How could someone Steal a Painting from a Museum?

So how do people steal a Cézanne, a Van Gogh, a Degas and a Monet in broad daylight in this day in age? Perugia’s successful snag of the “Mona Lisa” in 1911 was certainly more subtle than recent heists. They dressed in fake police uniforms and were let in by guards after hours. At the Swedish National museum in 2000, men brandishing a machine gun got away with a Renoir and a Rembrandt. Why bother stealing art?

Some recent thefts have proven how easy it can be to take a painting. Thieves can sell the painting to an unscrupulous art dealer or collector. The thieves have to know exactly whom to ask, though. That’s still a lot, though, with the price of art these days. But how can thieves sell “Boy in the Red Waistcoat” if the whole world knows it was stolen? If the painting is very recognizable, it’ll probably never end up on the open market, selling for what it’s worth. While it’s not the most common way to get rid of a well-known work, there are always people out there who will buy a stolen masterpiece.

­One might think museum security has vastly improved since 1911, but most museums don’t have the money to invest in million-dollar systems, let alone the crisscrossing laser-beam detectors that protect priceless objects in the movies. Due to a variety of circumstances, thieves take paintings from museums on a fairly regular basis, Lumpini Park Bangkok and with much less planning and finesse than Thomas Crown. Compared to banks and jewelry centers, museums are easy targets — and it shows. In the last 20 years alone, thieves have pulled dozens of major paintings off museum walls, including 20 works by Vincent Van Gogh in a single Amsterdam heist in 1991. Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” has been stolen twice in the last 15 years.

A stolen painting becomes the rightful property of the person who stole it after 20 years have passed. After that, the thief can actually sell it on the open market. Why bother stealing art? With art prices skyrocketing, museum thefts are on the rise. It might even be more profitable to steal a Picasso — or, in the case of the Zurich heist in February 2008, a Cézanne — than a bag of diamonds.