Art Crime

CNBC takes a look at art crime.  As more and more HNWI invest in art, collectibles and luxury items, thieves also watch the market and go were the money is.

CNBC reports

As a growing number of the world’s wealthiest are looking for safe places to store their millions, many are turning to “investments of passion,” including famous works of art, rare collectibles and even wine.

Earlier this year, the sale of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” for $120 million broke the record for the most expensive painting ever sold at auction. In 2011, the super-rich spent more than $11 billion on art and more than $5 billion on wine.

But where there’s big money being spent, there is also a big opportunity to rob the wealthy.

“The criminals follow the market and they follow the dollar. And as it moves around the world, that’s where they go,” said former FBI agent Robert Wittman.

Wittman was one of the first FBI agents to specialize in art crime. The FBI now has 14 special agents that are trained to recover high-value stolen cultural property.

Bonnie Magness Gardnier runs the unit and the National Stolen Art File, an online database of missing items with values ranging from $2,000 to tens of millions.

“We have about 7,600 items in the file right now,” Gardnier said. “We do have fine art, but we also have memorabilia things like Elvis’s school ring, documents, letters, pottery, sculptures, jewelry.”

Once stolen, the items move into the black market quickly. However, they do not often stay there.

“The person who stole that artwork knows it’s stolen. He goes to a dealer, antique shop, pawn shop, and turns it into cash,” Gardnier explains. “We don’t require here in the United States that the sale of a work of art have a title document to go with it.”

There are also plenty of buyers around the world who do not care where the collectibles come from. CNBC wealth reporter Robert Frank believes one reason for that could be the wealth being created in China, Russia and Brazil.

“I was talking to a wealth manager that went to the home of a billionaire oligarch who had all of these Picassos: beautiful, classic pieces of art. He said, ‘Where did you get them?’ and the Russian said, ‘I’d rather not say,’” Frank recalled.

Source: CNBC