
The Pros and Cons of Stealing Fine Art - rutenspitz
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-26/the-pros-and-cons-of-stealing-fine-art
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highdesertmuse
... and speaking of criminality in fine art, let's not forget forgery which is
and always has been a booming business. Or, as the ribald saying goes, "During
his lifetime, Savador Dali created 1500 lithographs, 3000 of which are in
galleries in Monterey." Who knows how many forgeries are on record as stolen
originals.

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TheOtherHobbes
If only 1.5% of art thieves are caught and prosecuted, that suggests it's not
nearly as difficult to sell stolen art as the rest of the article implies.

Wikipedia seems to think the real rate is "somewhere between 5% and 10%" \-
which still suggests it's a relatively low-risk crime, roughly in line with
other kinds of burglary, but potentially far more lucrative.

While galleries won't usually touch art known to be stolen, it's hard to
believe there are no buyers for prestige high-value stolen works among
oligarchs with criminal backgrounds of their own.

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everdev
They mention it briefly, but it seems more like a guess than a hard stat:

> “People assume that they’ll find criminal art collectors,” Charney says,
> “when in fact, we have very few historical examples—maybe a dozen to 20 who
> fit the bill.” Keep in mind that many hundreds of art objects are stolen
> every year. Those, needless to say, are bad odds.

I'm imagining it would be difficult to rationalize buying black market art in
the Western World for a few reasons:

1\. It's illegal to knowingly purchase or possess a stolen item

2\. Many art collectors buy art to impress their guests, but that's not
exactly safe to do with stolen art. So, you need to find a buyer who's OK with
the legal risk and would enjoy the art primarily for their own satisfaction
and who doesn't mind depriving the museum or the general public of that same
privilege.

So, your target market is a wealthy person who lives outside the legal reach
of the Western World, or who loves art for art's sake, is OK with ethics of
stealing and is OK with being complicit in a criminal conspiracy.

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monocasa
My understanding is that there's a huge market for stolen art where it acts as
a clearing currency between organized crime syndicates.

At that point you don't really need to show it off, you just need to come to a
consensus with regards to appraisal.

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ghostbrainalpha
Did you get that from reading "The Goldfinch"?

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monocasa
I used to be connected to the wholesale broker level drug market. I heard
rumors in a "if you happen to come across this, no promises, but we might be
able to make a deal happen" kind of way. I never saw anything like it in
person though.

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joeguilmette
Have you ever written about your experiences in the wholesale drug market?

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monocasa
Nah. Don't really have any desire to other than the occasional post.

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cascom
I would have thought that art theft looked a lot like high-end auto theft -
where the cars are stolen in the high “rule of law” countries and sold in low
“rule of law” countries...whereas a stolen car kept in kept in a high “rule of
law” country is risky and can probabaly only be parted out...

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GuB-42
Even high-end cars are made in series. Fine art is usually unique.

It means you can show off in your stolen Ferrari an not raise too much
suspicion, because there are plenty of cars just like yours that are not
stolen. However, if you show off with a unique art piece, people who know
about the theft will immediately recognize it as what it is.

You will also get a lot more people pissed off. By stealing a Ferrari,
essentially, the only person who is going to get pissed off is the original
owner. Steal fine art and you have all the art community against you, and some
of them may be influential even in your shithole country.

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cascom
That’s a very fair point - and while with exception of lithographs,
photography, etc. most art really is unique, but there are loads of artists
whose art, while unique, would be hard to identify as a stolen to us layman -
for example Monet painted ~250 paintings of water lilies alone, many of which
trade hands in private sales, if for some reason I were to be at a Nigerian
central banker’s home and he and a Monet water lilies was on the wall, I would
have no idea if that was one of the stolen ones (or a fake for that matter)

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glup
Why is an article like this okay, but you'd never see a clickbait article for
illegal activities called "pros and cons of embezzlement"? Is stealing fine
art not really stealing?

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wmf
In the documentary Blurred Lines, some people made the point that shady
practices in the fine art world (like rigged auctions, fee gouging, and
general lack of transparency) are sort of justified because it's just rich
people scamming other rich people out of disposable income.

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dsfyu404ed
According to the article it seems like finding a buyer is the primary
difficulty by a wide margin. I wonder if there's a website on the dark web
that deals in these sorts of products. It seems like it would be a good
opportunity to make a buck running an onion routed knockoff of eBay. If such a
thing exists it seems like this should be a buyer's market.

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eboyjr
How do you advertise only certainly to shady people?

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reitanqild
I think it doesn't matter if they are shady or not.

As long as a way of transferring goods and payments can be agreed on I guess
most thieves wouldn't care who their customers are?

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mcphage
They definitely care if their customer are cops, though.

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reitanqild
Not necessarily: My point is as long as the handover can happen in a "safe"
way and they are sure they haven't left any prints, dna or other traces, why
should they care?

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almostApatriot1
Seems like there's money to be had by tracking art via the blockchain

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mcphage
What would that accomplish?

