Thieves broke into a small Italian museum last month, stealing three paintings worth over $10 million in just three minutes — a Renoir, a Cézanne and a Matisse. The theft follows a similar heist at Paris' Louvre Museum last year, where criminals stole $104 million worth of French crown jewels that remain missing despite arrests.
According to Geoffrey Kelly, an original member of the FBI's Art Crime Team, most art thefts are carried out by local criminals attracted by "big dollar signs" rather than highly trained specialists. These operations typically involve "smash-and-grabs" that exploit aging museum infrastructure, but the perpetrators fail to consider the monetization challenge.