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How hard is it to steal a work of art? · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: from house Stuffworks dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark to my left, Charles W. Bryant to
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  Speaker 1: my right, Jerry the Killer Roland. Yes, thank you, Chuck
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  Speaker 1: to your immediate immediate right. Yeah, within two inches. It
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  Speaker 1: looks like in sniffing distance. As she's pointed out, there's
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  Speaker 1: enough of that. Okay. Yeah, Hey, so how you doing, great, sir, Chuck, Josh?
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  Speaker 1: Have you ever seen art? I hate art, Chuck, Let's
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  Speaker 1: let's do something different. Yeah that was nice though, Actually,
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  Speaker 1: thank you. Chuck knows a guy who hates art? Yeah, one,
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  Speaker 1: a guy who knows a guy who hates art. One
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  Speaker 1: of my friends read Nick Cousin, said that one time,
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  Speaker 1: I hate art, just art, whatever makes a lot of sense, movies, poetry, filmy, sculpture.
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  Speaker 1: I hate art. A guy's name art. It's like that
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  Speaker 1: old joke about a guy hanging on the wall. Go ahead, No,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to um. Actually, Chuck, we are we
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  Speaker 1: have I think come and gone. On the twentieth anniversary
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  Speaker 1: of the largest art heist in US history. It happened
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  Speaker 1: in Boston. Yes, men, what was the name of the museum,
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  Speaker 1: Isabella Rosalini Art Museum, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston,
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  Speaker 1: And some dudes made out with two hundred and fifty
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  Speaker 1: million dollars and paintings, rem brands, They got sketches and
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  Speaker 1: a manet. Yeah, and they actually did it in high style.
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  Speaker 1: They dressed up in Boston police uniforms. Dropped by the
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  Speaker 1: museum after hours. There were two security guards on duty,
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  Speaker 1: both of them college students. UM. And they went to
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  Speaker 1: the door and like waved at the security guards who
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  Speaker 1: buzzed them in. And then I guess you some employ
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  Speaker 1: to get them away from their desk which held the
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  Speaker 1: the alarm buzzer. UM overpowered them, duct taped them, and
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  Speaker 1: then spent eighty one minutes in this uh, in this
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  Speaker 1: museum pilfering it. But they think that these guys were
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  Speaker 1: local boys who didn't know what they were doing because
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  Speaker 1: he passed by probably southeast, They passed by some very
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  Speaker 1: very expensive works of art and took those day gas
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  Speaker 1: sketches instead. Um. But they still pulled it off. They
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  Speaker 1: pulled off the heights of the Century. I was reading
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  Speaker 1: an article and I think the Boston Globe with an
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  Speaker 1: FBI guy who was talking about um. They they, I guess,
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  Speaker 1: reignited the case or something. Now they're they're using new
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  Speaker 1: DNA techniques on the duct tape and billboards, digital billboards
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  Speaker 1: in Boston going up asking for information. But you know what,
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  Speaker 1: the statute of limitations of being involved in that crime
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  Speaker 1: ran out, So what does that mean they want that
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  Speaker 1: artwork back? Yeah, so that was an example of a
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  Speaker 1: very low fi theft operation. No, that's actually high fi
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  Speaker 1: as far as art theft. Well, that was my point though,
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  Speaker 1: is that art theft is very low fi. Yeah, across
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  Speaker 1: the board. A guy very famously made off with the
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  Speaker 1: Mona Lisa in nineteen eleven. Can I say how he
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  Speaker 1: did that. He's a worker there at the and he
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  Speaker 1: uh hid somewhere in the museum, waited till the museum closed,
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  Speaker 1: came out, cracked it out of its frame, put it
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  Speaker 1: under a shirt, and walked out. That's how he stole
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  Speaker 1: the Mona Lisa. Have you ever seen the Mona Lisa? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: very small, it is surprisingly small. Jerry just nodded like, yes,
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  Speaker 1: a woman was actually Reese ly Um arrested for throwing
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  Speaker 1: a mug at the Mona Lisa because she was rejected
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  Speaker 1: for French citizenship. And yeah, I remember that she was
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  Speaker 1: taking it out on old Mona. Although it's like behind
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  Speaker 1: all kinds of protection now, a bulletproof class. Yeah, but
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  Speaker 1: back then it was. The funny thing is is it
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  Speaker 1: sat empty for a few days, a couple of days
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  Speaker 1: without the museum doing anything because everyone just kind of
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  Speaker 1: assumed that someone knew that it was being cleaned or something,
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  Speaker 1: and someone knew about its whereabouts. And then finally somebody
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  Speaker 1: eventually went, oh, wait a minute, you don't have it.
