A little more than a week after the robbery police knew the identity of key members of the gang. ibid.
They traced calls made to the boat seller to a second phone. ibid.
It was perhaps the biggest art heist of all time. Countless millions of dollars of the finest European art simply seized by the Nazis … Among the booty was one of the most extraordinary paintings of the 20th century owned by a wealthy Jewish industrialist. It was a portrait of a woman be Austrian artist Gustav Klimt. For sixty years the painting’s owners fought to get it back. The battle took them to the American Supreme Court. Art of the Heist s2e1: The Lady in Gold
Gustav Klimt painted Adele Bloch-Bauer in 1907. ibid.
The case had attracted media interest from around the world. ibid.
The Klimts were going up for auction. ibid.
It was an elaborate swindle: disguising precision Egyptian antiquities as tourist souvenirs so they could be smuggled out of the country. Art of the Heist s2e2: The Pharaoh’s Head
They belonged in the government store in Egypt. ibid.
Ancient Egyptian artefacts began to flow freely from where they were discovered to collections in the West. ibid.
Jonathan Tokeley-Parry ... A reputation as a brilliant antique restorer. ibid.
In December 1913 a man arrived with a trunk in Florence after a sixteen-hour train journey from Paris. He checked into a run-down hotel, and the next day he was visited by two of Italy’s greatest experts in art. The man had something to give them: the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. The Mona Lisa had been taken from the Louvre two years earlier in one of the coolest and most brazen art robberies ever. Art of the Heist s2e3: The Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa
It had simply just vanished ... A humble Italian carpenter had outwitted the whole of the French art establishment ... It was more than twenty-four hours before anyone even realised the Mona Lisa was missing. ibid.
Luck and police incompetence favoured [Vincenzo] Peruggia. ibid.
Two names came up, names familiar in the world of art and letters. One was a poet. The other a young Spanish artist who was already showing promise: Pablo Picasso. ibid.
Peruggia treated the Mona Lisa with respect. ibid.
He told the court his motive for the theft was national pride. ibid.
For a long time he had slept with the Mona Lisa by his bed. ibid.
Its fascination has always been her expression: the Mona Lisa smile. ibid.
The Louvre was shut indefinitely. But still had to face the public outcry. ibid.
The authorities clung to the faint hope that the theft was a publicity stunt. There were plenty of other theories. ibid.
A thumbprint from the thief. Finger-printing was a relatively new science. ibid.
The Hermitage in St Petersburg vies with The Louvre in Paris as the world’s greatest museum. In August 2006 its director made an announcement: more than 200 items worth about $5 million were missing from its vaults. It was a huge scandal. Art of the Heist s2e4: The Russian Conspiracy
The Winter Palace became a museum – the Hermitage. It contains the collections seized from the Tsars and the Russian aristocracy. ibid.
Only 5% of the museum’s contents is ever on show at one time. ibid.
226 items were missing from the store-room of Russian precious metals and jewellery, and the curator of the department [Larisa Zavadskaya] had died at her desk nine months before. ibid.
The Hermitage director was convinced his enemies were plotting his downfall. ibid.
They discovered still more objects missing. ibid.
In January 2006 Austrian police began a search of a wooded area outside Vienna. It was a strange place to look for a salt-cellar but it was no ordinary salt-cellar they were seeking, but a solid gold one by Benvenuto Cellini, more than three hundred years old ... worth about £30,000,000 and stolen from Vienna’s History of Art Museum. The thief had been toying with the police sending them anonymous letters and leading them on a treasure hunt with written clues along the way. For three years the audacious thief led the police on a wild goose chase playing hunt the salt-cellar. Art of the Heist s2e5: The Thieving Don Juan
On the seventh floor they found chaos: a window had been broken from the outside. In the centre of the room a glass cabinet had been broken, and it was empty. ibid.
Valued for insurance today at $65,000,000. ibid.
The sculpture was unique, and uniquely important. ibid.
It started as one of the most perfect art heists. Two Rubens stolen in broad daylight from a gallery in Spain leaving no clues. With the art world on high alert, trying to sell the stolen paintings was to prove the thief’s biggest challenge. Art of the Heist s2e6, Miami Sting
The thief is able to walk out of the museum before anybody notices the paintings are missing. It could not have been simpler. ibid.
Miami: The entire gang had been arrested, and the stolen Rubens recovered. ibid.
In 1987 a 1,500-year-old archaeological site in the Peruvian desert was looted almost to extinction. The site is called La Mina because it is the burial place of the Lord of La Mina, the ruler of an ancient sect known as Moche. Its looting was possibly the worst desecration of a Peruvian archaeological site since the arrival of the Spanish five hundred years ago. Art of the Heist s2e7: Trail of the Moche Gold
They took priceless objects: ceramic figures and bowls; most valuable of all was a superb gold headdress. It shows the face of a sea-god. ibid.
Mocha rulers were buried in state, the mummified body surrounded by a store of artefacts. At the centre the ruler’s golden headdress. ibid.
Argentina was ruled by a ruthless military junta. When the biggest art theft in the nation’s history occurred. Impressionist paintings by some of France’s most famous artists were stolen. For more than twenty years the paintings ... vanished. The hunt for the paintings covered three countries, and was finally resolved in a courtroom in Paris. Art of the Heist s2e8: The Disappeared