage was sentenced in misrepresenting ivory sculptures as “Alaska Native made” and illegally selling mammal products, the Tribal Business News reported.
Then two years later, a tourist shop outside Denali National Park was accused of selling fake souvenirs and art and ordered to stop selling products labeled “made in Alaska” in 2023, the Alaska Beacon reported.
“The volume and scale of this illegitimate industry is problematic and harmful,” U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said, adding that it takes opportunities away from legitimate Alaska Native artists and confuses the “history, meaning, and cultural traditions associated with authentic pieces.”