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  Speaker 1: You don't have it, so then they alerted the cops,
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  Speaker 1: of course, which actually when we were doing research in
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  Speaker 1: this article, and this is by the way, part two
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  Speaker 1: series partooning, the series of how easy is it to
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  Speaker 1: steal blank? Sure? Right, we started with nuclear weapons, now
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  Speaker 1: art now art um And what I found from researching
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  Speaker 1: this article is it's extremely easy to to steal art
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  Speaker 1: compared to like a bank or like a die then
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  Speaker 1: jeweler or something like that. It's not like the movies.
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  Speaker 1: They don't have the the laser beams with Katherine Zita
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  Speaker 1: Jones shimming and sliding around under the laser beams. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not entirely certain that was Catherine z to Jones
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  Speaker 1: body double. Yeah. But you can very easily walk into
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  Speaker 1: a museum with a gun, as was done in two
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  Speaker 1: thousand four in Oslo, Norway, when somebody walked in with
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  Speaker 1: a gun and stole the scream yes, Edvard monks the
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  Speaker 1: scream yes. And that is the second time that that's
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  Speaker 1: been stolen in the past fifteen years alone, And in
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  Speaker 1: the past twenty years there have been dozens and dozens
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  Speaker 1: of major paintings, including twenty works by Vincent van Gogh
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  Speaker 1: from a single heist in Amsterdam. And as we're going
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  Speaker 1: to tell you, there's a weird law in two thousand
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  Speaker 1: next year, those very paintings may be available legitimately on
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  Speaker 1: the open mark. Now now it'll it'll be ten years
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  Speaker 1: from next year. How is it twenty years? It's it's
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  Speaker 1: twenty years for any art. And in the Netherlands is
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  Speaker 1: the only country that has this law, right Chuck, Yeah, No,
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  Speaker 1: it's twenty years for um any work of art, thirty
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  Speaker 1: years if it's from if it's stolen from a public
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  Speaker 1: collection like a museum, or if it's registered as a
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  Speaker 1: national heritage item, but in the Netherlands it after the
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  Speaker 1: twenty or thirty years passes, transfer of rightful ownership goes
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  Speaker 1: to the thief. So these guys, if they're smart, they're
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  Speaker 1: just gonna hang hopefully they're young, and they're just gonna
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  Speaker 1: hang onto them and then sell them for boatloads of cash.
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  Speaker 1: This Dutch, wacky, wacky Dutch. But there are ways around this.
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  Speaker 1: The Dutch just recently busted a group of art thieves
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  Speaker 1: UM who had stolen some works of art from a
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  Speaker 1: private gallery UM and after twenty years were coming forward
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  Speaker 1: UM with the art and they they were set up
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  Speaker 1: by this private detective. Was like, well, it was like
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  Speaker 1: a movie. They were set up by this private detective
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  Speaker 1: in the Dutch National Police and he was going to
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  Speaker 1: help them blackmail the gallery owners family or whatever. UM.
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  Speaker 1: But he actually handed him over to the police who
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  Speaker 1: caught them and the statute of limitations had run out,
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  Speaker 1: but the works of art were still listed as stolen,
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  Speaker 1: so they got them for handling stolen goods and laundering money.
