Crimes against property are considered to be one of the broadest groups of crimes, which includes lots of separate legally defined crimes. Most wide-spread crimes against property are burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, shoplifting etc. Everyday lots of crimes against property are committed all over the world, so the majority of countries established different mechanisms of property crime control, focusing mostly on punishment and deterrence, to combat such types of crimes. Nonetheless, despite all possible preventive measures lots of high volume crimes are still being committed.
In this assignment I would like to discuss quite a recent art theft in one of Dutch museums, which is believed to be one of hugest art thefts in modern history. According to SBC News (2012), seven paintings, stolen from Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam include one painting by Picasso, two by Claude Monnet and one by Henri Matisse. Other three paintings were the ones by Paul Gauguin, Lucian Freud, and Meyer de Haan respectively. The masterpieces are believed to cost millions of euro. The heist took place during the public exhibition of the private collection, belonging to Triton Foundation. In fact, only seven of 150 painting at the exhibition were stolen. As the case is currently being investigated by police, names of the paintings are not announced to the public. According to CBS News (2012), this property crime is classified as heist. In general, the term “heist” refers to any type of robbery from a particular institution (e.g., museum, bank) or, more commonly, just any high-volume robbery.
Despite the fact, that the motives of the crime are not explicitly discussed in the article, it seems to be evident that the criminal (or criminals) stole the works of arts to make profit. Nevertheless, I would like to mention that these works of arts cannot be sold via world-known auctions, such as Sotheby’s or Christies. According to the article by J.Weissman (2012), dedicated to the art heist in the Netherlands, “And the general pattern is that the criminals who do these jobs, these heists, are good thieves, but they’re terrible businessmen. What they don’t understand is that the value of art is dependent on three things: authenticity, provenance – the history of the art – and legal title. And if you don’t have one of those three things, you don’t have value”. However, the works of arts can be sold to a private person, who will never exhibit them. Such a threat exists under the circumstances of any art heist.
The type of the crime is explicitly connected with crime location, as heists are most commonly committed at places, where valuable property is preserved. Furthermore, the police believe that it was impossible to commit a heist of such a scale without being connected with somebody from the staff. So, such connection also contributed to the type and scale of crime under study.
The most surprising thing with regard to the heist in Rotterdam is that it took place, despite all security measures (including state-of-the art alarm system), which have been employed by the organizers of the exhibition and the museum itself. Nonetheless, it is worth mentioning that at 3 a.m. no guards were on duty. However, police claim that the heist would not have occurred, if the criminals did not have accessories among the staff. So, preventive strategies to be taken to avoid committing such crimes in the future should include employing guards for all the time of exhibitions and improving museum’s HRM policies. Furthermore, an excellent preventive strategy lies in exhibiting high quality copies instead of original works of art.
References
CBS Interactive Inc. (2012).Dutch museum art theft an inside job? Retrieved 05 March 2012 from http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57533929/dutch-museum-art-theft-an-inside-job/
Weissman , J. (2012.) Have you ever tried to sell a stolen painting? Retrieved 05 March 2012 from http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-stolen-painting/263682/
