ROGUE MUSEUMS IN FEBRUARY 2002, Paolo Ferri's investigation got another big break when a Cyprus customs agent in the Limassol airport detained an elderly Swiss woman who had come off a plane. Antiquities dealer Frieda Tchakos had stepped into a snare set by Ferri, who had quietly issued an international arrest warrant for her based on her involvement in an unrelated looting case. Informed of Tchakos's arrest, Ferri pulled the legal net tighter. As he and Salvatore Morando scrambled to catch a plane to Cyprus, the prosecutor refused to lift the warrant, leaving Tchakos to spend the night in a prison cell, where she slept on a wooden table, shivering under a thin wool blanket. Ferri was determined to send a message: I can make your life miserable. "I won't pull the warrant until I get a statement about Hecht, Medici, and everything she knows about the illicit antiquities market," he told the dealer's attorney. Tchakos agreed and after her release played host to Ferri and Morando at her brother's apartment.
