AR1. NE1. NEW YORK Who Says Museum Heists Don’t Pay? Here Are 5 Ways Crafty Criminals Actually Profit From High-Profile Art Thefts.

Stolen art can be a hard sell. We spoke to the experts about what thieves tend do with it.Naomi Rea, August 24, 2020The FBI estimates that art crime is multi-billion-dollar-a-year illicit industry, and while much of it is made up of low order theft, the plundering of a museum never fails to steal headlines. Earlier this summer, an opportunistic thief stole a Van Gogh painting from a Dutch museum in an audacious smash-and-grab. News reports widely noted the work’s $6 million value on the legitimate market, but what is the true worth of a stolen masterpiece? Who buys a work that can’t be publicly shown?We consulted experts on what actually happens to a work of art once it has been stolen.

Here are the five pathways that thieves tend to take to cash in on their larceny.

1. Theft to Order

When we hear about a museum heist, we might picture a wealthy billionaire presihttps://www.hidemyhistory.co/encsearch?q=www.internet-explorer.comding over a vast trove of the world’s most wanted art.Indeed, there have been a few people caught stealing art for their own private collections, such as the notorious French art thief Stéphane Breitwieser, who made off with some 239 artworks from museums. Or the seemingly innocuous Tucson couple, who were discovered to have had a $160 million stolen Willem de Kooning hanging in their bedroom for decades. But art crime professor Erin Thompson, who works at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, tells Artnet News that this is rare. “We’ve busted plenty of reclusive, unscrupulous, powerful art lovers, from dictators to drug lords, but we haven’t found stolen masterpieces on their walls,” she says.While an elaborate heist of the Mona Lisa on behalf of a villainous art buff might make a good Hollywood movie, the reality is often much more prosaic. More often, thieves spot a vulnerability in a museum’s security system, steal the art, and find out later that it is harder to move than they previously thought.Thompson says that the most successful thieves have actually targeted objects for their raw materials rather than the object as a whole. For example, it is less conspicuous to break off a valuable horn from a taxidermy mount, or to melt down an object for the value of its precious metals, or break up jewelry to sell as individual pieces (which was most likely the fate of the diamonds stolen from Dresden’s Green Vault). But outside of an investment in a co-ownership scheme, one square inch of a Van Gogh painting isn’t worth a whole lot to anyone.

2. Cash Out From the Museum

Christopher Marinello, chief executive at Art Recovery International, who has been working in the field of lost art for 30 years, tells Artnet News that thieves will often try to sell a work back to the museum that it was stolen from. In 80 percent of cases, Marinello says that criminals will either try to hold the work for ransom, or wait for the museum to announce a reward for the return of the work. But this doesn’t always work. Some museums will refuse to negotiate with criminals, and the risk of getting caught in a sting operation while collecting on a ransom or a reward is high. There is currently a $5 million reward out for information leading to the recovery of 13 priceless masterpieces that were stolen in the infamous 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, but the paintings have never been recovered.

3. The Insurance Gambit

Other times, thieves will go directly to the insurance company, as ownership of the work often passes to the insurer after it has paid out for losses. Marinello, who has several art insurance companies as clients, says it is not uncommon for thieves to try and ransom work to the insurance company directly.Sometimes, thieves have inside knowledge of museum’s insurance policies, but other times they just mike a wild guess—which doesn’t always pay off. Insuring irreplaceable artwork against theft is sometimes prohibitively expensive for museums; the Gardner paintings, for example, were not insured against theft. But Thompson says that if there is theft coverage, insurance companies generally offer a no-questions-asked reward for return. “So, you can steal a painting and give it to your girlfriend to hand over to the insurers—she’ll say she found it in a bus stop and you’ll get around 10 to 15 percent of the value of the art,” Thompson says.