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  Speaker 1: A Dutch gum shoe and a Dutch loophole. I love it.
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  Speaker 1: Can I tell you about one of my favorites in
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  Speaker 1: two thousand. Yeah, the Swedish National Museum. These dudes came
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  Speaker 1: in with a machine gun, stole a Renois and a Rembrandt.
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  Speaker 1: But this is where it gets smart. And they didn't
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  Speaker 1: just walk in with a gun and leave. Before the robbery,
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  Speaker 1: they laid out spikes on the roads so the cops
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  Speaker 1: would you know, get flat tires, toot sweet and uh.
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  Speaker 1: Right before the robbery. They had accomplices and other parts
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  Speaker 1: of the city to other parts that set off bombs
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  Speaker 1: to just instill bunch of chaos going on. Not not
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  Speaker 1: a bad idea, No, it's really not. Although if you're
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  Speaker 1: bumbles somebody up, you got murder wrap tacked on as well. Well, yeah, true,
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  Speaker 1: very true. And uh, can I tell the one about
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  Speaker 1: Zurich to this. Just two years ago, this was another
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  Speaker 1: gun deal. Three three dudes broke into the I'm sorry
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  Speaker 1: they didn't broke in. They waltzed in to the E.
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  Speaker 1: G Foundation Museum in Zurich and they basically walked in
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  Speaker 1: when it was wide open full of people and pulled
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  Speaker 1: their guns and said everybody freeze, everybody get down on
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  Speaker 1: the floor. Nobody moved, nobody get hurt. Right, Yes, that
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  Speaker 1: was my raising Amazon reference of the show. Nice, remember
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  Speaker 1: the old guy, But which is it you want? I
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  Speaker 1: should freeze or drop? So they basically just got the
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  Speaker 1: four paintings closest to the door, all on one wall,
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  Speaker 1: still in their protective cases. They walked out. Included a
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  Speaker 1: says A, Monet, Degas, and Evan and uh. They found
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  Speaker 1: two of these in the back of a car nearby
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  Speaker 1: a few days later, and they just figured that they
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  Speaker 1: were too heavy, so they just kind of let's just
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  Speaker 1: drop two of them. But they were smart enough to
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  Speaker 1: keep the most expensive one, right, Yeah, well lucky they
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  Speaker 1: think that they grabbed it because they think they just
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  Speaker 1: grabbed the fore closest one. That was a says on
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  Speaker 1: the the boy in the red waistcoat. Um. So you
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  Speaker 1: can just walk into a museum with a gun or
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  Speaker 1: gallery with a gun. Um, you can set off some bombs,
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  Speaker 1: you can put down road tax, that kind of thing.
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  Speaker 1: That's one way to do it. There were some guys
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  Speaker 1: in two thousand one, um who drove their jeep through
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  Speaker 1: the front door of a museum and made off with
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  Speaker 1: some paintings worth four million. Um. You could wage a
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  Speaker 1: war who did that? Oh, it happens in every war,
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  Speaker 1: there's actually been a huge dissolute for art. But there's
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  Speaker 1: a huge push that's been ongoing to return what's called
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  Speaker 1: Holocaust era art um to the heirs of the rightful owners.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of times the Nazis were like, give us
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  Speaker 1: this and we won't kill you, and then you gave
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  Speaker 1: it to him and then they killed you anyway. Um,
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  Speaker 1: and then that art gets matriculated into the underground and
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  Speaker 1: then legitimate art world. But there's actually a type of
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  Speaker 1: um cultural law that's developed, and there's these lawyers making
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  Speaker 1: tons of cash in threatening to sue or filing suit
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  Speaker 1: against people who own holocauster artwork to return it to
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  Speaker 1: their rightful owners. Often this is museums as well. Do
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  Speaker 1: you remember what is it the was it artwork from
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  Speaker 1: Machu Picchu? M m The guy from Yale went down
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  Speaker 1: to Peru, I believe, and got something from Machu Picchu
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  Speaker 1: or a bunch of stuff from Machu Pichi, took it
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  Speaker 1: back to Yale and Yale basically refused to hand it
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  Speaker 1: back over to Peru for decades. Just finally recently did
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  Speaker 1: it dude? They think they are Yale's Wow, have you
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  Speaker 1: ever stolen art? Yeah? Shut up that used to be
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  Speaker 1: part of the game. I on my recent vacation, I
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  Speaker 1: don't think I told you about this. I went to
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  Speaker 1: a gallery and Sausalito, across from the across the Bay
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  Speaker 1: and across from San Francisco, and there was a gallery
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  Speaker 1: right next to my little end that had original Dr.
