There is an entire genre of Hollywood movies which depict the activities of professional thieves for hire. Typically there is a gang of experienced, elite thieves, who might be in an ongoing association or perhaps assembled on an ad-hoc basis for a particular job, hired by a third party to carry out an elaborate heist on a bank, art gallery, or other high-security target. See for example Heat or Reservoir Dogs.
I am curious whether such heists actually exist in real life. Are there really professional thieves who regularly work in groups to steal high-value objects on behalf of paying customers (as opposed to keeping the loot themselves)?
When I worked at a bank, we were told that the average take in a bank robbery was only in the hundreds of dollars (so just give 'em the money, don’t cause risks for our customers by resisting). With that small a result, and then having to let the actual robbers keep a big cut of that, it hardly seems like all that profitable of a criminal undertaking.
It’s possible that for unique, collectible items, like artworks, there could be gangs who steal a specific item ‘ono commission’ from a collector who really wants it.
In most heist movies that involve bank robberies, it’s not the cash the robbers are after, but rather some item of value they know has been placed in the safe deposit vault. The movies often make a point of showing the thieves ignoring huge piles of cash.
In Italy, there was the School of Turin. It was not so much a ring of thieves inasmuch as a culture of professional thieving. If a guy wanted to rob a high-value jewelry store, he didn’t really “Hire” thieves to do it. He convinced other thieves to go in with him on the job for a cut of the loot. I don’t know if the School of Turin is still around, but they were resonsible for the big Antwerp Diamond Center heist in 2003.
The article is a bit vague, but it seems likely that the drivers were actually unaware that they were abetting a crime—it calls them “unsuspecting”. They were told that they were being hired as drivers and asked to rent cars for this purpose. The article then says that “The car thieves would then swing into action and smuggle the vehicles out of the country” but it’s not clear whether word “thieves” refers to the drivers or only to the two men who hired them.
It seems to be an unlikely business model. Hiring theives to steal something for you, and expecting to pay less than the value of the stolen items. The typical drama involves the theft of something that has greater value to the mastermind than the henchmen, but in reality that doesn’t happen that often. I imagine the typical scenario in real life will be Rich Guy hires Gang to steal a painting to complete Rich Guy’s covert collection of stolen works. Gang comes back with a piece of rolled up canvas, with a steel pipe inside of it. They hit Rich Guy on the head and take his money.
If there are, you are not going to hear about them. Although one advantage of a “theft for hire” scenario would be, no problems with fincing the goods as you already have a buyer. So if the client wants some million dollar painting on loan to a museum, he could hypothetically offer such a team say 100K to steal it for him. $25K each for a team of four and a few days work doesnt seem like a bad deal. Maybe a few expenses related to equipment and bribes to facilitate the job. As a bunus, once said crew is in, it might be trivial to grab a few other small high value items and make a bigger score out of it.
The value of the item in question is really irrelevant, only the effort needed.
Pickpockets in large busy cities tend to work in something that resembles a team. Pickpocket an item and quickly hand it off to a business associate so nothing is on you should a confrontation occurs.
I think this is the only plausible reason a non-governmental thievery ring would work for a client: Even if you gave me the super-valuable-stolen-painting-X for free right now, I wouldn’t know how to make any money off of it even though it is priceless, because I don’t know any shady art collectors and I would for sure get caught trying to sell it on craigslist. BUT if shady art collector told me where to get SVSPX, and that he would pay me $25k for it, the stolen painting is now suddenly worth $25k, plus shady art collector will be VERY private about it.
When I was in my twenties, I once ran across some people that shoplifted and sold what they got. They offered to pick up whatever I wanted and sell to me very cheap. I told them no way.
They were using the money for drugs. I made a point to avoid them after that.