If crimes were high school CLECs, art heist would be the impossibly cool rich kids, they're objectively terrible, but we can't help it glamorize them for some weird reason and we want to know everything about them. It might be because, unlike so many other crimes, there isn't a gross out factor to an art heist and usually no one gets hurt. The victims are broad and amorphous museum boards composed of millionaires and people who care about paintings, which is sadly less than you think.

They're basically stealing culture. And so you imagine art thieves are cultured to like an Ocean's Eight. They robbed the Met, but they're impeccably dressed. Exactly. And when you consider how hard it is to sell art on the black market, it kind of seems like they're just doing it for attention. Art heist or big news? Of course they are. Everyone loves a good art heist story.

And today we've got ten of them. We're counting down the 10 greatest art heists.

Hailu Weirdo's, welcome to the podcast Original Crime Countdown. I'm Ash and Emelina. Every week will highlight 10 fascinating stories of history's most engaging and unsettling crimes, all picked by the podcast Research Gotz.

This episode, we are counting down the top ten greatest art heists. Most of the art in my home is like very fitting.

I don't have anything from any big name artists, just like a lot of Etsy shops and Target finds. I love a good target, Art. We love that right artist art. I do have a Shepard Fairey. I think his name is Make Art, Not War Poster. Oh, I've seen that.

I like that. It's cute. I don't really have a lot of art either, which is like when I took stock of my house, I was like, wow, what a sad state of affairs that is in Arkless home.

But the only hard I really have is from mom and dad because my parents are both professional artists. And so I kind of like make them make me art.

I like commissioned pieces, but I tried to teach me how to paint once. And let's just say I'm not that good. No, you are good.

I feel like nobody would actually heist my art. I don't know. I'm sure some heist your art and ash original.

I feel like I'd be better at having art heisted from me than heisting other art myself. Like that's my actual nickname is Crash. So I feel like it wouldn't go well surahs, but I feel like you could walk out with a few Picasso's or something. You know what? I feel like I could.

I'm very quiet footed and I'm very thorough. I'm a Capricorn, so I could like, get it done, plan it out. I won't do it, but I could. I feel like go. Yeah.

Well, let's get in to the art of this countdown.

Ilina has five heists and I do two, but neither of us knows which stolen pieces the other has.

Let's start the countdown. Ten. Starting off, our list of the greatest art heists at number 10 is the Vincent Van Gogh National Museum theft in nineteen ninety one, two armed men apparently hid in the museum until it closed. Then they forced the security guards to turn off the alarm systems before spending 45 minutes carefully selecting 20 of Van Gogh's most valuable paintings.

That's like a really aggressive night at the museum. It really is. And to spend all that time and just think you have all the time in the world. Yeah, that's intense. I know. So in all, Van Gogh is believed to have created about a thousand paintings, which like, OK, OK, so that's a lot of time. Van Gogh, bro Van Gogh broke and that was between the years of eighteen, eighty four in 1890 when he died of suicide at only 37 years old.

That's so young. It is really young. Yeah. Well the thieves made their selections mostly from Van Gogh's later works, probably because they're worth more.

Seems like they probably knew that. In fact, a police spokesman said the stolen artworks were worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Wow. That's not bad for like that. Got forty five minutes of work. I know, right?

I mean, you put in the time and you make hundreds of millions. There you go. The thieves escaped with the paintings in two expandable garment bags. So they came prepared literally just one minute after they left. One minute, the guards hit the alarm to the police chief, which I was like, why did you wait?

Like, why wouldn't you just hit it while they were there? Yeah, that doesn't make sense. I don't get it. Well, all the paintings were recovered just thirty five minutes after the men left the museum because they abandoned them in a getaway car.

Why did you do all of that?

Just for fun, I guess, apparently. What else are you going to do?

It's like maybe it was a Friday night and you just got paid. They were feeling all right.

Yeah, well, some of the paintings were damaged, unfortunately. But the museum is like, no, it's all good because we've seen this before. And I guess other works with more serious damage had been successfully restored in the past. So. Wow. So they did all that work. They stole the paintings. They could have made hundreds of millions of dollars. They leave them in a getaway car and they pick them up. Yeah. Wow. So rude.

Don't love that. Nine at number nine is the New Year's Eve theft of the painting titled View of versus a landscape painted around 1880 by artist Paul Suzanne.

It was stolen from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England. And it's a valuable work because it represents the transition of Susanne's painting styles. Hmm. Yeah. So during celebrations on December 31st, nineteen ninety nine, the thief used the commotion of the fireworks as cover. Honestly, pretty smart. He partied like it was nineteen ninety nine. There you go.

