Cooperation with the police, guards with weapons…: this is how the world’s museums manage security after other ‘thefts of the century’

The spectacular robbery last Sunday at the Apolo gallery in Louvre Museum of Paris, in which the thieves sneaked through a window through a truck with an extendable ladder and in just seven minutes they took jewels from the last years of the French crown of a “incalculable historical value”has brought to the table the debate about the safety of this type of building and the question of how other renowned museums face these setbacks.

This is a review of the main galleries and art galleries in the world that have also suffered film thefts and how they manage their security:

Germany has suffered a couple of “blows of the century”, a few years apart and attributed to the same name, the clan Remmothe surname of a large family of Arab origin. Apparently it was easy for them to circumvent the security devices of two museums of national importance. One of them was in 2017 at the Bode, part of the Museum Island of Berlinthe museum heart of the capital. From there the major “disappeared” pure gold coin of the world, of 100 kilos of weight. Two years later, several members of the Remmo clan broke into the Dresden Green Vaultthe so-called Florence on the Elbe.

For the theft of the crown jewels in Dresden, the thieves They cut the public lighting cables in front of the Dresden Palace. They then started the window grille and they entered the Vault. They destroyed the display cases with the jewelry, took away 21 pieces with a total of 4,300 diamonds valued at 115 million euros. They were part of the treasure of the ‘Sun King of Saxony’, Augustus the Strong. They fled in a car that later appeared burned in a parking lot. The first alarm went off hours later, at dawn, when the fire was detected in the museum’s connection box.

Five members of the gang were arrested and convicted a few years later. Curiously, the investigation led the police to another trial against several members of the same Arab Remmo clan, the most active among the criminal gangs operating in the capital. In the dock sat several people involved in the theft of the Boden gold coin.

In the case of the Green Vault there was at least one more or less happy ending. Some of the jewelry was recovered thanks to an agreement between the defense and the prosecution. They reappeared somewhat battered and were thus exhibited in their re-release. The Bode gold coin, half a meter in diameter and three centimeters thick, was never heard of again. It had been donated to Berlin by Canada and was valued at one million euros. It is assumed that the thieves melted it down, divided it and sold it for parts.which probably multiplied its face value by four. It is, therefore, irrecoverable. Great technical maneuvers were not necessary here either: the thieves entered the museum with help of a ladder from the street and through a window.

Museum authorities say they have learned their lesson, updated your security and increased cooperation with police forces. “100% security unfortunately does not exist (…) We reinforce our teams, but so do criminals,” admitted the vice president of the Prussian Heritage Foundation, Gero Dimter. 25 public museums and archives in Berlin depend on its institution, including the Bode and the rest of the Museum Island.

One of the most mysterious and intricate thefts in the history of museums in Italia occurred in February 1997. That year, a valuable painting by Gustav Klimt‘Portrait of a Lady’ (1917), was in the Ricci Oddi gallery in Piacenzain the north of the country. The irony is that the work had just been recovered. In fact, shortly before its theft, an X-ray study had revealed that the painting by the famous Austrian artist was hidden under another, after years of remaining unknown.

Good news that didn’t last long. In fact, its discovery had caused great enthusiasm in Piacenza, and the authorities had finally decided to organize a special exhibition. That’s when the painting disappeared. At first, no one noticed, since the Klimt had been placed in a construction area: The doors were not closed, people were coming and going, and the security system was not connected.

To make matters worse, it is also curious how the painting was recovered. It happened in 2019, when three gardenersby chance, were commissioned to cut down an ivy in the museum garden. While carrying out their task, the three men came across a trapdoor that contained, in addition to various waste, a black garbage bag with the stolen painting.

Such was the surprise that, at first, it was thought that it was not authentic, but it was finally proven that it was, and the hypothesis was raised that the thieves had abandoned it there in the hope of recovering it later, something they never managed. In any case, After this incident, security measures in many Italian museums were reinforced. In the specific case of the Ricci Oddi gallery, after the recovery of the Klimt, a high security showcase for exhibition and more rigorous monitoring system.

