# how does art theft work?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 16, 2017, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982 "2017-02-16T15:52:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2017, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/1 "2017-02-16T15:52:31Z")
So let’s say you’re a master art theif who managed to get the Mona Lisa out of the louve. Now you get to step two and try and sell it. Why would anyone buy it from you? We can assume that there are rich people with loose morals who wouldn’t have a problem buying stolen goods but what does Mr. Rich do with it?
Sure he puts it into his private collection but the whole point of such a private collection is to show it off to your rich friends. However you would either have to tell them it was stolen or that it is a reproduction. Either way your friends respect won’t be nearly as high and there is always the chance one of them turns you in.
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### Author:  [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2017, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/2 "2017-02-16T16:00:36Z")
> [@drewder](#):
>
> **how does art theft work?**
First, you need to track Art’s daily routine. Next, you’ll need a Van…
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2017, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/3 "2017-02-16T16:10:48Z")
The idea is that there are extremely rich people who are willing to acquire stolen art even if they can never show it to anyone. I don’t know if it’s ever been proven.
One scam or hustle is to steal an artwork, make one or more forgeries, and then to return the stolen artwork. The clever thief can then convince the mark that the mark is acquiring the real goods while, a forgery was returned to the museum. Even better if the thief sells multiple forgeries to multiple marks.
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### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2017, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/4 "2017-02-16T16:16:56Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> The idea is that there are extremely rich people who are willing to acquire stolen art even if they can never show it to anyone. I don’t know if it’s ever been proven.
>
> One scam or hustle is to steal an artwork, make one or more forgeries, and then to return the stolen artwork. The clever thief can then convince the mark that the mark is acquiring the real goods while, a forgery was returned to the museum. Even better if the thief sells multiple forgeries to multiple marks.
[Which was sort of the story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Chaudron) when the Mona Lisa WAS stolen in 1911 and Yves Chaudron sold multiple forged copies before the thief was caught.
The thief himself, interestingly, was selling the actual Mona Lisa to a gallery in Italy and thought he’d be hailed as a national hero for returning the painting to its homeland. Instead, he was befuddled at being arrested as a criminal and the painting sent back to the Louvre.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2017, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/5 "2017-02-16T16:21:09Z")
> [@drewder](#):
>
> …the whole point of such a private collection is to show it off to your rich friends.
We have more art in our house than we have room for. Neither of us cares who else sees it (unless they want to buy some).
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### Author:  [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2017, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/6 "2017-02-16T16:35:32Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> The idea is that there are extremely rich people who are willing to acquire stolen art even if they can never show it to anyone. I don’t know if it’s ever been proven.
I believe there have been a couple examples proven but I couldn’t find a specific case or site. Think of it as a kind of illicit porn; people into that sort of thing may have a small circle of friends who share the same interest that they can show it to even if it has to be kept hidden from the rest of the world.
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### Author:  [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/7 "2017-02-16T16:44:17Z")
Sometimes people steal art with the hope of ransoming it back to the original owner. It usually doesn’t work.
Here’s a great old [NYT article](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/what-is-the-value-of-stolen-art.html) about the nebulous value of stolen art.
The part about art thief Ron de Vries is particularly interesting.
> [@NYTimes](#):
>
> Until recently, when computerized databases of stolen art — managed by, among others, the Carabinieri in Italy, Interpol and the Art Loss Register, a private service — became widely used, it was simple to move art around, de Vries said. If he stole a painting, he could launder its reputation by sending it to America and then flying it back to Europe, he said, where he would reintroduce it to the art market through friendly dealers. He stole only from private homes and never from a museum, he claimed, and he never took a piece worth more than around 100,000 euros. Anything more valuable, he believed, created unwelcome publicity. Indeed, when we met, before the Romanian thieves were arrested, de Vries said he was confused by the Kunsthal heist because it contravened so many of his own rules.
>
> “Nobody breaks into a museum and steals paintings and wants to sell them,” he said. “It’s impossible.”
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2017, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/8 "2017-02-16T19:18:43Z")
If I were an art thief, I think I would consider stealing one from a private home under circumstances in which it not be missed for a while, have a good forgery made, break back in and hang the forgery, where I took the original, and nobody would even know there had been a theft.
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### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2017, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/9 "2017-02-16T19:29:46Z")
> [@friedo](#):
>
> Sometimes people steal art with the hope of ransoming it back to the original owner. It usually doesn’t work.
That’s how I would do it, if I were thinking of doing it, which I’m not. Paintings can’t later testify about where they were held or what the thieves looked like.
Although if I stole a Van Gogh, I would be tempted to say in the ransom note that, if I didn’t get my money, I would show I was serious by sending back an ear.
