Stolen Art Watch, Police Stumble Across Stolen Van Gogh's During Mafia Raids

 Italian police find stolen Van Goghs 14 years after infamous Amsterdam heist

Police unveil paintings recovered from house in stronghold of Camorra crime syndicate near

Naples

Van Gogh’s View of the Sea at Scheveningen is presented at a press conference in Naples after it was recovered from a house near the Italian city. Photograph: Ciro Fusco/EPA

paintings that were stolen from a museum in Amsterdam more than a decade ago have been recovered by Italian authorities in Naples following a sting operation that targeted organised crime.

The paintings, View of the Sea at Scheveningen, painted in 1882, and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen, painted in 1884, were recently discovered after allegedly being hidden away in one of the houses of an international drug trafficker based in Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples.

“When we finally found them, we did not believe our eyes,” an unnamed local official told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

The authenticity of the paintings has already been confirmed by an expert from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, from where they were stolen in 2002.

Axel Rütger, director of the Van Gogh Museum, said he wasn’t sure when the paintings could be returned to the Netherlands, as they are likely to be needed as evidence in the ensuing trial.

“After so many years I didn’t dare to think they would ever return,” Rütger said. “We’ve waited 14 years for this moment and of course we’d like to take them straight home. We’ll need to exercise a bit of patience, but I am convinced we can count on the support of the Italian authorities.”

The frames have been removed and the seascape has a small patch of damage in the bottom left-hand corner, the museum said, but otherwise the paintings appeared to be in good condition.

The theft was considered one of the most infamous heists to rock the art world in recent times. The thieves entered the Van Gogh museum from the roof of the building, which allowed them to get past security and cameras undetected, even though their entry did trigger alarms. They had used a ladder to climb up to a window and then smashed through it using a cloth to protect their hands.

Two men, Octave Durham, an art thief who earned the nickname The Monkey for his ability to evade police, and his accomplice Henk Bieslijn, were eventually convicted of the theft in 2004 after police discovered their DNA at the scene of the crime. They were handed four year sentences, but authorities were never able to track down the stolen works.

The FBI considered the heist one of the “top 10” art crimes, according to its website. Italian investigative authorities told the Ansa news agency that the paintings were worth £77m.

View of the Sea at Scheveningen is one of Van Gogh’s early paintings and depicts the beach resort close to The Hague. It was the only work in the museum’s collection from Van Gogh’s two years in The Hague and one of just two Dutch seascapes the artist made.

Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen is a smaller work that Van Gogh painted for his mother in 1884, and depicts a church in Brabant where his father Theodorus was attached as a preacher. After his father’s death in 1885 Van Gogh revised the painting, adding figures of women wearing black shawls used in mourning.

Dario Franceschini, the Italian culture minister, said the discovery was extraordinary and “confirmed the strength of the Italian system in the fight against the illicit trafficking of works of art”.

“The result of this investigation confirms how interested criminal organisations are in art works which they use both as a form of investment and as a source of funds,” he said in a statement.

John Dickie, a historian and expert in organised crime in Italy, said the reason the country was known for its expertise in following the illicit trade of art was the extent to which that trade existed in the first place.

“Italy also has the best mafia police in the world, because it has the most powerful mafia networks,” he added.

The town of Castellammare di Stabia, about 19 miles south-east of Naples, where the paintings were found, has long been known as a Camorra stronghold. It was the home of Assunta Maresca, known as Pupetta, who was a former beauty queen, convicted murderer, and Camorra boss described as a trailblazer and suffragette in the syndicate.

Unlike the highly organised Sicilian mafia, the Camorra is an “archipelago of gangs”, Dickie said, with some branches being more sophisticated than others.

“With this sort of thing, it is easy to say the Camorra did it and then jump to the conclusion that the Camorra is moving into the art market,” Dickie said.

He said the discovery and the alleged involvement of the Camorra actually reflects the opportunistic nature of the Neapolitan syndicate. Its members spend a lot of time in prison and are part of a vast underworld network in which illegal goods are sold and traded.

“I don’t think we need to conclude that it’s the Camorra boss who is putting this art on his mantlepiece. A lot of times these people don’t have a lot of class [and] they wouldn’t necessarily be impressed by having this,” Dickie said.

Generally, highly-valued art can be stolen by thieves for the purpose of selling it, only for the thieves to realise that the work is so famous that it cannot be purchased and shown, forcing them to sell or trade it at a heavy discount.

The camorristi who end up with precious works of art may not even be aware of the value of the painting they have in their posession.

Federico Varese, an expert in criminology from Oxford University, said it was unsurprising that the discovery exposed a link between Amsterdam and the Camorra, given the Dutch city’s reputation as a major drug hub. Cross-border investigations dating back to the 1980s had found the presence of the Camorra in Amsterdam.

“What I know for sure is that a lot of camorristi are in Amsterdam, not because they want to be rooted there or deal in racketeering of shops or that kind of thing, but because they are there to buy drugs. Amsterdam is a hub for the buying and selling of illegal goods,” Varese said.

In the Camorra underworld, art – like anything that is valuable – is a currency that can be used in drug trafficking. In some cases, it might also be seen as giving prestige to camorristi, Varese said.

The Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, informed his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte about the police operation before the funeral in Jerusalem of former Israeli leader Shimon Peres, according to a Reuters report.

Art Hostage Comments:
In January 2016, officers arrested two suspected clan members, Raffaele Imperiale and Mario Cerrone. Reports say that Mario Cerrone confessed that the two stolen Van Goghs were hidden in Mr Imperiale's home in Castellammare di Stabia, 34km (21 miles) from Naples. They were wrapped in a cloth and stashed inside safe at a house in Castellammare di Stabia, near Pomeii.  
The actual thieves, Octave Durham, an art thief who earned the nickname ‘The Monkey’ for his evasiveness, and his accomplice, Henk Bieslijn – were convicted with four-year sentences, but the priceless art was never recovered – until now

Stolen Art Watch, ALR, Art Loss Racket, When will the art market learn?

Who’s Afraid of Julian Radcliffe?

Alessandra Massameno

17 September 2016

A word to the wise: You should be afraid of Julian Radcliffe; if not by name, then by title of his organization, the Art Loss Register. The concept is innocent enough, if not noble—ALR is a database of lost and stolen artifacts whose purpose is to return those works to their rightful owners. But is it the organization’s sole purpose? Mr. Radcliffe, a man whose reputation precedes him, would have you believe so.
A cursory understanding of Julian Radcliffe’s intentions might conjure the image of Robin Hood, a man of the people if ever there were one. It’s especially true when you consider a case like Maria Altmann’s.
Altmann’s Aunt posed for Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. In a Nazi-occupied Vienna, the painting was confiscated; it wasn’t until 1998 that Altmann sought restitution from the Austrian government. Her story, famously recounted in The Woman in Gold, inspires the fervent belief that a database of stolen art is imperative to justice. I’d tell you how Altman’s case resolved, but I’d hate to ruin a good ending.
Here’s where Radcliffe’s likeness to the noble Robin Hood diverges: He believes there’s a finders’ fee attached to justice. As with any privately owned company, it’s unlikely that ALR works solely on a pro bono basis. A car, after all, can’t run on fumes. But the means, by which, the Art Loss Register profits, leave something to be desired in the way of ethics.
In order to register your lost or stolen artifact with ALR, you must pay a small fee; that’s understandable. “Any uniquely identifiable item can be registered online. Loss registrations are charged on a basis of £10, US$15 or €15 per item (plus VAT where applicable), but please contact us directly in case of a large theft.”
What constitutes a “large theft,” you ask? Either a shipping-crate’s worth of artwork has gone missing, or you’re looking to list a big-ticket item.
As with any theft-retrieval company, the cost of its services is assessed on a case-by-case basis. If ALR successfully recovers the item that you’re looking to list on their database, their commission depends on the market value of the item at the time of recovery—also, not entirely surprising. Here’s where it gets a bit murky: Julian Radcliffe might approach you, regarding a lost or stolen piece of art on which, he happens to have some invaluable information; the keyword, being invaluable.
While Robin Hood might be inclined to offer such information to you gratis, Radcliffe makes no such promise— in fact, he can hold the information for ransom and has been known to do so. While some art dealers call Radcliffe’s acts extortion, no government agency in the U.S. (or across the pond, for that matter) has intervened.

Though it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck…

The Art Loss Register is not a government-funded agency, which leaves Radcliffe virtually unchecked in the tactics he employs. Luckily, the recovery of your painting might pay some dividends to you as well; or at least, such was the hope for Jack Solomon.
Norman Rockwell (1894 - 1978) Russian Schoolroom 1967 - Oil on Canvas
In the spring of 1973, a Mr. Bert Elam purchased Norman Rockwell’s Russian Schoolroom from Arts International Gallery. Only days later, the painting was stolen in a smash-and-grab. While we’d all like to imagine a Thomas-Crown-esque character, scheming away in his lair, art heists are often tactless thefts, requiring little more than a baseball bat for the window and a getaway car; in fact, you could probably use your Uber driver and the tire iron he’s required to keep in the trunk.
Elam enjoyed what might be the shortest-lived ownership of a Rockwell—a painting that would eventually be hanging in Steven Spielberg’s living room. We’ll come back to that.
Before being consigned to the Arts International Gallery, Russian Schoolroom was in the possession of the now deceased Mr. Solomon, who purchased the painting in 1968. A 1972 catalog, assembled by Bernard Danenberg Galleries, cites the painting as part of Solomon’s private collection. A year later, when the painting sold at exhibition for $20,000, the Clayton, MO police report named Elam and Arts International Gallery as the sole victims. The gallery returned Elam’s money and collected insurance on the stolen Rockwell.
While it would appear that ownership of the painting in question transferred to the gallery upon consignment (as per the police report), Solomon would later assert his claim of ownership. This much is clear: Solomon was properly compensated.
Fast-forward to 1975, when Martin Diamond of Danenberg Gallery writes a note to Solomon, inquiring about Russian Schoolroom: “Even though you don’t own it, can you get it for me?” he asks. Diamond was compiling a list of owners in preparation for a Rockwell exhibit; Russian Schoolroom was listed under Solomon’s name— its location? Unknown.
While Diamond could simply be a terrible record keeper, this is the first of many clerical mistakes in Solomon’s favor, just ask the FBI (again, we’ll circle back to this). Meanwhile, Judy Goffman Cutler begins her nearly decade-long research into Russian Schoolroom. The painting will have been off the radar for nine years before resurfacing at a New Orleans auction, where Goffman Cutler snatches it up. After all, she’s done her due diligence in making sure that the purchase is viable.
1988 November, 25 Russian Schoolroom illustrated in Antiques and Arts Weekly, page 66, ‘Auction Action in New Orleans, La.’ ‘Rockwell brings $70,400’

