PARIS, France – Crime gangs round Europe are more and more robbing precious jewels and gold from cash-needy museums just like the Louvre, however whereas police usually catch the thieves, they wrestle to get well the priceless items, regulation enforcement and artwork consultants say.
Solely a small pool of criminals could be able to such a job as Sunday’s audacious theft in Paris and will already be recognized to police, the specialists say. However the objects themselves could possibly be rapidly damaged down into part elements and offered on.
“If I steal a Van Gogh, it’s a Van Gogh. I can’t eliminate it by another channel than a bootleg artwork market,” mentioned Marc Balcells, a Barcelona-based knowledgeable in crimes in opposition to cultural heritage. “However when I’m stealing…jewellery, I can transfer it by a bootleg market as valuable stones.”
The brazen heist of crown jewels from the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum, has been decried by some as a nationwide humiliation and sparked safety checks throughout France’s multitude of cultural websites.
“If you happen to goal the Louvre, an important museum on the planet, after which get away with the French crown jewels, one thing was flawed with safety,” mentioned artwork investigator Arthur Model.
Officers on the Louvre, house to artworks such because the Mona Lisa, had the truth is already sounded the alarm about lack of funding.
And not less than 4 French museums have been robbed within the final two months, in response to media reviews.
On Tuesday, prosecutors mentioned they’d charged a Chinese language-born girl for the theft of six gold nuggets price about 1.5 million euros ($1.75 million) from Paris’s Museum of Pure Historical past final month. She was arrested in Barcelona making an attempt to eliminate some melted gold, they mentioned.
Christopher Marinello, founding father of Artwork Restoration Worldwide, which tracks stolen artwork, mentioned museum heists have been on the rise throughout Europe and additional afield.
He cited instances within the Netherlands, France, Egypt.
“You probably have jewels or gold in your collections, you’ll want to be apprehensive,” Marinello mentioned.
Whodunnit?
Paris prosecutors have entrusted the investigation to a specialised Paris police unit generally known as the BRB, which is used to coping with high-profile robberies.
Former police officer Pascal Szkudlara, who served within the unit, mentioned the BRB dealt with the 2016 Kim Kardashian probe, when Paris thieves stole her $4 million engagement ring, in addition to a current spate of kidnappings of rich crypto bosses.
He mentioned the BRB has about 100 brokers, with over a dozen specialised in museum thefts. Investigators will have a look at video footage, phone data, and forensic proof, whereas informants may even be activated.
“They’ll have groups engaged on it 24/7 and for a protracted interval,” Szkudlara mentioned, expressing “100%” confidence the thieves could be caught.
Police shall be poring over safety footage going again weeks, seeking to determine suspicious folks casing out the joint, Model mentioned.
Corinne Chartrelle, who beforehand labored on the French Police’s Central Workplace for the Struggle in opposition to Trafficking in Cultural Property, mentioned the jewels might feasibly find yourself in a world diamond centre like Antwerp the place there “are in all probability individuals who aren’t too involved concerning the origin of the gadgets.”
The diamonds is also minimize into smaller stones and the gold melted down, leaving consumers unaware of their provenance.
If the thieves really feel the web closing, they might chuck or destroy the loot altogether.
Police are clearly in a race in opposition to time.
“As soon as they’re been minimize into smaller jewels, the deed is finished. It’s over. We’ll by no means see these items once more intact,” mentioned Marinello. “It’s a really small proportion, recovering stolen artworks. With regards to jewelry, that proportion is even much less.”
Any idea concerning the objects being ordered up by a mysterious purchaser was laughable, mentioned Model. “That’s unprecedented,” he mentioned. “You solely see it in Hollywood films.”
Cultural authorities throughout Europe shall be how one can higher safe museums at a time of tight public funds.
Model mentioned it was unimaginable to correctly safeguard a museum, so one of the best factor was to decelerate the time it takes to steal objects and escape, giving police longer to reply by making home windows or show instances thicker, or including extra doorways.
“They know they’ve solely 5, six minutes to get away with it as a result of after six minutes, the police present up. So in the event that they go right into a museum…and so they discover out that it takes greater than six, seven, eight minutes, they won’t do it,” he mentioned.
Finland’s Nationwide Gallery Director Basic Kimmo Leva mentioned monetary realities meant robust selections.
“A tightening on a regular basis economic system is, naturally, not one of the best foundation for making the investments wanted to mitigate potential threats,” Leva mentioned. – Rappler.com
($1 = 0.8575 euros)