That Drew, he was like the world's going to end. Let's do a heist. Let's do this.

It's believed the thief got into the museum using the neighboring Oxford University library, which was undergoing some construction. So it made it kind of easy. All of this just sounds so fancy. It sure does. I think it was the whole thing was fancy. I think you're right. He did this using the scaffolding and the thief got to the rooftops, access the museum, climbed down a rope ladder and set off a smoke bomb to distract everybody, like, OK, double 007, he's double 007 and Boondock Saints all mixed together.

And he's wearing an Oxford something and he has an Oxford comma.

Yes. You know, security thought it was a fire at first. So you know who they called Ghostbusters the fire department. Oh, good. But the thief was already gone by that point. He was in and out in ten minutes. We love Astolfi. Oh yeah. He's quick.

Just capato we don't love the stealthy thief. No we don't. You heard it here first. We do.

Other than paintings had been stolen over the years, including one in nineteen ninety eight the year before from Rome's National Gallery of Modern Art. Weeks later, detectives thought they had found you of a versus in a pub. Which would be real weird, right? But it turned out to be a copy. So the original was never found. So it wasn't just getting like a Guinness over source. Where are you? Wherefore art thou versus. Eight. Number eight on our countdown of top ten greatest art heists is the Scream by artist Edvard Monk, which was taken from the Monk Museum in Oslo, Norway, at Gun Point in 2004 in a bizarre daytime heist.

Monk actually painted four versions confoundingly, all titled The Scream. He just couldn't decide. They're all screaming. They are well and they're all valuable to versions are completed paintings which belong to Norway and the other two, one of which sold for almost one hundred and twenty million in 2012, are pastel drawings.

I know that all mediums. Oh, we love it.

So in case you're not familiar, I know you are. But like you out there listening to The Scream is a famous painting of a distorted bald man standing on a bridge, mouth wide open, hands on the side of his face like homeloans style. It's beautiful. It's gorgeous. It's really a piece, but honestly, it's really freaky. And so the heist, back to the heist. Back to it. Just after 11:00 a.m., two robbers wearing ski masks and carrying pistols threatened the unarmed museum guards before taking this version of the painting.

That's not a fair fight. It's definitely not. They were described as clumsy and even dropped the painting trying to leave except for mine.

So far, all of these art heist thieves are very clumsy and not taking care of the art that they are heist. And you know what's funny is that I'm getting the clumsy ones. So it makes sense. They get you. They got me. They got you. Well, at the time, a New York art dealer said that it was, quote, almost impossible to value but could sell for over one hundred million. Well, but it never sold, so nobody ever saw that money.

The screen was recovered actually just two years later. In fact, both painted versions of the Scream have been stolen and recovered. At some point, it happens too much like a hobby of people.

So I'm going to steal it and then I'm going to give it back anonymously, give it back and do it all over so it doesn't count. Well, the motive for this particular heist, no one really knows for sure. Some think it was just to distract from another investigation into a murdered Norwegian police officer.

Oh, just that just that just that is that cash deal. I want the scream. I would heist it. I would not.

Seven. At number seven this week is the 2010 heist of Paris's Museum of Modern Art. A man named Verein Tomac was arrested and admitted to being behind the theft of five paintings, collectively estimated to be worth over one hundred million dollars. Just a couple coins. I feel like every painting is worth a hundred million dollars for over a hundred million dollars. So Tomic was a professional thief who was called Spider because his Spidey senses were always tingling. Exactly because he turned into a radioactive spider.

Oh, no, it's because he scaled the wall in another completely unrelated stuff. Another double seven for you. There you go. Wow. You really are getting all the stealthy ones. I really am. It was six days total to get done from prep to get away. And this whole thing, only six days. Wow. Including scouting security cameras and removing screws from the window.

He used to break it smart. Yeah, he was ahead of time, but like cunningly smart. Yeah, he was a little bit without murder and awfulness. He was like the Golden State killer. So he would go ahead of time and prepare the scene.

Except he didn't do that on the day he used more double 007 stuff. He used suction cups to pull the windows out and avoided motion detecting cameras once inside. Wow. He initially broke into the museum just for and analysers still life with Candlestick from nineteen twenty two because someone was paying him to steal it. I like the name of that. It's just it is what it is. Still life with a candlestick. You get what you get. I like that.

It's like the scream, it's just telling you what's on the paper. But while he was there he took advantage of the museum's security alarm system being repaired and he just stole four more paintings. While I'm out, it's like, you know what, I'm here. Might as well. And I brought my big purse so I can write about it. More and more suckers in here. Yeah.