4. Try to Sell It Legitimately

Thieves who fail to cash out from museums or insurers may attempt to sell their acquisition on the legitimate market, such as through auction houses or dealers.This is easiest when the objects have not yet been reported as stolen, which is why Thompson says that smarter thieves will target objects that aren’t currently on display, preying on the weaknesses of underfunded museum storage facilities or library stacks.In cases where the missing work has been reported, the thief will be hard pressed to find a reputable art dealer today who neglects their due diligence. There are several databases of stolen artworks, from the Art Loss Register to the FBI and Interpol that dealers can easily cross check before committing to a purchase. All it takes is a couple of clicks from a prospective buyer to land a criminal in the clink, as was the case in the Transy Book heist, when thieves tried to have Christie’s appraise more than $5 million worth of rare books, or the fate of a pair of knuckleheaded art thieves who tried to flog a group of stolen paintings to an art dealer in Bucharest.That said, there are still some places—Marinello singles out Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE—where buyers tend to be less scrupulous about the origins of objects.

5. Try to Sell It on the Black Market

One possible trajectory for the Van Gogh painting that was stolen earlier this summer was revealed more recently when a photograph of the stolen work surfaced as an ad in the criminal underworld.According to the experts, the black market is the last resort for art thieves hoping to monetize their stash. There, criminals are hard pressed to find a legitimate buyer and, as FBI art crime specialist Christopher McKeogh tells Artnet News, there is risk associated with the sale. “Individuals have been known to create fake versions of well-known stolen works,” McKeogh says. “If a stolen artwork is discovered on a black market, there’s a good chance it could be a fake and completely unrelated to the original theft.”This is why art sells for a fraction of its true value on the black market, as the infamous Dutch thief Octave Durham found out, much to his chagrin, when he unloaded two Van Gogh paintings that he had stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in 2002 to an Italian mobster for less than $400,000.Once circulating in the criminal underworld, masterpieces take on a whole new currency and trajectory that has far less to do with aesthetics than with their value as collateral.Drug traffickers have been known to use stolen artwork for loan security, and artwork can be traded for weapons. In these cases, McKeogh says, “it is always hoped that the thieves know how to stabilize or care for what are usually fragile items.”Often, works end up in the hands of mobsters who use them as “get-out-of-jail-free” cards, turning over information on their whereabouts in exchanged for reduced sentences. That is often the case when works mysteriously turn up, as it happened with a Gustav Klimt painting was discovered in an alcove in the museum’s garden. Ultimately, Durham’s stolen Van Goghs ended up in the hands of an Italian gangster used them to negotiate a lesser sentence for drug trafficking.One can only hope for such an ending for the Van Gogh that was just stolen this summer from the Dutch museum—for the sixth and final pathway for stolen art is much more tragic.It is an “investigator’s greatest fear,” McKeogh says, that a thief may panic or grow frustrated and destroy a priceless work of art. This has been the case for many an ill-advised heists, such as the five Modernist paintings stolen from the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, and dozens of Breitwieser’s stolen Old Masters, which ended up in the bottom of a canal.https://news.artnet.com/art-world/how-thieves-profit-from-heists-1903376

W YORK Who Says Museum Heists Don’t Pay? Here Are 5 Ways Crafty Criminals Actually Profit From High-Profile Art Thefts
Stolen art can be a hard sell. We spoke to the experts about what thieves tend do with it.
Naomi Rea, August 24, 2020

The FBI estimates that art crime is multi-billion-dollar-a-year illicit industry, and while much of it is made up of low order theft, the plundering of a museum never fails to steal headlines.
Earlier this summer, an opportunistic thief stole a Van Gogh painting from a Dutch museum in an audacious smash-and-grab. News reports widely noted the work’s $6 million value on the legitimate market, but what is the true worth of a stolen masterpiece? Who buys a work that can’t be publicly shown?
We consulted experts on what actually happens to a work of art once it has been stolen. Here are the five pathways that thieves tend to take to cash in on their larceny.

1. Theft to Order
When we hear about a museum heist, we might picture a wealthy billionaire presihttps://www.hidemyhistory.co/encsearch?q=www.internet-explorer.comding over a vast trove of the world’s most wanted art.
Indeed, there have been a few people caught stealing art for their own private collections, such as the notorious French art thief Stéphane Breitwieser, who made off with some 239 artworks from museums. Or the seemingly innocuous Tucson couple, who were discovered to have had a $160 million stolen Willem de Kooning hanging in their bedroom for decades. But art crime professor Erin Thompson, who works at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, tells Artnet News that this is rare. “We’ve busted plenty of reclusive, unscrupulous, powerful art lovers, from dictators to drug lords, but we haven’t found stolen masterpieces on their walls,” she says.
While an elaborate heist of the Mona Lisa on behalf of a villainous art buff might make a good Hollywood movie, the reality is often much more prosaic. More often, thieves spot a vulnerability in a museum’s security system, steal the art, and find out later that it is harder to move than they previously thought.
Thompson says that the most successful thieves have actually targeted objects for their raw materials rather than the object as a whole. For example, it is less conspicuous to break off a valuable horn from a taxidermy mount, or to melt down an object for the value of its precious metals, or break up jewelry to sell as individual pieces (which was most likely the fate of the diamonds stolen from Dresden’s Green Vault). But outside of an investment in a co-ownership scheme, one square inch of a Van Gogh painting isn’t worth a whole lot to anyone.

