To catch a thief

Kelly Crow writes in the Wall Street Journal about innovative ways law enforcement agencies are trying to keep up with art thieves, who are becoming bolder and more violent. [N]ow for the first time the [FBI] is upending tradition by training a nationwide squad to combat art crime. Prosecutors and law-enforcement officials are hailing the move . . . .” The FBI’s role is increasingly crucial. As Crow notes:

The U.S. is the biggest buyer within the $6 billion black market for art, the FBI says. Last year alone, 16,117 artworks in the U.S. were listed by the London-based Art Loss Register as missing or stolen, up from 14,981 the year before. At the same time, worsening economies and shifting priorities are forcing governments to slash their budgets to combat art crime. New York Cit York City cut $4 million from its museum-security budget earlier this summer.

Crow’s story focuses on Robert Wittman,who has spent
over 20 years tracking art thieves. Wittman, though, has been an anomaly within the Bureau — until now the FBI has treated “art crime like a tweedy backwater compared with offenses like terrorism, racketeering and drug smuggling.” Experts are worried too whether the Bureau’s new art squad will be able to replace the soon to retire Mr. Wittman, one of whose stings, as recounted in detail by Crow, sounds like the summary of a new television pilot that crosses Miami Vice with the world of Christie’s and Sotheby’s. But Wittman makes clear the difference between what he and television cops do, emphasizing that his work “can be ‘incredibly stressful’ because ‘unlike actors, you only get one shot and you have to remember everything you ever said.’”

The Wall Street Journal also includes with the story the details on “Art’s Ten Most Wanted Works,” which include The Concert, by Vermeer (pictured above right). As recounted by the museum from which The Concert was stolen, “In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, thieves dressed as Boston police officers entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and stole 13 works of art.”