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How to Steal a Masterpiece
227 Plays1 hour ago
In this episode, we chat with Robert K. Wittman on art robberies, heists, and protective security in the art world.
Robert K. Wittman is the former Senior Investigator and Founder of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Art Crime Team. Robert joined the FBI as a Special Agent in 1988 and during his 20 year career with the Bureau, he recovered more than $300 million worth of stolen art and cultural property. He has represented the United States around the world conducting investigations and instructing international police departments and museums in investigation, recovery and security techniques. In 2008, Robert retired from the Bureau and brought his expertise to the private sector, where he helps clients mitigate risks related to theft, fraud and forgery. Since its inception, Robert Wittman Inc. has grown to also provide protection and recovery services to more than 100 public and private collections worldwide. In 2010, Robert Wittman penned and published the New York Times best-selling memoir “Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures”.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast Series
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to How to Get on a Watchlist, the new podcast series from Encyclopedia Geopolitica. um In each episode, we'll sit down with leading experts to discuss dangerous activities. for From assassinations and airliner shootdowns through to kidnappings of coups, we'll examine each of these threats through the lenses of both the Dangerous Act to seeking to conduct these operations and the agencies around the world seeking to stop them. In the interest of operational security, certain tactical details will be omitted from these discussions.
00:00:34
Speaker
However, the cases and threats which we discuss here are very real.
Meet the Experts: Louis Poussin, Cormac McGarry, and Robert K. Whitman
00:01:01
Speaker
back correct nine one one what's the emergency I'm Louis A. Poussin, the founder and co-editor of Encyclopedia Geopolitica. I'm a researcher in the field of intelligence and espionage with a PhD in intelligence studies from Loughborough University. I'm an adjunct professor in intelligence at Science Pro Paris, and in my day job, I provide geopolitical analysis and security-focused intelligence to private sector corporations.
00:01:25
Speaker
I'm Cormac McGarry. I'm an associate director at the Global Specialist Consultancy Control Risks, where I help companies from every sector understand the implications of global geopolitical issues on their business. In today's episode, we're discussing how to seal a masterpiece with Robert K. Whitman. Robert is the former senior investigator and the founder of the US Federal Bureau of Investigations National Art Crime Team.
00:01:51
Speaker
Robert joined the FBI as a special agent in 1988, and during his 20-year career with the Bureau, he recovered more than $300 million dollars worth of stolen art and cultural property. He has represented the United States around the world conducting investigations and instructing international police departments and museums in the investigation, recovery and security techniques around art and cultural artifacts. In 2008, Robert retired from the Bureau and bought his expertise to the private sector, where he helps his clients mitigate risks related to theft, fraud and forgery.
00:02:20
Speaker
Since its inception, Robert Whitman, Inc. has grown to provide protection recovery services to more than 100 public and private collections worldwide.
Robert Whitman's Journey to the FBI
00:02:29
Speaker
In 2010, he penned and published the New York Times bestselling memoir, Priceless, how I went undercover to rescue the world's stolen treasures. and We'll make sure there's a link to that in our show notes. so Robert, thank you very much for joining us. Louis Cormack, it's great to be here.
00:02:43
Speaker
So the question we always like to ask our guests, and you've got such a fascinating background, I'm dying to ask, how did you get into your line of work? Well, it was ah I guess it was an issue of love. Back in 1988, when I first started, I enjoyed watching a television show, it was a series. It was called Miami Vice. And there were these ah two detectives that used to ride around on these on these cigarette boats in the Miami Harbor. And they wore great looking suits and they drove these ah hot hot cars, you know.
00:03:15
Speaker
And one of them was Sonny Crockett, and I always wanted to be Sonny Crockett. So I thought, you know, that would be fun. think Maybe I could do that in the FBI. So I joined up, and I put down Miami as my office of preference, someplace I wanted to go. And true to the Bureau, I ended up going to Philadelphia. A little bit different.
Understanding Art Crime: Scope and Impact
00:03:35
Speaker
So Robert, what what sorts of crime actually fall under what we're calling the art and cultural crime categories? It's not something people are very familiar with compared to other hardcore crimes. you know Is it as simple as people just going into museums and stealing stuff off the walls, going into galleries, or is there is there more to it than that? Could you set the scene for us a little bit?
00:03:59
Speaker
Sure. Art crime is a $6 billion dollars yearly business. It's one of the top 10 crimes, according to Interpol and the FBI. When it comes to property crime, art crime involves theft, fraud, forgeries, fakes. In fact, that's probably 75% of the art crime business worldwide today. It's theft from, I mean, not theft, but fraud, forgeries, and fakes.
