26 Famous Art Heists - mental_floss on YouTube (Ep.207)

Hi YouTube, it's Akilah, obviously

And if you click on my face, you can check out my channel, Smoothie Freak. But this is Mental Floss on YouTube

Did you know that art theft has caused about $4 to $6 billion in losses around the world

And that the only more costly crimes are drug trafficking, money laundering and arm stealing

Plus, the average recovery rate for stolen art is only about 2 to 6 percent

Today I'm going to tell you about some art heists. So let's get started

In 1990, two men posing as police demanded to be let into Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

They tied the two museum guards up in the basement, then raided the museum

In the largest property theft in U.S. history, the pair collected over $600 million worth of art, including five pieces by Degas

Not a single painting has been recovered. Also in Boston, Miles J. Conner Jr. stole a Rembrandt portrait from the Museum of Fine

Arts in 1975 on the same day jurors were being picked for his trial in another burglary case

Nine months later, Conner brokered the painting's return for a reduced sentence in that other

case. He ended up with a four-year sentence rather than 15 years. He was in jail at the

time of the Gardner Museum heist, but some suspect Conner to have somehow been involved

There are four different versions of Edvard Munch's The Scream, so it has technically

been stolen twice. In 1994, it was taken from Oslo's National Gallery, then recovered three

months later. On August 22, 2004, a different version was stolen from Oslo's Munch Museum

in broad daylight. Armed thieves took it right off the wall. Police found the getaway car

containing two empty frames, but the painting was recovered two years later

Also on August 22, this time in 1911, Louvre handyman Vincenzo Perugia stole the Mona Lisa

Suspects included J.P. Morgan and Pablo Picasso, which made the crime and the painting infamous

so it was impossible for Perugia to sell it off quickly. Two years later, Perugia tried to sell the Mona Lisa to an art dealer in Florence, who

promptly turned him in. Perugia was sentenced to eight months in prison

Another da Vinci piece, Madonna with the Yarnwinder, was stolen in 2003 when two men, posing as

tourists at the Drumlin Rig Castle in Scotland, used an ax to grab it during a tour

Security cameras captured them leaving the castle, with a $50 million painting casually

tucked under one arm. In 2007, officers recovered the painting and arrested four men

For 30 years Hungarian Elmer de Ori sold forgeries of paintings by artists like Picasso Matisse and Degas His forgeries were so detailed that they could trick extremely experienced art buyers He attracted his own following and eventually his own forgers

On August 13th, 2011, a Rembrandt drawing, worth around $250,000, was lifted from the Marina del Rey Ritz-Carlton

The hotel's curator was actually right there, but distracted by a guest

The piece was recovered two days later in a pastor's office in Encino, California

He wasn't a suspect. In 1937, a private collector loaned Renoir's Landscape on the Banks of the Seine to the Baltimore Museum of Art, where it was stolen in 1951

In 2012, it resurfaced at a West Virginia flea market when a woman paid $7 for it. It's worth at least $75,000

A judge ordered that the painting be returned to the Baltimore Museum. The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, a 24-panel piece by Jan van Eyck, has only had 23 panels since 1934

when a panel, known as Just Judges, was stolen from a cathedral in Ghent

The police showed up late to the crime scene and didn't stay long because they were in the middle of investigating a cheese theft

But we all know the real cheese theft culprit. Thirteen subsequent ransom notes sent to the bishop promised its return in exchange for one million Belgian francs

Shockingly, the bishop wasn't interested in negotiating with the criminals. The piece remains missing

A decade after he died, Texan Joe Meder became the prime suspect in the 1945 theft of a collection of medieval artworks and manuscripts from the town of Quedlinburg

The pieces were moved to a mineshaft during World War II, which is where they disappeared

from, just days after American troops, including Medar, occupied the area. In December 2011, a bronze sculpture by Barbara Hepworth was stolen from its perch in London's

Dolvidge Park. Investigators speculated that the culprits were metal thieves rather than art thieves

Once melted down for scrap, the piece would be worth about $1,250

In its art form, more than $800,000. I wonder how much money we'd get if we melted down this belt buckle

Something similar happened in December 2005, when a Henry Moore sculpture was stolen from

the Henry Moore Foundation estate in Hertfordshire. Thieves used a crane and truck to remove the sculpture quickly

It was originally worth $5 million, but the thieves went the scrapyard route and received

around $2,500. In 2006, during Rio de Janeiro's annual carnival, four armed men were able to grab approximately

