From the swift theft of three paintings from a museum in Parma to the recovery of a 2500-year-old gold helmet lifted from a Dutch museum last year, recent news has been peppered with pilfered museums and thieves with a penchant for masterpieces.
Interpol’s most recent ‘Assessing Crimes Against Cultural Property’ report, revealed that Europe is a hotspot for art and cultural theft, with over 18,000 cultural objects reported as stolen in the region at the end of 2021. But after the quick and slightly inelegant dance of glass-smashing, painting-grabbing, and high-tailing it away from a museum, what do art thieves do with these stolen artifacts?