The FBI and Spielberg walk into a bar…

Where do their paths converge, you ask? Well, the FBI (like any other government agency) is fallible. Russian Schoolroom was coming up on the auction block at Morton Goldberg’s New Orleans auction house. When the FBI came knocking on Solomon’s door on October 7^th, 1988, they failed to realize that he no longer factored into the equation.
But Solomon saw an opportunity—fully aware of the impending auction at Goldberg’s, he sat back and waited. The FBI had fortuitously tipped him off, just twenty-one days before the sale of Russian Schoolroom, which they decided would not be seized from Goldberg. Interestingly enough, they didn’t think it a worthwhile endeavor to find out who had consigned the painting to the auction house— the presumptive thief. Satisfied that they’d done their job, recovering the stolen painting, they washed their hands.
In ’89, Ms. Goffman Cutler sold Russian Schoolroom to Spielberg, a collector of Rockwell’s, for $200,000. Sixteen years later, an “anonymous” tip alerted the FBI to the theft of the painting back in 1973 (a moot point) and suddenly, they were banging down Spielberg’s door.
While it seems redundant for the FBI to have reopened the case, it didn’t stop Radcliffe from going to the mattresses on Solomon’s behalf (after the case was brought to his attention by Solomon). Though the FBI would later withdraw its claim (again) that Solomon was the rightful owner, their blunder gave Solomon an arguable claim of ownership.
Can you get it for me?
Under Radcliffe’s advisement, Solomon filed suit against Spielberg and the FBI as they’d failed to recover his painting. Ms. Cutler traded Spielberg Peace Corps in Ethiopia for Russian Schoolroom (apparently, Rockwell’s are the baseball cards of the wealthy) in order to protect him from the dispute. Solomon, who by then had registered the painting with Radcliffe’s ALR, pursued his suit for the painting—now, against Ms. Cutler.
This trade, in all seriousness, was only possible because of Ms. Cutler’s years of experience and expertise as both a Norman Rockwell dealer and collector; she was uniquely qualified to replace Mr. Spielberg’s painting with another Rockwell that reflected the appreciative value of Russian Schoolroom over the course of the 16 years that had passed since Spielberg had bought the painting. Ms. Cutler’s act not only fully compensated, but kept Spielberg’s investment intact while protecting him from Solomon’s lawsuit.
When Cutler inquired as to whether Russian Schoolroom was registered with ALR, Radcliffe skirted the issue; he refused to disclose that information, which seems entirely at odds with the purported purpose of the Art Loss Register.
While he clearly had no claim to the painting, Radcliffe was more than happy to fight Solomon’s battle for him with the expectation that a hefty settlement would follow. Though Radcliffe’s attempt at recompense failed miserably, it says something that he was even willing to attempt the slight of hand.
What it says, exactly, we can’t won’t say.
Despite its illustrious past, Russian Schoolroom seems to have found its home in Rhode Island; it hangs triumphantly in the National Museum of American Illustration, founded by Goffman Cutler and her husband. We hope it’s there to stay.
Julian Radcliffe - Art Loss Register
As for Radcliffe, he’s the majority shareholder of ALR. The additional stakeholders are Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses; while a predictable alliance, the U.S. Department of Justice views their tea party as collusion and therefore, illegal.
Radcliffe leaves in his wake an abundance of disgruntled art dealers, but for the most part, people are willing to overlook his behavior—ALR is the most comprehensive database of its kind, after all, and until that changes, Radcliffe will keep doing what he’s doing, free of any legal repercussions—so far, at least.

Should the art market be more transparent?

In recent years, global media coverage of multi-million dollar auction prices, combined with the rise of art as an alternative asset class, has focused more attention on the international art market than ever before. That increase in awareness has brought the issue of transparency to the fore, but what exactly do we mean by it? To the public – the market’s client base – transparency largely means more clarity about terms and conditions, pricing, and consumer rights when buying and selling. However, to politicians, interest groups, the media, and the many and varied corners of the market itself, concerns over transparency focus on a far wider range of topics: provenance, finance, crime, and market manipulation, to name the most obvious. The general attitude seems to be that improved transparency will boost confidence and reduce the risk of things going wrong.

With the trade in antiquities, concern gravitates towards looting and fakes, with money laundering and theft following close behind. With finance around high-end auctions, critics argue that a lack of transparency allows auction houses, dealers and collectors to skew the market to give themselves an unfair competitive advantage or create bubbles to sustain their holdings in artworks that might otherwise decline in value. For the trade, though, increased transparency can cause problems. Thanks to the internet, it is far easier for potential buyers to find out what a dealer paid for an item, making it much more difficult for them to cover their costs and sell at a decent profit; most buyers are not interested in the time, effort, expertise, or the restoration, transport or other costs that the dealer has to account for in acquiring the item, as these are not seen as contributing to its value. How justified are such concerns, and what should be done?

