Hacker News Reader

Comment by scrumper | Hacker News Reader

So logically there is a market. This scheme wasn't opportunistic, it was planned and involved some investment. The perpetrators therefore aren't complete morons; they have surely thought about what they'd do after making their getaway. I would like to know something about this market for stolen unique treasures.

View on HN

Swedish journalist Anders Rydell wrote a book called 'Plundrarna: Hur nazisterna stal Europas konstskatter' a few years ago; with any luck it has been translated into a language you're comfortable with. It deals with how the nazis looted art prior to and during the war, but also devotes a few chapters to what happened after the war - dealing in artworks of dubious provenance, legal issues when heirs to the original owners wanted the looted art back &c.

Perhaps not quite what you had in mind, but most interesting and well researched.

Not really. The only planning apparent is "had an escape vehicle", which does not meet the requirements for "not morons".

> In 2013, a crown and sceptre used in the funeral of Sweden’s 16th-century King Johan III were stolen from Västerås, another city on the shore of Lake Mälaren. They turned up a few days later in two large rubbish bags at the side of a highway after a tip-off to police.

Obviously the thieves weren't after them for any mundane value they possessed. <insert story about occult conspiracy theory here> (Back when I ran tabletop RPGs, this is exactly the sort of thing the PCs would have done.)

I toured Castle Edinburgh a couple of days ago, and I had this exact thought when looking at a wand amongst the Scottish Crown Jewels.

Somebody really sucks at their job of protecting Swedish crowns.

Just because that's the only part of their planning that we know of doesn't mean that it's the only planning that they actually did.

Since they successfully absconded with the jewels I'm going to guess they had more of a plan than simply "have an escape vehicle."

I always assume there's a buyer lined up before these things ever happen.

But then, when they stole The Scream a while back they clearly had no exit strategy, so who knows?

How do they know they got the original back?

Assuming there are copies, "the original" is the one everything believes to be the original. If the one actually created by Munch is a different one, it's not worth a whole lot if people don't generally believe that to be the case.

Nitpick: it is a bit weird to talk of the original or even of the Scream. Munch created four versions, two paintings and two pastels (in addition, about 45 prints of a lithograph were made, a few of which were hand-colored by Munch)

It seems we don’t know for sure which is the oldest. One of the paintings and one of the pastels both are from 1893. It’s natural to assume the pastel was a study for the painting, but we don’t know for sure.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream)

I saw an article on here a few days ago that suggested you could detect isotopes present in "more recent" forgeries that came about as the result of the nuclear testing age that would not be present on the originals.

You can test the pigments in the paint to see if period-correct materials were used. A lot of forgeries use pigments that wouldn't have been invented or otherwise available at the time.

The last time The Scream was stolen, it was meant to create a diversion; Norway had recently had a Heat-style armed robbery in which a police officer was shot dead; The Scream was stolen in an effort to divert resources from the robbery investigation. (IIRC)

Exactly. In 2012 seven priceless paintings (Picasso, Gauguin, Matisse, Monet) were stolen from Kunsthal museum, Rotterdam. Speculation about 'the art theft of the century' all over the place..

Appeared they were extreme amateurs that just smashed a window, carried away the paintings in the back of their car to Romania. Didn't know what to do with them, and when one of the robbers was caught, his mother burnt them all in the fireplace.

read: https://www.nrc.nl/kunsthal-en/

At least, I guess, these guys here could meld the gold and sell the stones individually on the black market.

Wow, I hope she went to jail too

It appears she did indeed go to jail, but is probably now out.

> Olga Dogaru was convicted of transporting and hiding stolen property (two years).

http://www.criminalelement.com/the-romanian-connection-the-k...

Ya.. that was really hard to read and I'm not even an art fan.

Maybe there is a market, maybe not. Other possible goals could be also to attack the swedish crown distroying a symbol of their power, to humiliate the police, to seed insecurity and fear in the population and blame foreigners. Maybe the thieves where paid in advance... Is not easy to guess the real motivation currently.

>Other possible goals could be also to attack the swedish crown distroying a symbol of their power, to humiliate the police, to seed insecurity and fear in the population and blame foreigners.

That goes a little too deep into conspiracy theory territory. There are much easier ways for all of those things than making a heist, but even more importantly, more direct ways to send those messages.

To be fair it was well couched with words like “maybe” and “possible... could be...” which are normally well understood as up front markers that the ideas presented are mere speculation. It is a bit out there but it’s an interesting line of inquiry.

How deep into conspiracy theory territory is positing an entire secret market of buyers and sellers of stolen artifacts? Because that seems much deeper than simply stealing jewels to make a political statement.

Not much conspiracy there, as it's well known that such a market exists and that it has enough people who don't care about the source of aquiration. Such heists happen every some years.

If it's known a black market exists, but the participants are not known, then things are ripe for conspiracy theories.

Not if Occam's razor (plus centuries of actual experience with catching fences -"professional" buyers of stolen goods- in such the black markets) simply puts the profit motive as the most possible explanation.

It's as if people never heard of art and jewellery heists before...

Are you saying the buyers and sellers don't cooperate?

Are we expected to believe that high-value buyers wouldn't authenticate the art they buy?