Tomic was sentenced to eight years and occasionally has made hints about the fate of the stolen paintings. And now I want to know what it's like. Just say where they are, bro.

Come on, Tomac. Six. Also on our list at number six is the dramatic robbery of Sweden's National Museum a few days before Christmas and 20 minutes before the museum closed, three robbers, held up security guards and took three small paintings to Renoir and one Rembrandt fancy. I know I said that really fancy to you did.

Just before 5:00 p.m. closing time, a man who was apparently not feeling jolly and bright walked into the museum lobby and pointed a submachine gun at the guard. OK, look, it's Christmas time. Step back, feel a little holly, feel a little bright. And that's just not necessary.

It's a lot, yeah. To other men already inside a Polda named handguns at two other guards and then they grabbed three small paintings. The museum has water on two sides because it's real fancy. That's a moat, literally houseboat apparently. So they had to use a boat as the getaway vehicle. That's amazing. The abandoned boat was recovered just a short while later. Just like every other story, everything is just like found five minutes later, whether it's a boat or a getaway car or a person, it's found five minutes later.

It doesn't matter. Shortly before the robbery, police received a report about two car fires outside of two hotels nearby. And those are thought to have been a distraction. So many distractions. I know. I feel like everybody has a similar kind of M.O.. Yeah, art heisters are really like up on what they do. Yeah, there's actually a book. We just don't know what it's like a handbook of art tastes. Absolutely. And so I wrote it.

You just kidding. In 2001, one of the Renoir paintings turned up during a drug bust.

But where the heck are the others? Where are they? I don't know. The thieves were caught and charged with jail time and a small fee of thirty million dollars in damages.

Chump change. Exactly. I know there's one on the list and I was waiting for it, but then it's on my list, so I know it's there.

Can you walk me through that again? Because what was that? OK, I think again you say, yeah, you go. So, you know, it's there. There was one that I was waiting for and I was looking, looking, looking.

And then I saw that it's on my list and we haven't gotten to it yet. OK, but I'm excited about it. I feel like is it in our hometown. Might be OK. Cool. I know. Exactly. I see. Been there, done that.

I personally I like the scream one because I would still the scream. Yeah. Like I won't but I would.

OK convincing. I like the one that you had where the guy scaled the wall or Spiderman. Spiderman, his fancy Spiderman.

You know what this art heist top ten is really bringing out the fancy in you. I really it I appreciate it.

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All right, let's jump back in with number five on our countdown of the greatest art heists starting off the second half of our list is the Ghent Altarpiece called Adoration of the Mystic Lamb.

This 15th century oil painting is said to be the size of a barn door, way more than an elephant's low and is one of the most coveted paintings in the world. Not to mention it's the center of a number of surprising thefts.

That is surprising because who's going to go steal a painting that weighs more than an elephant?

Yeah, I'm going to go steal a painting. I'm going to go for like one of those tiny canvas ones. I'm not going to go for a barn door.

If I'm going to steal something that weighs more than an elephant, I'm just actually going to steal an elephant. Yeah, cool. Come to my backyard. I love you. Exactly.

The altarpiece was painted for the Cathedral of Saint Bobbo in Ghent, Belgium, where it was displayed without incident for one hundred and fifty years.

Like we made it that far. Come on. Like, that's a record. Let's get to the finish line. Somebody broke it. Yeah, that's not cool. It's made up of several panels depicting the Annunciation, Adam and Eve, the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist and a crowned Jesus Christ. You can't be stealing paintings of Jesus Christ. You can't be doing it. No, it's the rule rulebook in fifteen, sixty six. You know, a little bit ago.

No, few days. Yeah. Protestant militants broke down the cathedral doors to burn it down, but the Catholic guards thought ahead and hid it for safekeeping.

So last time that and then it also went through 1794. What happened then? Napoleon's troops stole panels as spoils of war, but they were later returned after Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. So again, returned again, got through it again. Napoleon was such a turd. The painting was hidden during World War One and only emerged once again when the war ended in the Treaty of Versailles was signed. OK, so so far this thing is making it.

Yeah, it's just doing it.

But it sounds it sounds like people are planning ahead. They sure are. The planning ended, I guess now we're bumping it up a little to nineteen thirty four.

Whoa FlashForward. Yeah.

I'm saying thieves broke into the cathedral one night and made off with the lower left panel.

To this day it remains missing.

OK, so it makes sense that they like took just panels though instead of like the whole of. Yeah.