The most recent robbery at the Louvre has also reopened this debate. In particular, Italian criminology and security experts have noted that the use of low-tech methods by the Louvre thieves demonstrates that Even the most advanced systems can be vulnerable if not properly maintained.

In recent history there have been several major thefts from museums in the United Kingdom. One of the most popular was 18 Chinese jade pieces which were part of the permanent collection of the Fitzwilliam Museumin Cambridgevalued at nearly 15 million pounds (about 17.2 million euros). The heist took place on April 13, 2012, but it was not until four years later that a court convicted 14 people linked to the gang known as the Rathkeale Rovers, also responsible for other thefts in British museums.

Those convicted received sentences of between 15 months and more than six years in prison, although the stolen pieces were never recovered. It is estimated that the set of robberies attributed to the gang could have been worth up to £57 million on the black market.

Another major robbery occurred on New Year’s Eve 1999. While people were celebrating the turn of the millennium, thieves broke into the Oxford Ashmolean Museum and they took the painting ‘Auvers-sur-Oise’ of Paul Cezannethen valued at £3 million. It was a robbery orchestrated by professionals: a was used rope ladderand smoke sprayer to avoid cameras and, as at the Louvre, the coup was carried out in less than 10 minutes. It is currently listed in the FBI List of Top 10 Unsolved Art Thefts.

But without a doubt the case that has caused the most talk in recent years has been the disappearance of up to 2,000 pieces of art of British Museumrevealed in 2023. Researchers suspect it was Peter Higgs, former head of the Greek art collection from the museum, who stole the objects for years, many of which were not catalogued. Although none of them had a particularly high value, it is estimated that the sum could exceed one million pounds. More than half of the pieces are still missing.

The most notorious art theft case in USAand one of the largest in the world, dates back to March 1990 and occurred in the museum Isabella Stewart Gardner de Boston. Two thieves who arrived dressed as police In response to an alleged incident, they overpowered security guards, one of whom had made a protocol error by letting them in.

With the guards handcuffed and silenced in a basement, the robbers were 81 minutes in various roomswhere alerts from motion detection systems were useless. After two trips to their car they ended up taking 13 piecesthen valued at 500 million dollarswhich included five works by Degasa work of Manet three paintings of Rembrandt and a Vermeer. They left at 2:45 in the morning and the police did not arrive until 8:15.

The stolen art, which is in the National Stolen Art Archives maintained by the FBI, was never found and the museum, which maintains the $10 million reward, continues to display the empty frames.

In the museum most comparable to the Louvre in terms of its size and relevance, the New York Metropolitanmeanwhile, the last big blow occurred in 10 minutes on Valentine’s Day of 1979when one or more thieves (never identified) took advantage of a shift change of the guards to take a 2,500-year-old Hermés marble head. A few days later someone called the police and reported that the work was at a locker in Grand Central.

Something similar today would be unthinkable at the Met, whose ownership, unlike the Louvre and as with most large museums in the US, is private and not state. The New York art gallery, which houses more than a million works of art and objects, has a security department with more than 500 employees.

It has been in charge since 2021 Regina Lombardowho previously served as acting director of the government’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and now oversees and organizes various divisions and operations of intelligence analysis, investigators and incident response teams. According to the website of Kaseware, an investigation and case management software company of which Lombardo is a part, his work at the Met is based on the pillar of “rapid response” and the use of data and technology, which includes the use of artificial intelligence, for “proactive prevention.”

Another big difference between the US and France is the normalization in the US of use of firearms in security duties. In 2023, for example, when the Met posted a job offer for an Incident Response Manager, the requirements included having a New York weapons permit, an armed guard license and at least 15 years of previous law enforcement experience.

Along with private institutions like the Met that have their own boards of directors and private security contracts, the US has a publicly owned network that is the museums of the Smithsonianwhose security is responsible for the Office of Protective Services, which follows federal protocols.

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