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  Speaker 1: Seuss paintings. Wow, had like ten of them, really really cool.
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  Speaker 1: How much were there? I think they were like they
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  Speaker 1: were under ten grand? What Yeah, I seem to think
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  Speaker 1: they were under ten grand or around tin grand. They
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  Speaker 1: were really cool though, and I really wanted to steal
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  Speaker 1: them because I don't have ten grand. You could just
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  Speaker 1: write a bad check. That's good point. Sure you should
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  Speaker 1: have done that check cutting it doesn't carry quite as
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  Speaker 1: much of a penalty as art theft. And then, Chuck,
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  Speaker 1: do you remember in the Zoo episode where I said
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  Speaker 1: that Toledo has a surprisingly good art museum. Yeah? Uh,
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  Speaker 1: there was a pretty famous heist in UM with a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of paintings that were en route to the Guggenheim,
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  Speaker 1: and they were on loan from the Toledo Museum of Art. Yes, UM,
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  Speaker 1: and there were some professional art transporters that had their
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  Speaker 1: truck and we're transporting this art and then parked overnight
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  Speaker 1: at a motel in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, and the people just
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  Speaker 1: looted the truck made off with the paintings. I think
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  Speaker 1: they were recovered. Yeah. I was at the Googgenheim U
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  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago and I was kind of
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  Speaker 1: in there at a bad time. I think said a
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  Speaker 1: lot of their really good stuff that was being transferred.
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  Speaker 1: It might have been during that thing, but they were
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  Speaker 1: they were sitting there and they're big boxes that they
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  Speaker 1: used to ship them, just kind of right there and
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  Speaker 1: there was no one watching them. I mean, they were huge.
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  Speaker 1: Like I couldn't have just walked out, Or maybe I
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  Speaker 1: could have if I would have had a machine gun. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: everybody get down. Everybody freeze. Uh So, Josh, this is
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  Speaker 1: off well and fine and fun, But why would you
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  Speaker 1: steal art? What can you do with a Van Gogh
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  Speaker 1: that you have stolen? Well, first off, we should say
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  Speaker 1: that um art theft, that the the trade of stolen
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  Speaker 1: art ranks third in the world as far as illicit
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  Speaker 1: activities go in generating money estimated six billion annually because
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  Speaker 1: they're so art is really really, really expensive. Sure, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: um and it's right behind drugs. And then arms, no,
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  Speaker 1: it isn't bad. Um, well it is bad, right yeah yeah, Um.
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  Speaker 1: So I would say money is the big reason why
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  Speaker 1: the thing is is when you are stealing. Actually, I
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  Speaker 1: would say money is the only reason why. But how
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  Speaker 1: do you unload art is I'm getting to that. I'm
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  Speaker 1: getting that settled down. When you when you steal art,
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  Speaker 1: you're going to get maybe a tenth of its legal
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  Speaker 1: market value on the black market. If you get a
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  Speaker 1: twenty million dollar painting, that's pretty good scratch sure, that's
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  Speaker 1: two million bucks right there, right yeah, um, and you're
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  Speaker 1: going to get a tenth. You're going to get a
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  Speaker 1: tenth of its value two different ways. One you're gonna
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  Speaker 1: sell it to an unscrupulous dealer. It's so funny they
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  Speaker 1: always use the word unscrupulous. It's part of the art world.
