#art-theft

#art-theft

It took less than 10 minutes. At 9.30am on Sunday, four men arrived in a truck outside the Louvre in Paris, driving right up under a balcony and setting up a ladder with a furniture hoist. Two of them casually climbed up to the balcony and cut through the reinforced glass of a window; on the other side of the glass was the Apollo gallery, the most ornate and arguably the most beautiful room in the museum, Helen Pidd hears.

Laure Beccuau, the lead prosecutor in the recent Louvre case involving the theft of more than $100 million worth of historic jewelry, suggested in an interview on French news channel BFMTV this week that the job could be the work of organized crime or commissioned by a major "sponsor." But lawyer Christopher Marinello, founder and CEO of Art Recovery International, a London and Venice-based group specializing in tracking down stolen works of art, dismisses the latter Hollywood scenario.

Momotaro, named for the popular Japanese folklore hero who is also often translated as "Peach Boy," was a gift from San Jose's oldest sister city, Okayama, Japan. The relationship between the cities was established in 1957, and the replica of the bronze statue that guards Okayama Station has stood in Guadalupe River Park near the Center for the Performing Arts since 1993. The statue depicts the boy and his dog, monkey and pheasant companions who go on a quest to defeat a band of ogres,

The robbers triggered the alarm at the Adrien Dubouche institute in Limoges early on Thursday. They smashed a window to gain entry, said a source, who asked not to be named. The museum said the gang made off with two particularly important dishes of Chinese porcelain dating from the 14th and 15th centuries and an 18th-century Chinese vase, all designated as national treasures. Police were told the haul was worth about 9.5m (8.2m).

Argentine prosecutors on Tuesday announced they have placed the daughter of a former Nazi official and her husband under house arrest in the case of a missing 17th-century painting believed to have been stolen by her father decades ago. The painting "Portrait of a Lady" belonged to Dutch-Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker before the Nazi takeover of his prominent Amsterdam gallery as Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940.

The first Melania Trump statue in Slovenia, a bronze replacement for a previous one destroyed by arson, has now gone missing, prompting a police investigation.

The rise of generative AI has complicated the games industry, leading to layoffs, accusations of theft from artists, and controversy over Nintendo's Mario Kart World.

I want to apologize for the disrespect. I should have known right from wrong, and unfortunately, I acted with poor judgment.