Oct. 16, 2012 at 5:29pm with 310 notes
Reblogged from theatlantic
theatlantic: An FBI Agent Explains Why Stealing Art is a Terrible Business Plan Dutch police are reporting that seven paintings, including works by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, and Henri Matisse, were stolen today in a 3 a.m. burglary at the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam. The details are still sketchy, but the Associated Press says the masterworks are potentially worth hundreds-of-millions of Euros. To the museum, anyway. For the crooks themselves, the loot might well turn out to be worthless. According to Robert Wittman, founder of the FBI’s art crime team and author of the memoir Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures, it’s nearly impossible for thieves to sell famous pieces of art, even on the black market. […] “Unless a criminal is stealing the painting because he loves it, to put it on his wall — which in this case I sincerely doubt,” Wittman says. “You’re not going to steal a Matisse and a Picasso and a couple of Monets. They don’t go together. So unless you’re stealing it just to admire, their attempts to sell it are going to end in failure.” [Image: Reuters] What kind of neanderthal would hang a Matisse, a Picasso, and a couple of Monets in the same room? Fascinating. I always just assumed these were contract gigs - it wasn’t a fence, more of a paid extraction.

theatlantic:

An FBI Agent Explains Why Stealing Art is a Terrible Business Plan

Dutch police are reporting that seven paintings, including works by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, and Henri Matisse, were stolen today in a 3 a.m. burglary at the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam. The details are still sketchy, but the Associated Press says the masterworks are potentially worth hundreds-of-millions of Euros.

To the museum, anyway. For the crooks themselves, the loot might well turn out to be worthless. According to Robert Wittman, founder of the FBI’s art crime team and author of the memoir Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures, it’s nearly impossible for thieves to sell famous pieces of art, even on the black market. […]

“Unless a criminal is stealing the painting because he loves it, to put it on his wall — which in this case I sincerely doubt,” Wittman says. “You’re not going to steal a Matisse and a Picasso and a couple of Monets. They don’t go together. So unless you’re stealing it just to admire, their attempts to sell it are going to end in failure.”

[Image: Reuters]

What kind of neanderthal would hang a Matisse, a Picasso, and a couple of Monets in the same room?

Fascinating. I always just assumed these were contract gigs - it wasn’t a fence, more of a paid extraction.

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    Forreal though, Matisse and Picasso hated each other and Monet just doesn’t fit with the other two at all. Could’ve at...
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    That photograph is absurdly Children of Men.
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