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Comment by petre | Hacker News Reader

> Prosecutors believe Nils stole the van Gogh on the orders of Peter Roy K., a Dutch shipping mogul involved in drug smuggling, who hoped to use the artwork as leverage for negotiating a reduced prison sentence

Roy K: "Two years for the stolen van Gogh?"

Prosecutor: "Right. On top of what you got for dealing drugs?"

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Wait. Am I reading this right?

Did he commit a crime to get less jail time?

Wouldn't this be like kidnapping the police chief's child to try to get less prison time?

Someone please tell me it didn't work.

I was shocked to learn that this is a thing but it does happen. Organized crime groups steal art that they can use to negotiate lighter sentences.

It is believed that the Mafia stole Rembrandt's "Storm in the Sea of Galilee", among other works from the Gardner Museum for this reason. The documentary series "This Is a Robbery" goes into this heist and is a good watch.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_a_Robbery https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Mus...

In the Dutch system the judge has the last word not the prosecution so no it doesn't work.

Of course the judge has the last word. It was just a hypothetic prosecutor joke. I found it quite stupid that Roy K allegedly comissioned another crime, holding a painting hostage to get a reduced sentence. What?! That only put a different person in prison and potentially damaged the painting. I don't understand these people (drug dealers, nazis, climate activists) who keep stealing, looting and defacing Vincent van Gogh's legacy. His life was quite miserable as it is, why tarnish his legacy as well?

Meet Gerald Blanchard, who did something similar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Blanchard

It's kinda amusing that his last great crime after prison was stealing PlayStations from Best Buy...

Sounds like he successfully bargained after this arrest, but didn’t necessarily pre-meditate the theft in order to reduce a future prison sentence.

An ages old tactic, take someone or in this case something hostage to be ransomed for letting someone get out of jail. The most well-known cases in Germany involved the RAF (the left-wing terrorists, not the British Air Force), but it also works with nation states such as China taking two Canadians hostage to exchange them against a Huawei executive, or in war times with spy and prisoner-of-war exchanges.

The thing is, the stakes for something like that are super high, at least as a criminal as you need someone/something that is immeasurably valuable, stuff like the Crown Jewels or a masterpiece worth many millions of dollars, as a starter for negotiations - and that is usually just as well protected.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Michael_Spavor_an...

RAF = Red Army Faction, AKA Baader–Meinhof

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