00:04:25
Speaker
So, people go in, they steal artwork. and The reason for that is because it's so valuable. You know, back in the 1970s, you'd be lucky to see a Picasso sell for a million dollars. But recently, within the last five years, a Da Vinci sold for $450 million, dollars making that the the most expensive painting ever sold.
00:04:45
Speaker
So as a result, criminals, they follow the market. They know, they read the papers, they read the auction house reports, and they see that they're better off feeling a piece of art that could be worth tens of millions rather than going and robbing a bank and getting $1,000 and creating a federal crime in the United States. It's just ah's just a more lucrative crime if, if you can get away with it.
00:05:10
Speaker
Let's dive in on these criminals. you know When I think about art crime, I think about the kind of gentleman burglar. I'm thinking of the Thomas Crown affair. I'm thinking about Lupin, which is really popular here in France. Who are the sorts of actors involved in crimes like these? you know I imagine they have to have an education in art, in artifacts. They have to know what they're stealing. but What's interesting about that, Louis, is that that's not really the case.
00:05:31
Speaker
From what I've seen in 35 years of doing these investigations is that lot most of the time, these individuals who are doing these ah thefts, and they're doing the actual robberies and thefts, they aren't really art aficionados. They're really not knowledgeable about art and artifacts, what they're doing, they're criminals. And usually, we call it a gateway crime because there it's actually a gateway to get into these criminal organizations that are involved in gun running, drugs,
00:05:59
Speaker
stealing cars, auto theft, even even aggravated assault and murder. ah but One of the things they happen to do is an art crime. So basically, most of these criminals who commit these art thefts, they're better criminals than they are businessmen. Because they go out, they steal a $35 million dollars Rembrandt, and then they don't know what to do with it. Basically, it sits while they look for a buyer.
00:06:21
Speaker
And then a buyer usually is going to be either a police officer, like myself, when I was working, or you know a ah person who is coming in and going to report it to the police when they see it. So that's the problem. We always recover this stuff when it comes back to market. And unless you can move it and sell it, you can't profit from it.
Organized Crime and Art Theft
00:06:41
Speaker
And so does that mean that it tends to be more individuals operating alone, or do you see more organized criminality?
00:06:49
Speaker
You know, it's funny. We we see both. We see private gangs of two or three or four individuals that get together to create the ah the crime. And that's basically the definition under yeah under the UNESCO for an organized crime group. But we also see like the traditional mafia involved in an art crime types of scenarios.
00:07:10
Speaker
and And what I mean by that is they'll create frauds and and fake situations where they can profit from it. There's different ways that they can do money laundering using artwork. So we see both you know private individuals who go in and just commit an armed robbery versus organized crime groups who actually are involved in more sophisticated money laundering types of techniques involving art crime. As I say, it's a $6 billion dollars industry every year.
00:07:35
Speaker
And that that includes looting of antiquities, theft of artwork from museums, institutions, sales of frauds, forgeries, and fakes of the internet or in person. So all of this put together is a big crime market.
00:07:49
Speaker
Of course, you have to remember that the entire collectible market involving art, sculptures, prints, and all collectibles is $200 billion dollars a year. It's a huge consumer market. The United States is the largest single consumer of art and collectibles at about 40% of the market, $80 billion. dollars So it's a big market with the possibility of a lot of crime.
00:08:15
Speaker
When I think about any big market like that, one thing that I often think about is inside a risk. And I'm wondering, you does the art world see much in the way of people working for museums and galleries and other collections taking part of facilitating in some way of the crime?
00:08:31
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good question, Louis. was You know, we did a research back in the early 2000s on all of the museum thefts that had been solved. And we found that about 89% of art thefts in the United States from museums are inside jobs, or they have some insider aspect.
00:08:47
Speaker
It doesn't necessarily have to be an employee. It could be an an expert, someone who is known as an expert that goes into the museum and they are researching items or looking at items and they they stay like steal them as they go. I mean, there was one individual who was a well-known map expert.
00:09:04
Speaker
you know He was selling mats all around the world. He was a collector and a dealer. And he was in the Yale Beinecke Library. And when he came out, he actually dropped an Exacto knife. Well, an observant librarian saw that, called the Yale Police.
00:09:20
Speaker
And he was found that he had just cut out a number of maps from rare books in the library. but But when we eventually arrested him and and indicted him, he had stolen more than a hundred that he had given back to us that were returned to places like Paris, the libraries in London, ah New York, all over the world.