I'm saying that cooperation between buyers and sellers is something that goes on since time immemorial not some big conspiracy with unknown motivations...

>How deep into conspiracy theory territory is positing an entire secret market of buyers and sellers of stolen artifacts?

Well, we do know (1) that fences' [1] are a thing and have existed since time immemorial, (2) all kinds of stolen jewlery and art pieces found buyers all the time, and (3) the majority of heists and burglaries (as opposed to symbolic or terrorist acts) are simply motivated by the money. Very few thieves ever proceeded to made some political statement (e.g. the Bonnot gang).

If it's intended as a "political statement", then they chose a very roundabout and ineffective way to go about it, not to mention one that could land them in jail. They could just as well storm the palace or the place where the goods were kept and put out some banners or make some (non felonious) noise without stealing anything (much less covertly). The "happening" statement in such cases has been done lots of times (has happened in the Luvre, in Notre Dam, in various palaces, in Italian museums, in official conferences, etc. Pussy Riot are a good late example).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fence_(criminal)

> Very few thieves ever proceeded to made some political statement (e.g. the Bonnot gang).

How do you view acts such as statue toppling/removal/theft[0][1][2]?

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firdos_Square_statue_destructi...

[1]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/8-now-charged-in-toppling-of-du...

[2]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/world/controversial-statu...

That's not theft.

>The perpetrators therefore aren't complete morons; they have surely thought about what they'd do after making their getaway.

Why would they be "complete morons"? They successfully completed a quite difficult heist.

Even if they don't have a buyer lined up, this takes a lot of skill and smarts.

It was hardly a quite difficult heist. As an example of such check the helicopter robbery in Västberga in 2009 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4stberga_helicopter_ro...).

This was a smash and grab of a church with some thought used for finding a quiet spot for the smashing part and to make a faster escape with bicycles.

It was admittedly clever to have a boat ready, since it's easy to vanish to Mälaren, make a landfall, dump the boat and switch to a getaway car.

Svenska kyrkan really needs to do a risk assessment and take this seriously, since it is not the first time and won't be the last either and relying on the good will of people is not a strategy for preventing theft of historical artefacts.

Its not hard to imagine some Russian oligarch, Saudi prince, or American billionaire getting off on having these in their private collection.

Once they have 'm they can copy it very well several times and then catapult their profits!

If anyone can find a good book about this (heavy on detail, not just a single anecdotal heist story), I'd love to hear about it. In fact, I'd love even more something super academical and theoretical. Sounds like an interesting change of pace.

I read about a Canadian thief, who was exceptionally good (can't remember his name now). He stole some priceless stuff, and just kept them in his basement. He did it for the thrill (one of the details I remember - he parachuted into a heavily guarded museum). He only got caught because of his arrogance.

Not saying these guys are thrill seekers, but apparently there are people who do it just for "fun" and don't care about selling their loot.

Gerald Blanchard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Blanchard

https://www.wired.com/2010/03/ff_masterthief_blanchard/

> "On March 22, 2017, Blanchard was arrested in Burlington, Ontario for stealing electronics from a local Best Buy. [5]"

You can't make this stuff up..

2004 break leading to original conviction: "Seeing a dolly and other odd equipment inside, he took down the license plate number. Police ran it. The vehicle had been rented from Avis by one Gerald Daniel Blanchard."

2017 arrest: "[O]fficers used video surveillance footage of the parking lot and traced the suspect’s licence plate to a car rented in Blanchard’s name."

Being a successful, repeat criminal must be so exhausting. Before the 2004 incident the guy already had several fake identities he presumably could have used. I guess there's no end to how much effort you can put into covering your tracks and eventually you just have to roll the dice.

> he parachuted into a heavily guarded museum

Totally made up story uncritically relayed by the interviewing ‘journalist’, mind you.

Authorities found a parachute on the palace grounds hours after the heist. Perhaps subterfuge, but not unbelievable given how he undertook other heists--e.g. installing false ductwork in banks.

They arent going to sell it. These things have uses to criminals. For example, if ever caught for something else, knowing the location of a missing cultural treasure is a great chip during plea bargaining.

Did not think of this. Big insight...

How did you get to this train of thought if I may ask? :)

It is common knowledge in law enforcement. In Europe, the larger crime families have traditionally kept caches of valuable art. These jewels will be under someone's floorboards, perhaps for generations.

Something similar happened with lower-ranking German officers towards the end of the war. Art, like gold, transcends boarders and language.

I highly doubt this. Not the type of planning typical criminals in Sweden are good at.

Also, there is no plea bargaining in Sweden.

It isnt staying in sweeden.

The simplest plan now is to wait a week, then send an anonymous email to every newspaper in the country with a picture of the items over the day's newspaper and say "X bitcoins to this address for this item, Y bitcoins for this one". Reasonable prices, mind you. Aim for a year or two's salary for each thief maybe.

The police and government would know that the investigation will cost more than that amount. They'll look stupid to pay the money, but they'll not even bother trying to recover even one of them.

Don't you know? Once you've paid the danegeld, you'll never get rid of the dane.

Yeah, the insurance companies that "mysteriously" find the missing jewelry for cheaper than the insured price.

For things like this and high end art it's normally stolen to order.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com