 

Let’s deconstruct all of this a little. Every transaction really only has four key variables: the buyer, the seller, the goods, and the money. Each brings its potential to the deal, and its risks. Due diligence on behalf of both buyer and seller can tackle much of that risk, but not all of it. How can you be absolutely sure where the buyer’s money comes from? How robust is the seller’s paperwork? And who exactly are they? Surely the answer is to regulate the art market directly, like the worlds of finance, insurance, and the law, so that officialdom can intervene where necessary and public confidence in honest trading does not have to rest on what some view as little more than a person’s word?

The first thing to understand is that hundreds of laws already regulate the market (you can download the list that applies to the UK art market from the British Art Market Federation website), but experience tells us that direct regulation rarely solves the problem. The establishment of the Conseil des Ventes in France in 2000 to govern the market once France liberalised its auction laws did nothing to prevent the cols rouges scandal at the Drouot auction house nine years later, where the closed shop of portering services masked a criminal network of theft. Nor did the Wine Investment Association’s establishment of a rigorous code of practice in 2003 prevent people from falling victim to rogue funds in the years that followed. Then we have the age-old issue of what exactly art is: if you can’t define something clearly, then you can’t legislate for it effectively.

But more pressing, perhaps, is where questions of art market transparency overlap with debates about public interest and the right to privacy. If politics is to intervene here, then the lawmakers as a whole need a better understanding of how to balance public interest with the practical needs of business. That means consulting trade professionals to a far greater degree than happens now, rather than relying on the opinions of academics and those lobbying against art market interests. We also need more consistency on codes of practice across trade associations, as well as with legal definitions for cultural property, what constitutes art and other loose terms. Then we will all have a clearer idea of where we stand.

 

In addition, the market needs to educate the public better on why, sometimes, more clarity is not possible. For instance, one proposal to improve transparency has been the introduction of object passports listing all previous owners of items to show that they have changed hands legitimately.  A nice idea, maybe, but largely impractical as few legitimately traded objects have such detailed paperwork to go with them. On top of that, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, the minister guiding the Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Bill through the UK parliament, recently declared that creating such passports might breach Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which covers the right to privacy. In 2014, in a case involving the auctioneers William J. Jenack, the New York Court of Appeals overturned a New York Supreme Court ruling that an auction contract was null and void if it did not name the seller. The court clearly recognised the damage this would do to auctions and declared that having the auctioneer’s details on the paperwork as the agent of the seller was good enough.

I have always believed that the most effective way of getting people to change their behaviour is to show them why it is in their interests to do so – and enlightened trade professionals are already demonstrating how and why this should be done. Online aggregator Barnebys has just published research showing that transparency online at auction, along with ease of bidding and post-sale fulfilment, is the most important factor in building brand trust and improving sell-through rates. ‘The new generation of buyers and sellers expect all information to be easily at their disposal, without any barriers,’ says Barnebys co-founder Pontus Silfverstolpe. ‘Withholding information, such as final prices, foments distrust and alienates users.’ Anna-Karin Laurell, CEO of Scandinavian auction house Bukowskis, echoes this sentiment: ‘Transparency and [improved] function increases credibility. Through our new website we have also reached new target markets we previously believed were very hard to reach – the youngest between 18–25.’ The Hiscox Online Art Trade Report 2014 concurs, while its 2016 report highlights the growth in businesses that are improving access to art market information online while simplifying fulfilment services.

 

Enhanced condition reports for online auctions, accompanied by excellent images, certificates of authenticity, and a clear summary of all charges are the building blocks to buyer confidence and brand trust for sellers and their agents. So you may not know exactly who you are buying from, but if the auction site handling the transaction effectively underwrites it with all of the above, then it is a form of transparency that ought to address many buyers’ concerns. This reflects the appeal court ruling in the Jenack case.

Having assessed auction websites professionally for nearly 20 years, my first and most important test is how easy it is to find the buyer’s premium rates. If there is any difficulty at all with this, I simply will not buy from that auctioneer, nor recommend them. Newly launched Forum Auctions have made a virtue of publishing exactly what their charges are at the top of their advice page on buying, and they also promote a set of core values, including a pledge on dealing with complaints promptly and fairly. It’s a simple, cost-free and uncomplicated piece of marketing that immediately promotes confidence. It is also a wise move because the Advertising Standards Authority has just launched an investigation into charges at auction, including whether buyer’s premium rates, VAT and other charges should be reflected in auction estimates.

The transparency issue is not going to go away. The market needs to regulate itself better if it is to keep the legislators off its back. It also needs to be better organised and more proactive in developing relationships with government. If the UK industry is serious in this, it needs to increase funding to its lobbying arm, the British Art Market Federation, by a factor of ten. The US would do well to follow suit.

Stolen Art Watch, Hatton Garden Heist September 2016, Plus Art Crime Snapshot

Hatton Garden cops close in on elusive raid fugitive known as 'Basil'

Officers have also arrested a new suspect on suspicion of handling some of the still missing £10million of loot

The elusive fugitive known as Basil

Detectives are closing in on the elusive Hatton Garden raid fugitive known as “Basil” after quizzing his fellow gang members in jail.