Regards,
Shodan
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### Author:  [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2017, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/10 "2017-02-16T19:38:09Z")
> [@jtur88](#):
>
> If I were an art thief, I think I would consider stealing one from a private home under circumstances in which it not be missed for a while, have a good forgery made, break back in and hang the forgery, where I took the original, and nobody would even know there had been a theft.
But if it is known that the other person had the original, even if you replaced it with a clever forgery, then how is the real original you are selling any more valuable than a really well made copy?
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2017, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/11 "2017-02-16T21:55:22Z")
Even if I were so inclined, I would steal a work of art only if I was commissioned to do so. It would be impossible to fence at anything remotely like its value.
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### Author:  [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2017, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/12 "2017-02-16T23:24:59Z")
nm
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### Author:  [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2017, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/13 "2017-02-17T10:13:17Z")
Stolen paintings can be used as collateral for large-scale arms deals, drug deals, any kind of illegal trafficking. They’re small, portable, don’t raise any red flags with financial institutions.
From the [New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/what-is-the-value-of-stolen-art.html):
> [@](#):
>
> Ellis told me that works with a high open-market value are often used by serious criminals as collateral. A painting doesn’t need to be sold at auction to hold value, he explained. Even if it stays forever on the black market, it can be used as a kind of promissory note in a weapons or drug deal. Career criminals also believe they can extort a ransom from insurers or use the stolen work as a bargaining chip. A prison sentence, for instance, might be reduced in some jurisdictions in exchange for a criminal’s help in retrieving a missing Monet. In effect, an unframed canvas, easier to move across borders than its equivalent in cash or drugs, acts as a high-value and extremely pretty bank note.
This is a major plot line in _The Goldfinch_.
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### Author:  [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2017, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/14 "2017-02-17T10:42:05Z")
> [@drewder](#):
>
> So let’s say you’re a master art theif who managed to get the Mona Lisa out of the louve. Now you get to step two and try and sell it.
Despite only becoming aware of the **[Jeremy Brett series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_(1984_TV_series))** last year, there can be no doubt Eric Porter defined and inhabited Moriarty, and in **The Final Problem** , stalking around be-caped like a grim villain out of M. R. James’ ghost stories, he attempted this very thing.
**[YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pXKqGwF5Lg)** to the 1st ten minutes, but it’s simple to find better versions.
The French art scenes are very good, and Switzerland is always comforting.
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2017, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/15 "2017-02-17T19:45:18Z")
> [@drewder](#):
>
> But if it is known that the other person had the original, even if you replaced it with a clever forgery, then how is the real original you are selling any more valuable than a really well made copy?
That is the great mystery of the market for art. A napkin with a blob of spit is worse than worthless until it becomes known that Picasso spit in it. Then it’s worth a fortune. This concept is what allows the existence of the entire sports and rock & roll memorabilia markets.
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### Author:  [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2017, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/16 "2017-02-17T19:57:29Z")
I have to say I agree with Goldfinger, smuggling gold is much better than smuggling diamonds or art.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2017, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/17 "2017-02-17T21:23:22Z")
It would make a dandy basis for blackmail on a national scale - steal a national treasure and threaten to destroy it unless the country does something essentially irreversible. (That is, no point in getting them to send money anywhere since it would likely be handed back.)
But suppose someone stole the Mona Lisa and gave France 180 days to grant citizenship to the native-born Algerians?
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### Author:  [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2017, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/18 "2017-02-17T21:43:38Z")
> [@jtur88](#):
>
> If I were an art thief, I think I would consider stealing one from a private home under circumstances in which it not be missed for a while, have a good forgery made, break back in and hang the forgery, where I took the original, and nobody would even know there had been a theft.
The problem with stealing art from a private home is that you never know if the owner’s art is a forgery or not. Maybe some one already stole the original and you are stealing a forgery. Its also possible the the Ming vase on display in the living room is a replica and the real vase is down in the basement in a vault.
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2017, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/19 "2017-02-17T22:00:28Z")
Donald Westlake’s (fictional) Dortmunder stole art from time to time. He made money by selling the art back to the insurance company for an amount significantly less than the art was insured for (but still a worthwhile payoff) - with the cover story that the insurance company was merely paying a recovery fee to an agent who could find the art (and had no association with the thief - wink). No idea if this approach is currently (or has ever been) done.
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### Author:  [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2017, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-art-theft-work/779982/20 "2017-02-17T22:32:51Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> But suppose someone stole the Mona Lisa and gave France 180 days to grant citizenship to the native-born Algerians?
About the same shrift as anyone who stole the Declaration of Independence and gave the U.S.A 180 days to give half of American land back to the Indian tribes.
Plus a brigade of extremely violent French Paratroopers.
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