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  Speaker 1: When they're talking about art theft, the word unscrupulous always
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  Speaker 1: comes before somebody who is knowingly buying or you know
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  Speaker 1: it's not evil or you know, low a little moral yeah, shady.
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  Speaker 1: It's like saying they're they have no text whatsoever exactly.
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  Speaker 1: An unscrupulous art collector or dealer will buy it, but
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  Speaker 1: it is going to buy it for ten percent um.
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  Speaker 1: And you can also sell them as fakes, high high
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  Speaker 1: quality fakes, and those usually are replicas, we should say,
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  Speaker 1: as they say in the art world, and those usually
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  Speaker 1: fetch about ten percent of the market value um. But
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  Speaker 1: they were saying that there's there. From night to two
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  Speaker 1: thousand ten, an estimated hundred thousand objects of art have
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  Speaker 1: been stolen just in the last thirty years. They think
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  Speaker 1: of a lot of these stolen pieces of art are
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  Speaker 1: in the are in legitimate collectors collections who unknowingly think
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  Speaker 1: that their replicas. Well, yeah, that's the one of the keys.
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  Speaker 1: If you get an art, a piece of art that
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  Speaker 1: is less uh known, maybe it's not the Mona Lisa,
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  Speaker 1: you can sell it. And then that gets sold and
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  Speaker 1: it's sort of I think they put it in the
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  Speaker 1: article like art laundering. The first dealer kind of dumps
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  Speaker 1: it quickly for a lowish price, and then they'll sell
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  Speaker 1: it to someone. The other personal sell it and by
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  Speaker 1: the time it gets around two or three places, and
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  Speaker 1: maybe it goes off to auction, the auction thinks it's
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  Speaker 1: a legit, you know, because it comes from a verified owner.
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  Speaker 1: And that happened to one Steven Spielberg. I remember when
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  Speaker 1: this happened, he had he found out he had a
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  Speaker 1: stolen Norman Rockwell and his UH in his collection. Just
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: figures UM. You know, Switzerland is UH notorious apparently for
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  Speaker 1: holding uh illegitimate art auctions. They were they're legitimate. These
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  Speaker 1: are legitimate auction houses, but they're knowingly selling questionable or
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  Speaker 1: stolen art. And the very fact that it's passed through
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  Speaker 1: this auction house and and been purchased legitimately, there's some
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  Speaker 1: sort of legitimacy attached to that stolen art now, right,
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  Speaker 1: so it be fuddles UM claims of due diligence. There's
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  Speaker 1: this thing called UM buying a piece of art and
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  Speaker 1: good faith where you're like, I didn't know it was stolen,
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  Speaker 1: and I bought it legitimate, legitimately, so it's mine. And
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  Speaker 1: the UM international police community who deal with art theft
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  Speaker 1: have kind of come up with these rules that are
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  Speaker 1: carried out in the court, and first among them is
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  Speaker 1: due diligence. You have to go look to see if
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  Speaker 1: the paintings stolen UM, if your if your work of
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  Speaker 1: art is stolen, there's certain steps you have to follow.
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  Speaker 1: You have to alware the authorities, you have to UM
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  Speaker 1: you know put it on the stolen Art register um
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: and so if it's stolen, you do you take certain steps.
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  Speaker 1: If you're buying a piece of art, you have to
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: take certain steps. But first of among them was something
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  Speaker 1: that you mentioned was quick art sale. If you buy
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  Speaker 1: something in haste, that should be a red flag to you.
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  Speaker 1: Somebody's just trying to unload it. Let's just do this.
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  Speaker 1: I just want to get rid of this Rembrandt real quick, exactly.
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  Speaker 1: So if they find out that you made a quick sale,
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  Speaker 1: your claim of due diligence is out the window and
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: you can't say that you bought it in good faith,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: and you're probably going to lose your money and the
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  Speaker 1: piece of