2. Cash Out From the Museum
Christopher Marinello, chief executive at Art Recovery International, who has been working in the field of lost art for 30 years, tells Artnet News that thieves will often try to sell a work back to the museum that it was stolen from. In 80 percent of cases, Marinello says that criminals will either try to hold the work for ransom, or wait for the museum to announce a reward for the return of the work.
But this doesn’t always work. Some museums will refuse to negotiate with criminals, and the risk of getting caught in a sting operation while collecting on a ransom or a reward is high. There is currently a $5 million reward out for information leading to the recovery of 13 priceless masterpieces that were stolen in the infamous 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, but the paintings have never been recovered.

3. The Insurance Gambit
Other times, thieves will go directly to the insurance company, as ownership of the work often passes to the insurer after it has paid out for losses. Marinello, who has several art insurance companies as clients, says it is not uncommon for thieves to try and ransom work to the insurance company directly.
Sometimes, thieves have inside knowledge of museum’s insurance policies, but other times they just mike a wild guess—which doesn’t always pay off. Insuring irreplaceable artwork against theft is sometimes prohibitively expensive for museums; the Gardner paintings, for example, were not insured against theft. But Thompson says that if there is theft coverage, insurance companies generally offer a no-questions-asked reward for return. “So, you can steal a painting and give it to your girlfriend to hand over to the insurers—she’ll say she found it in a bus stop and you’ll get around 10 to 15 percent of the value of the art,” Thompson says.

4. Try to Sell It Legitimately
Thieves who fail to cash out from museums or insurers may attempt to sell their acquisition on the legitimate market, such as through auction houses or dealers.
This is easiest when the objects have not yet been reported as stolen, which is why Thompson says that smarter thieves will target objects that aren’t currently on display, preying on the weaknesses of underfunded museum storage facilities or library stacks.
In cases where the missing work has been reported, the thief will be hard pressed to find a reputable art dealer today who neglects their due diligence. There are several databases of stolen artworks, from the Art Loss Register to the FBI and Interpol that dealers can easily cross check before committing to a purchase. All it takes is a couple of clicks from a prospective buyer to land a criminal in the clink, as was the case in the Transy Book heist, when thieves tried to have Christie’s appraise more than $5 million worth of rare books, or the fate of a pair of knuckleheaded art thieves who tried to flog a group of stolen paintings to an art dealer in Bucharest.
That said, there are still some places—Marinello singles out Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE—where buyers tend to be less scrupulous about the origins of objects.

