Organized crime likely behind Swiss art heist: expert

This week's spectacular theft of paintings worth $163 million US from a Swiss museum was likely carried out by organized criminal gangs, says an expert in art crime.

Noah Charney, founding director of the Rome-based Association for Research into Crimes Against Art, said such crimes are carried out, not by thieves who specialize in stealing art, but by ordinary thieves who are basically nobodies.

"Against popular conception there is no such thing as a clich or full-time art thief," said Charney in an interview with CBC cultural affairs show Q on Thursday.

"There are only thieves who have stolen art and sometimes more than once. Sometimes organized crime syndicates will hire thieves who are low on the totem pole to steal art."

A trio of armed and masked men ran into a small Zurich museum on Sunday half an hour before the facility was set to close and threatened staffers.

They then grabbed four paintings by Paul Czanne, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet and ran out again.

"The thieves have no art training, no art handling experience. They've been told the time and how to get in and what to take," he said.

"The ones who organize and orchestrate the crime what to steal and how to do so are the most interesting figures and these are essentially criminal administrators, part of the organized crime syndicate."

There is almost no way to prevent such thefts, said Charney, who began researching art theft for his 2007 novel The Art Thief.

"Thefts are happening at opening hours," he said. "Museums and galleries have set up elaborate alarm systems and they worked, in this case and also with the Munch heist [in Oslo in 2004]."

But the thieves grabbed the paintings and were out within three minutes, which would beat even the quickest police response time.

They didn't choose the most valuable items, but just the ones easiest to take as they werehanging in a cluster in a room close to the entrance, Charney added.

Organized criminal gangs have been paying attention to the value of works of art as auction prices climb, Charney said.

They can expect to get about seven to 10 per cent of the value of the works on the black market, he said.

"This is a classic example of contemporary theft by organized crime syndicates of works of art that will be used most probably for barter or collateral on a closed black market for equivalent value of other illicit goods like drugs or arms," Charney said.

The art could then languish in a mobster's living room or be abandoned altogether, he said.

The chance of recovering the works Czanne's The Boy in Red Waistcoat, Degas's Viscount Ludovic Lepic and His Daughter, Monet's Poppy Field Near Vetheuil andVan Gogh's Blooming Chestnut Branches depends on who stole it and why.

"Was it the inspiration of a criminal trying to make a name for himself in the criminal community or was it specifically organized by an organized crime syndicate?" he said.

"If it's the former the objects will almost certainly be abandoned, and the first step preceding that would probably be a ransom demand. If it's the latter, the art could disappear for a generation."