Myths and Realities of Art Theft
00:09:39
Speaker
ah You know, what was interesting about that when the dealers heard about it, you know, they said, it's interesting. we We knew he was selling these maps and we knew these maps didn't exist on the market. So we really couldn't figure out where they were coming from. But we knew something was up. And that's an interesting concept. The dealers know where everything is and they're worthy of maps. So they know where the collectibles are. They have ah you know a basic finger on all the collections. That's what they do. So when these things pop up, yeah they become very suspicious. are Sometimes the first ones to call. And so who's behind this? Who's who's commissioning it? Something we've seen over many of our episodes is that very specific crimes. For example, piracy, which we've talked about in episodes, we see that there's kind of a business empire around it.
00:10:27
Speaker
So I guess my question is, who's commissioning it, or is it just lone actors? That's a good question. Again, it's but it's not it's not a commissionable trade, so to speak. The idea that somebody, some rich benefactor, is sitting in his cellar or his basement, staring at stolen Picassos at night, drinking bourbon,
00:10:47
Speaker
you know, or enjoying Stolen Renoirs or whatever. That comes from a movie from 1962. And in 1962, there was a movie called Dr. No. You might remember that. It was a James Bond movie. It was the first one. And James Bond's walking through Dr. No's caverns and he sees—he looks over and he sees a stolen Goya.
00:11:06
Speaker
And it was a boy that was stolen the year before from a museum in London, and it was it's a true story. It really was stolen. So he looks at it, and he kind of gives this look like I wondered where that went, and he keeps calling. And at that point, there was this ah that created this legend that these individuals are sitting in their caverns with these stolen paintings. The real story there is interesting, though. Of course, a producer for the movie was in London and read about the theft.
00:11:33
Speaker
And so he had a copy made ah the of the Goya painting, and he put it up. That was the painting that they used in the movie. And that's you know that's why there was a painting in the movie. ah Ultimately, after the movie was done, someone stole the copy. So you never know how it's going to work out. you know ah But from that, there's this theory. I call it the Dr. No theory that I'm always ah asked about, about these rich collectors who you know who buy stolen paintings and hide them and they' in their you know guess say their basements.
00:12:03
Speaker
I've never seen that in 35 years and doing these investigations. I've never seen you know a rich collector out there who is buying stolen art and staring at it at night. And there's ah there's a logical reason for that. Number one, yeah even to buy a stolen painting, I'll give you an example. I did a case an undercover case involving stolen Rembrandt. It was stolen at Gunpoint from the Swedish National Museum in Stockholm.
00:12:28
Speaker
And so we we did an undercover operation in actually Copenhagen, Denmark, where I posed as an authenticator for the Russian mob. And we were able to recover that piece. It was, like I said, worth $35 million. We were offering $250,000 in cash. So it was $250,000 and $100 bills.
00:12:46
Speaker
Well, you know to invest $250,000 into a stolen painting that you can't get good title to is kind of a a nonsensical idea. Think about that a minute. What makes the artwork valuable are three things. It's authenticity, it's provenance, the history of it, and good title. Because if you can't transfer good title, it's like a three-legged stool. The leg won't stand up.
00:13:09
Speaker
And stolen artwork does not have good title. So as a result, you're not buying anything. You're basically, you know, you're st throwing your money away because you never can sell it. You can't take it to market. And if you die and leave it to someone, they're going to be are stuck with it.
00:13:23
Speaker
So it's it's ah it's not a good idea. And that's why really rich collectors, they'd rather buy it outright by legitimate pieces than go in and buy stolen artwork. that They could even be prosecuted for having done that. So it's not a good idea. And I've never actually seen that with very, very valuable artwork.
00:13:44
Speaker
Now, what I have seen is experts like that map expert and a few others who go who go into museums, and they study ah artifacts and objects specific objects, and they will steal a few because they feel like it's a strange thought process. They feel like, you know, I understand this material. I really appreciate it. I know how it's made. I know all about it. Why shouldn't I have it?
00:14:09
Speaker
and they convince themselves that they're the ones who should have custody of the material. And they take it home. I've seen that happen a couple of times, ah you know, after interviewing thieves, after I caught them. And it's an interesting thought process, but it's not rich collectors paying for stolen property. But does that logic extend to criminals seeking to make major money? So not the ones that want to actually go into a museum themselves, but ah they want to make the money from it. So I'm thinking, particularly terrorist organizations, is there any kind of precedent there of terrorist organizations committing art theft in order to get money?
Antiquities Theft and Terrorism Funding
00:14:46
Speaker
That's a different question. in The first part of it, you know, the real art crime, art and an art theft and our art crime is the selling, not stealing.