5. Try to Sell It on the Black Market
One possible trajectory for the Van Gogh painting that was stolen earlier this summer was revealed more recently when a photograph of the stolen work surfaced as an ad in the criminal underworld.
According to the experts, the black market is the last resort for art thieves hoping to monetize their stash. There, criminals are hard pressed to find a legitimate buyer and, as FBI art crime specialist Christopher McKeogh tells Artnet News, there is risk associated with the sale. “Individuals have been known to create fake versions of well-known stolen works,” McKeogh says. “If a stolen artwork is discovered on a black market, there’s a good chance it could be a fake and completely unrelated to the original theft.”
This is why art sells for a fraction of its true value on the black market, as the infamous Dutch thief Octave Durham found out, much to his chagrin, when he unloaded two Van Gogh paintings that he had stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in 2002 to an Italian mobster for less than $400,000.
Once circulating in the criminal underworld, masterpieces take on a whole new currency and trajectory that has far less to do with aesthetics than with their value as collateral.
Drug traffickers have been known to use stolen artwork for loan security, and artwork can be traded for weapons. In these cases, McKeogh says, “it is always hoped that the thieves know how to stabilize or care for what are usually fragile items.”
Often, works end up in the hands of mobsters who use them as “get-out-of-jail-free” cards, turning over information on their whereabouts in exchanged for reduced sentences. That is often the case when works mysteriously turn up, as it happened with a Gustav Klimt painting was discovered in an alcove in the museum’s garden. Ultimately, Durham’s stolen Van Goghs ended up in the hands of an Italian gangster used them to negotiate a lesser sentence for drug trafficking.
One can only hope for such an ending for the Van Gogh that was just stolen this summer from the Dutch museum—for the sixth and final pathway for stolen art is much more tragic.
It is an “investigator’s greatest fear,” McKeogh says, that a thief may panic or grow frustrated and destroy a priceless work of art. This has been the case for many an ill-advised heists, such as the five Modernist paintings stolen from the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, and dozens of Breitwieser’s stolen Old Masters, which ended up in the bottom of a canal.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/how-thieves-profit-from-heists-1903376

Boomerang art thefts: the stolen art that finds its way back From a Van Gogh left in a public toilet to a Klimt found inside a gallery wall, just what is it that prompts criminals to return such valuable works? RIAH PRYOR 3rd April 2020 12:15 BST The recent confession by criminals to the theft of a Gustav Klimt painting 20 years ago is the latest example of thieves losing their nerve and aiding the return of stolen art. Portrait of a Lady (1916-17) was originally stolen in 1997 from the Ricci Oddi Gallery of Modern Art in Piacenza, northern Italy. When the painting was uncovered by a pair of gardeners clearing away ivy in the gallery’s grounds late last year, the thieves told a local paper that they had returned the work to a hiding spot on the site four years ago “as a gift to the city”. Another notable instance of criminals abandoning cultural loot was the discovery of a painting in a pile of rubbish in New York in 2003. The work, Tres Personajes (1970) by the celebrated Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, had been stolen 20 years previously and turned out to be worth around $1m. A key reason for this so-called “boomerang effect” is panic about how to get rid of the stolen art. This is more likely with works that are swept up as collateral damage in crimes that were actually targeting other valuables, or in opportunistic thefts, which tend to be unplanned and often involve little understanding of the challenges involved in selling recognisable works of art. Often a dawning realisation of a stolen work’s significance, or failed attempts to sell it, can leave criminals suddenly keen to distance themselves from it. Take, for example, the apparently inebriated thieves who stole the left hand of a totem pole by the Indigenous artist Charles Joseph that stands outside the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canada, in October last year. The thieves apologised and returned the hand, with a note explaining their ignorance. “At the time, we were not in a sober state of mine, and we had no idea what the totem pole was,” they stated. Sometimes, sheer guilt drives the voluntary return of stolen art In other cases, the return of works is the last resort following a string of exhausted options. “The first thing most criminals try to do is sell the item,” says Christopher Marinello, the chief executive and founder of Art Recovery International. “When that fails, they will often try and ransom it back to the theft victim or hope that an insurance company will come forward and offer a reward. When those strategies are exhausted, they begin to feel at risk with the item and anxiety creeps in.” Marinello adds that destroying or abandoning the paintings is often weighed against the potential value of using the paintings as a “get out of jail free card” or bargaining chip in the event they are arrested in the future. “Hiding stolen works of art becomes a way of postponing that decision but runs the risk that someone else will discover the location,” he says. Thieves may also think it safe to come forward if they feel a reassuringly long period of time has passed since the original crime. “As a matter of criminal law generally, the statute of limitation applies to crimes and the prosecution may be barred from prosecuting a crime after a period of years,” says Pierre Valentin, a partner of the law firm Constantine Cannon. He adds that the statute of limitation for theft is different from the statute of limitation that applies to a claim by the victim seeking the return of property, the latter being a matter of civil law. But sometimes, sheer guilt drives the voluntary return of stolen art. Or, more often, guilt over the actions of an ancestor or relative. This was the case with Horst Wächter, the son of a German SS general, who returned three works of art, including a painting of the Potocki Palace, to Poland in 2017. The works had been looted from Kraków’s National Museum by Wächter’s mother in 1939. He told The Guardian he hoped the move would encourage others in possession of such objects to follow suit and said: “I do not return the objects for me, but for the sake of my mother.” Hang on a minute, lads, I’ve got a great idea: Three more failed thefts Giving up on Van Gogh An elaborate theft of 20 paintings from Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum in 1991 was scuppered when the getaway vehicle seemingly got a flat tyre. The paintings, estimated at around $500m, were discovered a mere half hour after the raid, in an abandoned car near the museum. Four men were later arrested and convicted. Another theft from the museum in 2002, however, was more successful—two paintings by the Dutch master, Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen (1884-85) and View of the Sea at Scheveningen (1882), were lost until 2016, when they were found during an Italian operation cracking down on organised crime. Proving a point with Picasso Three works—by Picasso, Van Gogh and Gauguin—were stolen from the UK’s Whitworth Art Gallery in 2003, only to be discovered days later in a public toilet not far from the Manchester gallery. Wrapped inside a tube, the works were accompanied by a note stating that the intention was not to steal, but rather “to highlight the woeful security”. Risky Rembrandts Last November saw a bold attempt to steal two works by Rembrandt on loan to London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery for a temporary exhibition. Following a scuffle with security officers and police—one of whom received a dose of an unknown spray to his eyes—the thieves scarpered with the paintings. But shortly afterwards the works were recovered—in nearby hedges—and have since been safely returned to the Louvre and Washington’s National Gallery of Art. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/analysis/boomerang-art-thefts-the-stolen-art-that-finds-its-way-back

