[MSN] 'The Scream' is back, but 170, 000 other art treasures still missing

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

'The Scream' is back, but 170,000 other art treasures still missing

PARIS (AP) - Together, they would make up a stunning gallery: 167 
Renoirs, 166 Rembrandts, 175 Warhols, and more than 200 works by Dali.

Experts have estimated that more than 150,000 important pieces of art 
are missing - many burgled from private homes, others snatched from 
museum walls or pilfered from storerooms.

Only a fraction is ever found: Interpol puts the figure at around 10 per 
cent. Yet iconic masterpieces like Edvard Munch's "The Scream" and 
"Madonna," recovered last week in Norway, turn up more often, partly 
because of intense police work and partly because they are so tough to 
sell.

Criminals sometimes mastermind a spectacular burglary, then discover 
nobody will touch a work of art so famous that any buyer would have to 
hide it from view, said Karl-Heinz Kind, specialist officer on art theft 
at Interpol.

Thieves may demand a ransom, or try to sell works at a fraction of their 
worth. This is how some thieves trip up: The Italian house painter who 
stole the Mona Lisa in a famous 1911 heist was caught two years later, 
when he tried to sell it.

After a robbery, "the second step is ... to make money out of it," Kind 
said in a telephone interview. "And that's the much more difficult part, 
and I think very often underestimated by the thief."

Charles Hill, a former Metropolitan Police detective in Britain who 
specializes in recovering stolen art, calls stolen masterpieces "a 
poisoned chalice."

"Spectacular trophy art robberies are low or non-earners," he said.

For lesser treasures, the market is lucrative - and vast.

The FBI estimates the market for stolen art at US$6 billion annually. 
The Art Loss Register, which maintains the world's largest database on 
the subject, has tallied a total of 170,000 pieces of stolen, missing 
and looted art and valuables, said staff member Antonia Kimbell.

Interpol has about 30,000 pieces of stolen art in its database. Most art 
thefts are ordinary burglaries of private homes, where criminals take 
everything of value they can find, including art, said Kind.

In museums, many thefts occur in storerooms, and sometimes go unnoticed 
for years until museums do inventory. Often, museum personnel are 
involved, he said.

Then there are the dramatic raids. Kind likes to dispel the myth of art 
world criminals like Pierce Brosnan's suave character in the 1999 remake 
of "The Thomas Crown Affair."

"I would warn against considering art thieves as gentlemen thieves," 
Kind said. They are increasingly armed and violent, he said.

The Munch paintings were stolen by masked gunmen at the Munch Museum in 
Norway in 2004, while the museum was open. Police have said little about 
how they were recovered.

One of the biggest art heists of all time took place in the United 
States. In 1990, two men disguised as Boston police officers walked into 
the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum as the city's St. Patrick's Day 
celebration was winding down. They persuaded security guards to unlock 
the doors of the gallery and then stole 13 priceless items including 
works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas and Manet.

That heist appears on the FBI's list of the top 10 art thefts. The list 
is topped by the looting of Iraqi artifacts following the U.S. invasion 
in 2003 - an event that galvanized the international community's 
response to cultural theft.

The following year, the FBI dedicated 12 agents to a special art crime 
team. During its first year in operation, the team recovered more than 
100 pieces worth over $50 million.

"International law enforcement is getting better, they are devoting a 
lot more resources to it - specifically in the United States, where they 
really upped their staff," said Jonathan Sazonoff, who runs a leading 
website on stolen art.

http://www.brandonsun.com/pfstory.php?story_id=28714