00:14:54
Speaker
But when we're talking about terrorist organizations, yes, terrorist funding does come up, does occur basically in the Middle East. It's not artworks in museums. It's not you stolen paintings. It's basically antiquities. And what would happen is what was happening and what still happens today is sometimes these organizations will go in, they'll mine out antiquities and try to put them onto the market.
00:15:19
Speaker
They're very difficult to follow because these pieces have never been seen. They're not they're not they're new pieces that they take out of the ground. So as a result, there's no history on them. So to be able to prove that they're stolen or or where they came from, it's difficult, which is why countries like the United States have banned material coming from a number of those countries at all. They won't let it come in because that's the only way to stop the trafficking for the international terrorism.
00:15:46
Speaker
so You said something a minute ago that that was really interesting. You said you know how it's the selling it, not the stealing it that's the real challenge. so how How do criminals sell it? do you know i've I've heard ideas of this use of a fence, someone that sits around waiting to buy up these goods and pass them on. Does that really exist? you know what What is their goal if they're to shift this thing? and How does that selling process work?
00:16:08
Speaker
Well, you know, the selling process for any stolen property, it could be through a fence, you know, that's a possibility, but not with art. And the reason for that is because artwork is usually unique. Now, if you can sell prints, you know, a print of an artwork, that's a different situation, but usually the ones that are invaluable are going to be limited editions and they're going to have numbers that are going to make them limited, like one of 300 or two of 50, something of that nature.
00:16:34
Speaker
And so they're identifiable. So they're not unique. I mean, they are unique, you see. So every time someone sells an artwork that's stolen, It's almost like they're sending out an anchor, and that anchor goes out into the world with a chain that leads right back to them, okay? So in other words, it's a lead every time. And if a fence is doing that on a regular basis, sooner or later, you know, one of those pieces is going to be identified as being the piece that was stolen because it's unique, and then that chain leads right back to the fence, and then the fence leads right back to the thief.
00:17:09
Speaker
So you know law enforcement loves it when there's a fence out there who's actually trying to sell artwork, because sooner or later, it's going to lead us right back to all of the stolen material. So I guess what I'm trying to say with that is, no, there's no fences who are selling stolen art, because if it's not unique, it's not valuable. So as a result, there's no money to be made.
00:17:33
Speaker
I feel, Robert, like every case you've ever worked on is extremely unique, bizarre, strange and kind of entertaining to an audience like
Tales of Unique Stolen Items
00:17:41
Speaker
us. So I have to ask, what's what's the strangest or most bizarre item stolen that you have ever investigated?
00:17:49
Speaker
A lot of the ah items that I've worked on and recovered, they all have different backgrounds. They're all from different places. That was the best part for me when I was at the FBI. you know as ah As I say, a bank robbery investigator, bank robberies are bank robberies. Drug deals are drug deals. There's only so many ways you can sell a kilo of coke.
00:18:08
Speaker
You might hide it different ways, but to be able to sell it's just the same thing every time. But with art, you've always got to learn about the art. It's always different. I mean, there were times I was undercover in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I was working on ah the Indian mafia, which was groups of individual dealers who were selling material that was taken, stolen from the from the religious houses from the Native American Indians who lived on the Pueblos.
00:18:34
Speaker
So, you had to learn about these types of items, you know, that they were selling, like Eagle Feather war bonnet, that type of thing. Other times, I remember I had a case involving a um a battle flag that was carried into the Civil War by one of the first African-American regiments in the Civil War. And probably half a dozen, five or six different soldiers were shot out from under the battle flag, carrying it in the battle.
00:18:59
Speaker
So, it was considered a blood clot. And in recovering that, the history of that was so so intense that, you know, it was an important piece to get back. It was stolen. Another time, I recovered ah like another eagle-feathered war bonnet that was worn by the Apache medicine man, Geronimo.
00:19:16
Speaker
And having that back was interesting. What was most interesting about that was the feathers were kind of ratty. They were 100 years old, and they weren't looking too good, you know, this war bonnet, because they're six foot long war bonnet. And it's like when you see the movies, you know, from the head down all the way to the back, you know, just a being of eagle feathers.
00:19:36
Speaker
And a Native American tribe here near Philadelphia said, can we come in and and do a smudging ceremony on the war bonnet? So it was kind of interesting to have them come into the FBI office in Philadelphia and actually bring in smudging material, which is burning material. I was hoping that the, ah you know, the smoke alarms wouldn't go off. you know ah They came in and they ran their hands along the eagle feathers with the smudge, which was smoke. and I'm going to tell you straight up, those feathers, and there were three other agents in the room, started to perk up. The bonnet looked like five times better than it did before they came in. i mean It was almost mystical. and I've seen that happen. you know It was weird. I never would have supposed that it would happen, but it did.