Five major paintings, including works by Hans Holbein the Elder and Frans Hals, were returned to Germany's Friedenstein Castle 41 years after their theft.

A secret recovery mission ended on September 30, 2019, when a van stopped in front of the Rathgen research laboratory in Berlin, to unload five packages.
Their content was not revealed until January 17, 2020 at a press conference, revealed The Daily Art Newspaper. Inside were five paintings of old masters stolen from Friedenstein Castle over 40 years ago and missing ever since. The robbery, which occurred in December 1979, is considered the most disastrous in the history of communist East Germany. It is as incredible as the recovery mission which was carried out without any ransom being paid.

"The 1979 robbery traumatized the people of Gotha," said Tobias Pfeifer-Helke, director of the Schloss Friedenstein Foundation, at the press conference. As many as a thousand people were questioned by law enforcement, and according to recent discoveries, the paintings were smuggled through the Iron Curtain in the mid-1980s. It remains to be seen how the criminals managed to bypass one of the most watched fortified borders in history.

It took 41 years for the five works, whose insurance value amounts to 4 million euros ($4.4 million) to reappear. Gotha Mayor Knut Kreuch said he received several phone calls in 2018, followed by photographs from a lawyer. The latter's customers demanded more than 5 million euros ($5.5 million) for the paintings. "We don't give money to thieves," replied Martin Hoernes, of the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation, whom the mayor had then asked for the funds.

Hoernes pointed out that no payment had been made to guarantee the return of the works. However, the Siemens Art Foundation covered the legal costs, research and transport, which, put together, amounted to less than 50,000 euros ($55,000). The result was a "diplomatic coup" made possible by skillful negotiation.

Among the works is a portrait of Saint Catherine by Hans Holbein the Elder (1510), a portrait signed Frans Hals (1535), a landscape formerly attributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder and today considered the work of his workshop, a copy of a self-portrait by Anthony van Dyck, and a 17th century portrait attributed to Ferdinand Bol.

After their secret arrival at Rathgen's laboratory, the researchers had three months to analyze the paintings. Stefan Simon, the director of the institute, said that their authenticity is beyond question. Comparisons with photographs prior to 1979 revealed identical cracks in the varnish.

Criminal investigations are continuing. The identity of the thieves is still unknown, and the case remains unresolved, said René Allonge, of the Berlin police.

The five paintings were on display at Friedenstein Castle until January 26, 2020 and now will be restored for an exhibition dedicated to the history of theft planned for 2021. "This is the most important event since German reunification for the city of Gotha," said Pfeifer-Helke.

https://www.barnebys.com/blog/five-stolen-paintings-return-to-a-german-castle?utm_source=Newsletter+en_US&utm_medium=email