It would seem quite obvious: to find the stolen paintings, you need to briefly visit the thief's “shoes”. And try to imagine how it is possible to think over a plan of theft and how to implement it. And also where works of art can be hidden and where to sell them. But knowledge of the patterns will not help here. If it were that easy, then many works of art would already be in their original place.
Sometimes the attacker is betrayed by the crime scene itself. Or rather, the evidence left on it, the presence of involuntary witnesses and the extraordinary behavior of thieves.
For example, in 2000, at the National Museum in Stockholm, there was a daring theft of three paintings by two famous artists: Renoir and Rembrandt. The kidnapping was planned by a criminal group of people who knew a lot about art. After all, the total value of the paintings is at least $ 30 million. They were betrayed by their thirst for romance and adventure. They boarded a motor boat and left the scene, leaving behind a crowd of onlookers. As a result, about six months later, the kidnapping case was opened.
An almost comic incident took place in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The thieves of the two paintings worked very energetically and even managed to escape from the police. This time the thieves were let down by the banal haste, because the "bunglers" left their hats at the place of theft. And they naturally had hair. Thanks to the obtained DNA samples, the villains were immediately subjected to righteous judgment.
There have been cases when the famous canvases in art galleries were calmly carried away in broad daylight, despite the vigilant attention of many guards. The Scottish Castle of Drumlanriga still retains the memories of robbers pretending to be police in 2003 and telling their excursion group that they were conducting exercises so that people would not panic when they began to take away the painting "Madonna with a Spindle" by Leonardo da Vinci. And one of the most grandiose robberies took place at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. There, 13 paintings with a total value of $ 500 million were taken out by deception of the guards.
Sometimes they look for paintings in the places where the kidnappers are trying to sell them. These can be websites and colorfully decorated auction catalogs with photos of works of art placed in them. Masterpieces can easily be found in the private homes of unsuspecting owners who purchased them. It is natural that in order to search for the loss, it is often required to carry out a carefully planned operation with the participation of special services.
In addition, there are many interesting facts about the theft of paintings. For example, sometimes innocent people, that is, talented artists who make copies of popular canvases, fall under suspicion. Interestingly, in the history of mankind, paintings by the artist Picasso were most often stolen. It also turned out that most of the kidnappers, whom they managed to expose, hid their acquisitions in cemeteries and in lockers. It is noteworthy that the legendary painting by Rembrandt, due to its rather small size (29, 99/24, 99 cm), managed to steal as many as 4 times.
The motivation of thieves may defy logic. For example, paintings were sometimes stolen not for the purpose of profit and resale, but out of love for art. A connoisseur of beauty and antiquity, Stefan Brightweather, in just 7 years of traveling across Europe, stole over 200 different antiques, including paintings. He collected all this exclusively for his home.
The targets of the kidnappers may even deserve respect. For example, the Italian Vincenzo Perugia, who worked in the Louvre art gallery, was a patriot of his country. And for this reason, I decided to take the masterpieces of Italian painting home. Naturally, public opinion fully supported him, and he escaped punishment.
From all of the above, we can conclude that it can be very difficult to trace the fate of stolen paintings. That is why it sometimes takes many years to find them.