They have also arrested a new suspect, held on suspicion of handling some of the £10million loot still missing from Britain’s biggest theft.

The 33-year-old was bailed until later this month.

Safe-cracker Basil, thought to be in his 50s, has eluded justice while the six others in the gang, most aged in their 60s and 70s, have been jailed for up to seven years.

The April 2015 bank holiday raid on the safety deposit vault in London’s jewellery quarter netted an estimated £14million.

The raiders broke into Hatton Garden

Flying Squad officers confirmed they have spoken to some of the gang as they continue their hunt for Basil.

In all, five men have been questioned under caution about Basil and the missing loot.

The lanky burglar was dubbed “The Ghost” when he vanished after the raid.

A biography of mas­­termind­ Brian Reader, 77, reveals how
a gang insider believes detectives have known Basil’s identity for months.

The source suspects he has fled abroad, saying: “The police will watch his house... he’ll probably come back in a couple of years and hand himself in. Police won’t have much on him.”

A still from the film The Hatton Garden Job

In July the team spearheading the hunt for the master burglar again denied having any idea who he is.

Scotland Yard refused to comment this week, saying that officers will not provide a “running commentary” on their investigation.

Basil became Reader’s partner in crime to help him deal with modern technology.

The book, One Last Job, tells how they met in the 1990s when Reader saw the “alarm man” and computer expert would be a valuable addition to his team.

Basil, originally from the South East, is around 6ft and slightly built.

He is from a respectable middle-class family and his father died when Basil was young.

A gang insider said: “He’s a kid who found things out using his own initiative­.

"He’s a problem solver. He would be shown how to open a door or pick a lock and then he would go away and improve on it... He was always very surveillance-conscious.”

Basil is thought to have pulled off several burglaries and the gang’s hierarchy was split between Basil and Reader, the only true specialist burglars on the team.

Cover of One Last Job

Scotland Yard said a man aged 53, held last year on suspicion of conspiracy to handle stolen goods, is on bail along with the 33-year-old who was arrested on May 19.

A man in his 40s was freed with no further action.

A film about the raid, starring ex-EastEnders actor Larry Lamb and Downton’s Matthew Goode is now in production.

Hatton Garden: Secrets of Tory abuse cover-up that even made heist boss sick

Brian Reader and his gang found sickening images featuring a prominent Tory cabinet minister during a massive raid in 1971, according to an insider

 

CID officers outside Lloyd Bank following the discovery of the robbery

Bankers stopped police from uncovering an alleged Tory child abuse scandal unwittingly stumbled on by burglars, a new book claims.
Master thief Brian Reader and his gang found sickening images featuring a prominent Tory cabinet minister during a massive raid in 1971, according to an insider.
The crooks allegedly discovered the vile pictures after tunnelling into a branch of Lloyds in London’s Baker Street and rifling through scores of safety deposit boxes.
Reader – who four decades later masterminded the £14million Hatton Garden heist which also used tunnelling – was said to be disgusted by the images.
But despite claims that the gang left the evidence scattered across the floor for police to find, nothing was ever done – and the pictures never emerged.

Read More

• Incredible story of how Hatton Garden mastermind Brian Reader became Britain's most prolific thief

Last January the Mirror reported how Reader’s gang had left the damning photos for cops, hoping the paedo politician would be brought to justice.

 

Brian Reader

Now, 45 years on, it has been revealed that bank staff were “extremely uncooperative” with police, refusing to provide a full list of safety deposit box holders or let them remove property from the vault.
The Baker Street heist has gone down as one of the most infamous in British history. A gang dubbed the “millionaire moles” tunnelled 40ft under Baker Street – famed as the HQ of detective Sherlock Holmes – and blasted their way into the Lloyds branch.
They stole £3.5million from 268 boxes – worth the equivalent of £40million today – making it ­Britain’s biggest ever burglary.
For years the main gang members were never known.
But in a new Mirror book, One Last Job, it is claimed that Reader – now aged 77 and serving six years for his part in 2015’s Hatton Garden heist – had a leading role.
A close confidant of Reader said: “It was a shock for the gang when they found photographs of a famous ­politician abusing children.

 

Rubbish and rubble left in the basement of the Le Sac shop by the robbers

 

Rubbish and rubble left in the basement of the Le Sac shop by the robbers

“They were disgusted and left the photos lying on the floor of the vault for the police to find but nothing was ever done.”
Freshly unearthed documents found in the National Archive reveal there was a “heated argument” between detectives and bank officials inside the ransacked vault.
Police were never even told about any alleged pictures the raiders left and the bank refused to reveal the names of safety deposit box holders without their permission.
The documents suggest bank staff were concerned with protecting their clients’ privacy above all else.

Read More

• Watch shocking moment cashbox robbers pounce on delivery drivers and spray ammonia in their faces

An internal Scotland Yard memo from 1975, now released, stated: “There was a considerable quantity of property left in the vault and tunnel but after a heated argument with bank officials they took possession of it.
“This property was never handled by police and to this day it is not known what that ­property consisted of or its value.”
After the raid, detectives wrote to Lloyds asking for details of all deposit box holders and a breakdown of their visits to the vault.
This was prompted by suspicions that one of them could have gained the “knowledge of the room” required to pull off the heist.