$50 million in paintings from the Chacres de Ceo Art Museum, including works by Picasso

Monet and Dolly. Then, they managed to disappear into the crowd of partygoers

This made the FBI's top 10 art crimes. Speaking of Monet a cardboard copy of Beach in Porvy was left in place of the original and almost fooled authorities at the National Museum of Poland who were unknowingly robbed in September 2000 It took police a decade to catch the thief who had the original artwork hanging on his wall

In April 2003, at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester, thieves eluded alarms, guards

and security cameras while the museum was closed. They took off with paintings from Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Picasso

All three were recovered in a public bathroom less than a quarter mile away with this note

The intention was not to steal, only to highlight the woeful security

On May 20, 2010, a burglar took five paintings from the Musée d'art moderne in Paris

He broke a padlock and smashed a window to take paintings by Picasso, Matisse and Modigliani

worth more than $100 million. Officials partially blamed the incident on the new alarm system, which wasn't functioning properly

In 1991, what could have been one of the art world's most expensive heists turned out

to be one of its shortest-lived instead. Two men stole 20 paintings from the Van Gogh Museum, only to abandon all of them in a getaway

car 35 minutes later. The Van Gogh Museum was also a target in December 2002, when burglars took two paintings

Thanks to DNA evidence and eyewitness accounts, the men were quickly caught and sentenced to

more than three years in prison apiece. The paintings haven't been recovered

In July 2002, five paintings were stolen from the National Fine Arts Museum in Paraguay

which was hosting one of the biggest exhibitions in its history. The thieves had rented a shop 80 feet from the museum, then recruited people to help them

dig a 10-foot tunnel into the museum. In 2010, thieves stormed Stockholm's National Museum with a machine gun, stole $30 million

worth of paintings, a Rembrandt and two Renoirs, and escaped on a speedboat

They distracted police with decoy bombs, making the heist possible. The paintings were eventually recovered, and eight men were convicted

Here on Mental Floss, we have our own decoy bomb. On February 10, 2008, three masked men arrived at the entrance of the E.G. Burl Collection

in Zurich, forced employees onto the ground and stole paintings by Cézanne, Degas, Van

Gogh and Monet worth an estimated $163 million. Two of the paintings were found about a week later in a car parked in a nearby hospital

parking lot. The Cézanne and Degas paintings were recovered separately in 2012

In August 1961, Kempton Bunton climbed through an unlocked window of a restroom in London's

National Gallery and allegedly stole Francisco Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington

Goya was a 61-year-old retired bus driver who stole it in protest of the government's decision to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the painting in Britain

He confessed in 1965 but was only convicted of stealing the frame and served three months The story got weirder in 2012 when Bunton son confessed to the crime even though his father had already been tried No charges were filed On an early December 1966 morning someone took a drill to a door at London Dolvitz

Picture Gallery. They stole eight pieces, including Rembrandt's Jacob de Gane III

All of the paintings were recovered less than a week later. This same painting was stolen

and recovered three more times. It holds the Guinness World Record for world's most frequently

stolen artwork. In 1946, three paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe were stolen from an American

place, a gallery run by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz. She didn't want to upset him, so

O'Keeffe didn't report them missing until 1972. In 1976, the paintings were sold to

the Princeton Gallery of Fine Art. O'Keeffe filed a lawsuit for the return and, though

the statute of limitations had expired, the court sided with her. On November 17, 1969

thieves picked the lock of art dealer Stephen Hahn's gallery in New York City and stole

seven paintings, including works by Cassatt and Monet worth approximately $500,000. Ironically

while his gallery was being robbed, Hahn was with the board of directors at the Art Directors

Association of America discussing art theft. Finally, I return to the salon to tell you about the largest robbery in Israel's history

In 1983, 106 paintings, artifacts and watches were stolen from the LA Mayor Museum for Islamic

Art in Jerusalem. This included a $30 million pocket watch made by Abraham Louis Bruguet

for Marie Antoinette. In 2004, notorious criminal Neyman Diller admitted the theft to his wife on his deathbed

She was convicted of receiving stolen property in 2010 and sentenced to five years probation

and 300 hours of community service. One of the many reasons not to marry notorious criminals

Well, people have used some form of wallet basically since coins started becoming currency

and they needed somewhere to stash them. The modern bifold wallet with all of the card slots became standardized in the early 1950s

when credit cards were first introduced. If you have a mind-blowing question you'd like answered, leave it in the comments and

we'll try to answer it. Thanks for watching, I'm Akilah, and don't forget to be awesome