François Picard is pleased to welcome art crime detective Arthur Brand. "In the old days they stole a painting, but a painting is unique; you cannot cut it in two," Brand explains. "In the last 10 years they have been targeting more and more objects made of gold, silver". He examines the transformation of international art theft, warning that increasingly sophisticated criminal opportunism is shifting attention from irreplaceable paintings towards precious metals and gemstones that can be dismantled, melted down or dispersed.
He identifies a disturbing proliferation of copycat museum robberies across Europe, fuelled by the apparent ease with which criminals penetrated Paris's Louvre Museum and escaped within minutes. Challenging the popular "Hollywood" mythology of elaborate criminal masterminds, he instead describes a landscape shaped by opportunism, institutional security failures and the lucrative disposability of stolen cultural treasures.