 

CCTV captured much of the robbery

 

Smashed safe deposit boxes are pictured in the underground vault of Hatton Garden

But Lloyds’ head of security refused, saying it was “a fundamental concept” of British banking to preserve secrecy over the affairs of those who used its services.
An internal police memo from one of the first officers on the scene, Detective Sergeant Barrie Newman, stated: “The vault was in complete disarray with property, including jewellery etc, being scattered about the floor.
“Any property dropped by the thieves was, in fact, retained by the bank on their insistence that it was on their premises and their responsibility. Police are not in a position to say what was left behind and what the bank did with this property.”
Some of the victims of the robbery took civil action against Lloyds and senior officers were asked to provide High Court statements.
Drafts of several statements are in the National Archives.

Read More

• Pensioner who masterminded Hatton Garden heist is seriously ill in hospital still handcuffed to a prison officer

In one dated 1974 former Detective Chief Inspector John Candlish said: “Whilst the bank provided us with every facility which we required during our investigations they were extremely uncooperative when it came to dealing with the stolen property itself.”

Details of the alleged cover-up are revealed in a new book

Another was from Commander Robert Huntley, who described the disagreement between police and bank staff over who should get “custody” of items taken from safety deposit boxes but left on the floor.
He added: “I recall that there were various inspectors of the bank at the premises and I spoke to the chief inspector and the manager who told me that they had decided not to hand over the property.
“This was probably on the basis that they felt a duty of secrecy to their clients.”
When the bank did finally provide a list of box holders it was incomplete.
Reader, who will be played in next year’s film The Hatton Garden Job by former EastEnders star Larry Lamb, has never confessed to being on the Baker Street raid – but several sources insist that he was there.
Two of his old gang members were eventually convicted.

 

The Hatton Garden raid was the most lucrative in British criminal history

One was car dealer Reg Tucker, 37, who had rented a deposit box and visited the vault more than a dozen times, using his umbrella to measure its dimensions.
Also convicted was Tony Gavin, 38, a barrel-chested former Army PT instructor who lost a stone and a half while digging the tunnel.
Excavations began from the basement of Le Sac, a leather goods shop an associate had leased two doors along.
One gang member who said his doctor had told him to avoid confined spaces was posted as a lookout on a nearby roof, later becoming known as “Sleepy Bob” for complaining about being tired. The blast to blow a hole into the bank vault was timed to coincide with a traffic light turning green so the noise would be masked by rumbling traffic.

How the Mirror reported the story earlier this year

Gavin and Tucker were later jailed for 12 years along with two minor gang members. Reader was believed to have jetted off to Spain while the rest of the team were never caught.
The 2008 film The Bank Job, starring Jason Statham, suggested MI5 orchestrated the break-in to steal compromising pictures of Princess Margaret with a lover.
But the gang insider insists reality was even stranger – and even more disturbing – than fiction.

Ukraine hands back stolen paintings to Dutch museum

Kiev authorities handed over to the Netherlands five masterpieces stolen from a Dutch museum in 2005 and recovered in Ukraine earlier this year.
The paintings - part of a group of 24 works valued at 10 million euros when they went missing in 2005 - were said in December to have been discovered in a villa in a pro-Russian separatist controlled area of eastern Ukraine.
Dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, they will now head back to Westfries Museum in Hoorn, north of Amsterdam, from where they first disappeared when thieves hid in the building before closing time and disabled the alarm system before making off with the artworks.

"I can't wait to see these beautiful objects of art back in the place where they belong," Westfries Museum director Ad Geerdink said at a handover ceremony at the Dutch embassy in Kiev. "It will feel like some of our lost sons finally come home."
The Dutch foreign ministry listed the five paintings as Jacob Waben's "Vrouw Wereld" (Lady World) and "Terugkeer van Jefta" (The Return of Jephta), "Keukenstuk" (Kitchen Scene) by Floris van Schooten, Hendrick Boogaert's "Boerenbruiloft" (A Peasant Wedding) and "Nieuwstraat in Hoorn" (New Street in Hoorn) by Izaak Ouwater.
"It's still not clear where the other paintings are and how long it will take to recover them," it said in a statement.

Arrest made in $3 million jewelry theft from rapper Drake's tour bus

Drake speaks with Rihanna after presenting her with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award during the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards in New York, U.S., August 28, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

An Arizona stagehand was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of stealing about $3 million in jewelry from a bus used by Grammy-winning rapper Drake on his latest concert tour, Phoenix police said.The suspect, identified as 21-year-old Travion King, snatched the briefcase after boarding the bus at about 10 p.m. on Tuesday at the Talking Stick Arena in Phoenix, police spokesman Vince Lewis said.
King has done unspecified contract work with local entertainment venues in the past, but was not known to be employed for work for that particular show, Lewis added.
The bus was being used for a Phoenix show featuring Drake and his fellow rapper Future. It was apparently unoccupied at the time and the jewelry did not belong to Drake, according to Lewis.
Drake and Future were appearing in the city's downtown as part of the "Summer Sixteen Tour," which began in July, according to the event website. It was scheduled to resume on Wednesday in Los Angeles.
A representative for Drake declined to comment on the case on Wednesday.
King was being held at a Maricopa County jail, Lewis said.
He was first arrested around 3 a.m. in a separate matter by Arizona State University Police in Tempe, a Phoenix suburb, on suspicion of trespassing after officers found him in a dormitory with a bag that held the stolen jewelry, Lewis said.