Like you're just like a little afraid. Yeah that's a bummer because that's like a part of the whole right. Not cool. A copy of the missing panel is on display, one so good that some say it's actually the original hidden in plain sight.

But that was disproved by experts. Oh, OK. But how cool would that be? That would've been awesome if it was just hidden where it's supposed to be. But what about this?

Maybe the experts are lying so that it doesn't get stolen again, like we just proved that actually intrigue. I like it.

The last theft because, of course, there was another one was by the Nazis who hid it in an Austrian salt mine rigged with explosives.

But those were diffused. And the painting is now at St. Barbas.

Wow. What a life that painting has had.

It has seen some stuff. You know, it's crazy.

And I haven't even said it so far.

Imagine all these like dead artists in heaven just being like, well, no, my paintings, like he's getting away, like in the afterlife.

Yeah, I can imagine it's a. For. Well, and got no for this week is the theft of the Mona Lisa painted by your boy Leonardo da Vinci in 15 07. Leo. Have you heard the Mona Lisa? I might have heard of it. Some people had the Mona Lisa was actually not even really well known outside of the art world when it was stolen by three men from the Louvre in Paris on the morning of August 21st, 1911.

That was her moment, her moment to shine. That's why she has that little smirk.

Yeah, she knew it was coming the night before the three men hid in a supply closet in the Louvre until it was closed tonight at the museum.

Again, again, Maria, I mean, where'd that movie come from? This exactly.

So they removed the protective glass case off the wall around the painting, stripped it from the frame, covered it with a blanket and rushed out of the museum. They were like, see you later. Goodbye. We got the Mona Lisa.

Then they hustled off to the train station where they boarded a seven forty seven a.m. Express carrying a gigantic painting. Apparently now they're just like, don't mind me, they just have this. This is just the Mona Lisa and nobody watch. It's fine. It's fine. They just had it right out of the city. If it's anything like normal subways are like the T in Boston, nobody would notice.

No, that's fine. Just get out of my way. I a seat. Well, the thieves were three Italians, two brothers and their ringleader, who was a handyman, originally hired to install the protective glass that they later tore off. Wow. Imagine not cool man. Not a cool handyman, not one you want to hire the crimes of Paris. A book about the heist states that it was twenty eight hours until anyone even noticed that the Mona Lisa was missing.

Wow. Because it wasn't well known. Yeah, well, that's true. You know, it's like, wow, what's that big empty space on the wall. Yeah, it's like we love's an observant team. The House received a lot of attention. Newspapers were offering rewards for its return. And after a week long shutdown, the Louvre reopened to mobs of people rushing just to see the empty spot that had become the mark of shame. I would do that.

I would do. Yeah, I'd want to see that.

It'd be really haunting to look, I was over two years later, the ringleader made a pass at selling the Mona Lisa. Like you think that's going to work. Good try, man. Yeah, he tried to sell it to an art dealer and he was caught. He was caught. Yeah. No way.

Mona Lisa was returned back home to the Louvre. Oh, there she is, home at last.

Number three on our countdown of the greatest art heist is the reclining figure in the middle of the night in December. Twenty five thieves made off with a two ton, 11 foot long bronze statue called Reclining Figure from the Henry Moore Foundation in the UK, where 11 feet long and it's a bronze statue.

Yeah. And they just were like, don't mind if I do. I want it. I got it. Yeah, I believe it. Wow. Yeah. In twenty five, copper and bronze prices just soared.

So criminals began to steal as much of copper and bronze material that they could get their dirty little hands on you. Yeah, they wanted to get rich quick. Little turd's. The reclining figure statue sat on the 72 acre a state of the Henry Moore Foundation. The thieves drove up onto the compound in a truck and using a crane, lifted and drove the sculpture away.

How did nobody notice that? It's just like big and they're all just leaning against it.

Like, no, no, no, it's fine. It's just in the air. So you get by hanging out later. It's fine. Well, the whole thing was captured by security cameras. You don't say. Many initially thought it was a made for hire job. A years long investigation, aided by a tip from a former art thief, led Scotland Yard to believe that the sculpture had been stolen to sell for scrap. So they destroyed it, probably.

Oh, that's so rude. Moore's 1969 reclining figure was worth nearly four million dollars when it was stolen. Oh, my God. Authorities believe it was sold to metal dealers for a measly two thousand dollars. You're kidding me. I knew we were headed to like dark territory. No good. That's not good. There's a big difference between four million and two thousand. It is thought to have eventually made its way to China, where it was most likely melted down and used as raw material and electrical components.