Then, just before police released him on Wednesday afternoon, detectives investigating the jewelry theft learned he was being held at the jail and arrested him on suspicion of burglary, Lewis said.
Portions of King's activity were captured by arena surveillance cameras, Lewis said.
Officers are working with the victim to account for the items reported stolen, Lewis said.

Greta Moll’s Heirs Say Stolen Portrait Is at London Museum

• Lawsuit says U.K’s National Gallery should have known better
• Painting entrusted to student then illegally sold, family says

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More than a century after she sat for a portrait by Henri Matisse, Greta Moll is still an object of desire.

Portrait of Greta Moll by Henri Matisse.

Source: Rowland & Petroff

The National Gallery in London was sued in the U.S. by three of her grandchildren who claim the museum wrongfully acquired the 1908 portrait, decades after the work by the famed French artist was allegedly stolen in the wake of World War II.
Moll, who had been a student of Matisse’s, died in 1977 without ever knowing what became of the painting. Two years after her death, the museum bought the work from a London gallery for an undisclosed sum. The grandchildren sued for $30 million.
The National Gallery ignored the red flag that the work had been transferred to a gallery in New York immediately after the war, according to the suit filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court. The museum, aware of the legacy of stolen art from the war, never asked Moll’s family members in U.K. how she’d lost the painting, they said.
"In many such cases where war-related looting and other losses occurred, the possessors of such property eventually did the right thing and returned the lost artworks," Oliver Williams, Margarete Green and Iris Filmer, who are cousins, said in the complaint in federal court in Manhattan. "The National Gallery has ignored the international legal standard."
The National Gallery’s press office said it had received the complaint and declined to comment.
Paintings and other artworks by European masters have been at the center of numerous international legal disputes, usually over claims they were stolen by Nazis from wealthy Jews who were robbed of their possessions or murdered in the Holocaust. The cases have often pitted aggrieved descendants against famous dealers and art institutions that may have inadvertently come into possession of stolen works.

Matisse Students

Moll sat for Matisse while she and her husband Oskar were his students in Paris, according to the suit. Oskar Moll bought the painting from Matisse before he and Greta moved back to Germany to teach and sculpt, the family members say. The work, known simply as "Portrait of Greta Moll," came to be regarded as a masterpiece of Matisse’s fauve period, and it was hung prominently in the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan in a 1931 Matisse retrospective, according to the suit.
As the Nazis rose to power, the Molls came to be regarded as degenerates and “Bolshevist," according to the suit. In 1933, Oskar Moll was fired from his job as a professor at the Dusseldorf Academy of Art, while one of Greta Moll’s sculptures was included in the 1937 “Degenerate Art” exhibition in Munich, according to the complaint.
By 1944, as the war raged, Greta Moll watched her home in Berlin burn to the ground after an Allied attack. But by then she’d moved the painting and other valuables to a friend’s house outside the city. Oskar Moll, who nearly starved to death during the conflict, died in 1947, according to the suit. Greta Moll, left as the sole owner of the painting, believed it was still in danger after Germany fell to the Allies and decided to move it outside the country altogether before she moved to the U.K. to live with her daughter’s family in Wales, according to the suit.
"In order to protect the painting from the danger of looting by Allied troops and in particular from Russian troops who were known to have looted artworks and other valuables, they decided to have it sent to Switzerland for deposit with an acquainted art dealer for safekeeping," according to the complaint.
Moll entrusted the painting to an art student who was supposed to secure it in Switzerland, but the student sold the painting instead and fled to the Middle East, according to the suit. The work was then sold in 1949 to a gallery in New York, Knoedler & Co., which is now closed. The gallery should have been aware that the Molls were the actual owners because they were listed as such when the painting was hung in the Museum of Modern Art 18 years earlier, according to the suit.

True Owner

"When Knoedler acquired the painting it should have inquired into the circumstances of the transfer of title from Oskar Moll and Greta Moll, especially since neither of them was the seller," according to the complaint. "Since Knoedler did not acquire title from Greta Moll, the true owner of the painting, neither Knoedler nor any of the painting’s subsequent owners, including the National Gallery, obtained good title."From New York, the painting was sold by Knoedler to oil baron Lee Blaffer in Texas, then to a private collection in Switzerland, then to the Lefevre Gallery in London, according to the suit. The National Gallery bought the portrait from the Lefevre Gallery in 1979, two years after Greta Moll died, according to the suit. The Lefevre Gallery closed in 2002.
Williams, Green and Filmer are the children of the Molls’s two daughters, their attorney David Rowland said in an interview. He said the cousins were barred from suing in U.K. due to a 1992 law that forbids the National Gallery from dispensing any of its objects.
The case may have a hard time surviving in federal court, said Thomas Kline, of counsel at Andrews Kurth LLC, who has represented claimants, collectors and museums in several restitution cases, because the plaintiffs and two out of three defendants are U.K. citizens.
The only U.S.-based defendant is a charity known as the American Friends of the National Gallery of Art, London, according to the complaint.
“The only reason plaintiffs sued here is to avoid the U.K. law that forbids the museum" from selling works from their collection, Kline said. “This is a dispute between all U.K. parties concerning a painting in the U.K. I think a U.S. court would have discretion to decline jurisdiction.”

No Connection

The American Friends of the National Gallery of Art never had a connection with the Matisse painting, said Art Hickok, the group’s administrator.
“We have no formal economic connection other than we are a charity that supports them,” he said. At least two directors of American Friends are also on the board of the National Gallery, according to the websites.
There may be another complication to the case too, Kline said.
“If something is given to a friend for safekeeping and there is a personal relationship of trust it’s very difficult to sort out what really happened 70 years later if there’s no paperwork,” he said.
The case is Oliver Williams v. The National Gallery of Art, London, 16-cv-06978, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

Drouot Auction House Trial Ends With Thirty-Eight Jailed For Theft

The trial in Paris involving many of the porters and auctioneers at the renowned Hotel Drouot auction house has ended with the jailing of 35 porters and three auctioneers. The defendants, who transported and stored objects destined for sale by Drouot, were found guilty of helping themselves to treasures including diamonds and a painting by Marc Chagall.  They were sentenced to up to three years in jail, with 18 months suspended, and fined 60,000 euros ($67,000). Three auctioneers were also convicted in the scandal that shook the French art world, with the three receiving suspended sentences of up to 18 months plus fines of 25,000 euros. 
The auction house had been riddled with scandal when valuable art, antiques and gems worth millions of euros went systematically. This was the charge on the opening day of a trial back in March, which has sent shudders down the corrupt spine of a barely regulated industry.  Porters from Paris' most famous auction house are accused of unlawfully taking 250 tonnes of consigned goods which included a painting by Marc Chagall and rare Ming dynasty porcelain. The trial continues until April 4.
Forty Porters known as "Col Rouge" (red collars) after their uniforms and six auctioneers from the Le Drouot  are on trial for charges of gang-related theft, conspiracy to commit a crime or handling stolen goods.  The case against the employees was launched in 2009 after an anonymous tip alerted investigators to a painting by Gustave Courbet that disappeared while being transported in 2003.  Investigators allege institutionalised theft by the porters -- known as "Les Savoyards" as all members of the secretive group came from the Alpine region of Savoie.
Police Raids have uncovered a treasure trove that went missing and has exposed the lavish lifestyle of the porters involved. One according to reports flaunted it by driving a Porsche 911 and the latest BMW cabriolet, while another purchased a Paris bar with the ill-gained goods.  The porters pilfered items sent to the auction house after house clearances of wealthy people who had died. Most items were not on the inventory. Some items were apparently then sold at auction at Le Drouot.
“La yape" which means "theft" in Savoie slang -- was endemic and profits were shared among the group.  The "Col Rouge", who wear black uniforms with red collars, have monopolised the transport and handling of valuables for the Hotel Drouot auction house since 1860.  Membership of the union is tightly controlled and limited to 110.  Each new member was apparently brought into the fold by an existing member, and according to some testimonies, the initiation process involved stealing something and sharing the proceeds with fellow insiders.

THIRTY WORKS OF ART RECOVERED IN TORREVIEJA

Alicante’s Civil Guard in Alicante has arrested a Spanish man aged 51, as it continues to investigate two others, a 37 year old woman of Brazilian nationality and another Spanish National on suspicion of several counts of theft, aiding and abetting, the illegal possession of weapons, crimes against cultural, historical and artistic heritage and fraud.
Investigation first began after the allegation of the theft of nearly 400 bee hives on farms located in different municipalities of the Vega Baja. The thefts occurred in the towns of Formentera de Segura, San Isidro and Guardamar del Segura over the last 18 months. It would appear that the group were both selling the hives and claiming that they had been stolen, thus also profiting from fraudulent insurance claims to a value of approximately 21,000 euros.

However, during the investigation, there were a number of additional offences that surfaced suggesting that they were involved in other shady deals.
It appeared that one of the trio, from Almeria, was a builder. He also ran an antique shop, which could be used as a cover for the sale of stolen goods.
Agents discovered that he was offering various pieces of art at knockdown prices for between 3,000 and 18,000 euros. Among the items for sale was a well known wooden carving of the Immaculate Virgin, dated between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, originating from la escuela Granadina de Alonso Cano
The man was also involved in the robbery of a house in a town of Almería, which took place in 2006, from which several firearms had been stolen, so the agents suspected he could be armed and dangerous.
On obtaining a warrant and searching the house of one of the accused, in addition to 171 beehives and 45 honeycombs, officers found about thirty priceless objects of art, among them paintings by Cecilio Plá, Chinese historical vases, elephant tusks measuring nearly two meters, a metre high bronze horse, an extensive collection of coins and a sword carved from bone.
Many have since been moved to the Department of Culture of the Provincial Council of Alicante where they are being examined to determine their value.
A further house search in the Orihuela village of Mudamiento uncovered further weapons including a Benelli rifle, a KRICO carbine, a Franchi shotgun and an automatic Walther pistol, all from the 2006 burglary of the house in Almeria.