Wow. So when somebody is electrical thing, they could have a piece of the reclining figure and you would just never know. It just never know. You've got two left, I'm saying I know one, I know one. No way.

I just my favorite one so far now has been the reclining figure because it reminds me of you. Thank you.

I am a reclining figure. You're welcome. That's actually what people remember me as.

I'm excited to see what you have. Well, I'm going to tell you all about it in just a minute. Ready?

Two, we're down to the final two spots on our countdown of the greatest art heists landing at number two is an alleged series of heists involving a shocking inside job at the Gwangju Academy of Fine Arts in China. So a university librarian admitted to stealing one hundred and forty three paintings, just a casual one hundred and forty three, very casual right by Chinese artists from a gallery he was in charge of. So they placed the steward in charge of a huge gallery.

And he's like, I think I'm just going to take what I like. You know what? I'm going to be really subtle about this. I'm only going to take one hundred and forty three, that's all. Yeah, no one will notice. Right. So he sold one hundred and twenty five of the original paintings at auction, between two thousand four in 2011. And he used the money to buy apartments and more paintings. Yikes. Well his whole operation was replacing the real paintings with fakes that he painted himself.

Wow. So, I mean, I'm a little impressed. I need to see the side by side. I do, too. He claimed that he really wasn't the only one to do this because the handling of such paintings was not secure. Students and professors could borrow paintings like you would borrow a library book. And actually he had already noticed some fakes hanging in the gallery on his first day on the job. Oh, look at him. He's like, you know what?

That actually is not by the original artist. I know this. And now I have an idea.

So later, after he replaced some of the remaining original works with his own fakes, he was surprised when his fakes were substituted for further fakes. So people stole his fakes and then painted their own fakes and replaced them with those fakes. I feel like this whole place is just a giant facade at this point. Inception, right? It's like fake, fake, fake.

Ultimately, this dude was found out in 2010 by another employee who told the police and he pleaded guilty to a corruption charges. Right.

One, and that brings us to number one on our countdown of the top ten greatest art heist, Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I knew this had to be on the list. Had to be this one is bonkers. The Gardner Museum was the site of the largest museum heist in history back in 1990, mainly because of the enormous value of the stolen pieces.

I like how you just slowly came out of that voice. I didn't want to I didn't want to do it the whole time because people would be like, well, click OK. Two men posed as police officers came to the employee entrance and stated they were responding to a disturbance, which they were not. Excuse me, ma'am, was a disturbance in here lies the security guard. Let them in. He and a second security guard were handcuffed and put in the basement with duct tape on their faces.

I always think of how badly were hurt when they rip it off.

The museum was equipped with motion detectors, so the thieves movements were recorded. So that is good. Yeah, they couldn't do that whole matrix.

They like to think like this.

About eighty one minutes later, the thieves got away with thirteen pieces of art. That's bananas. Experts now price them collectively, somewhere between half a billion and one billion dollars today. Whoa.

Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. That's crazy. Four billion b four billion. One of the pieces. The concert by Johannes Vermeer is thought to be worth the most, and it's currently valued at around four hundred million. Oh my God. And they just it's laying around somewhere. Yeah. Just a casual four hundred million for this one piece.

The museum is offering a ten million dollar reward for information leading to the recovery of any of the stolen works.

So let's go find it honestly. Let's look right after this.

Empty frames remain hanging in the museum as placeholders for the missing works and as symbols of hope are waiting for their return.

Have you ever been to the garden? It's so cool to look at the missing. It's like pieces. Yeah, yeah. Because you're like, oh, something fancy. If you live around Boston, go to that museum. It's so pretty. Come to Boston. Could.

You know what, I got to agree, because I think that the Gardner Museum needed to be number one, the Gardner Museum. The Gardner Museum. Yeah, I had a feeling it was going to be on the list.

Definitely. Usually when I didn't have it, I was like, Olaine has got to have it's got to be there.

And you know what? I didn't know about half of the other ones.

I didn't, you know, essentially any of them. So it happens a lot more often than we think.

I know. And it seems like everybody follows, like I said, the same rules. I'm saying respect, art, respect, art and respect to the research gods. They didn't leave anything off that I know of.

They did a good job research God's will. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week with another great episode. Remember to follow Crime Countdown on Spotify to get a brand new episode delivered. Every week you can find all episodes of Crime Countdown and all other cast originals for free on Spotify. Spotify has all your favorite music and podcasts all in one place. They're making it easier to listen to whatever you want to hear for free on your phone, computer or smart speaker.

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