00:20:21
Speaker
I recovered a piece of gold. It was a stolen looted artifact from Peru. It was the largest piece of gold ever discovered in a tomb in the Americas. And it was looted from the ground in Sipan, Peru. And over the course of its 10-year period underground, you know going through person to person, ah no less than three people died.
00:20:42
Speaker
in their custody. And it just kind had a bad, how do I put it, a bad mojo about it, you know, where people who were handling it met their bad ends. So oftentimes, I think that people who steal these types of artifacts and these things, you know, there is a certain life to them or a certain power to them because if they are a piece of cultural heritage.
00:21:06
Speaker
that a lot of people, a lot you know that our our our world has saved. And when you mess with that, there's a possibility you might be messing with the wrong spirits here. So, yeah, there's been a lot of interesting pieces. What about valuable? I'm curious, what's the most valuable item stolen you've ever investigated? You'd be surprised. The um the single most valuable piece.
00:21:30
Speaker
was a original copy, original one of the first 13 original copies of the United States Bill of Rights. It was the ah copy that was owned by the state of North Carolina. It was sent by George Washington in 1789 to the state of North Carolina for ratification as part of the Constitution.
00:21:49
Speaker
And ah the city of North Carolina kept it it was kept in their archives and in Raleigh, North Carolina and during the American Civil War in 1865, a trooper coming back north with Sherman's troops from Atlanta.
00:22:03
Speaker
they stopped, the regiment stopped, and they took over the state house in North Carolina and made it surrender. they went in One of the troopers went in and they stole the Bill of Rights from the state house. He was an Indiana trooper. He took it back to Indiana, that's where it stayed, and ultimately it was being offered foot for sale to the National Constitution Center in but in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was being sold for $4 million. dollars We did another undercover operation on that, wanted to recover that because there were some threats that it might end up in the Middle East or be destroyed by so you know someone who was involved with terrorists as ah as a symbol against America. But anyway, we we were able to recover that. And ultimately, that that piece, if you could sell that, in other words, you you can't. right It belongs to the state of it belongs to the government, the state of North Carolina. But if you could sell it, it was evaluated to be around $100 million. dollars
00:22:56
Speaker
it's the only other I guess the only other documents that would be worth more would be maybe the Magna Carta or ah the Declaration of Independence. But this particular piece, if it was being able able to be sold on the open market, would have been $100 million. dollars Robert, i want to I want to swing back to some of the function on the side of how the
Insurance and Art as Ransom
00:23:16
Speaker
crime works. And I'm interested in the role that insurance plays So how much of stolen art is done with the aim of cutting a deal with an insurance company? And also on that question as well, is there ever cases where ransoms are sought? So rather than trying to resell the art in a black market, will they try and ransom it off to the original owner?
00:23:40
Speaker
Good question on both ends. And the first part, the first question about it are is it ever being offered back to the to the dealer i mean to the insurance company?
00:23:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's not usual. And when it does happen, the thieves get caught because then we do an undercover operation, we act as an appraiser or as an insurance dealer, and we go in and arrest them. That usually doesn't happen. Now, some of these things, we have to look at worldwide situations. When it comes to the ransoms in the United States, that's not legal. and So it's considered obstruction of justice. So basically, it doesn't happen that way. But, you know, let's just say a criminal gets caught doing drugs, drug dealing.
00:24:20
Speaker
And he has information about, you know, a stolen painting that's worth $10 million. dollars And he's willing to give up that information and maybe work with the investigators to recover the painting and capture the individuals that stole it. They might be able to get a downward departure in sentencing on the drug deal. You see, in other words, not not not for the ah painting because they weren't involved enough, but for the drug deal that they were involved with. Let's say they're looking at five years in prison, maybe they can get that sentence down to two years.
00:24:50
Speaker
that would be ah a situation where they might work for a downward departure. It's not a ransom, it is but it is a benefit to the to the to the informant. yeah Now, I know in in Europe, there's a little different situation with the laws, and so sometimes deals are made to help criminals do what they want to do, to get out of prison or to get other people out of jail. Sometimes they can do that. I know of one group I had worked with in France that had multiple paintings that they had stolen. And they were basically using them as get out of jail free cards. So whenever they were caught with something or a situation, long as it wasn't too serious. I mean, if it was a murder or something of that nature, no. But if it was a stolen car or something, they could make a deal and try to use stolen paintings to get themselves, yeah again, a downward departure in any any kind of sentencing.
00:25:42
Speaker
And the reason I know that is because I was undercover working in the south of France and criminals were telling me this is what they were doing. So, because they knew, you know, the interesting thing about that, the reason they did that was because they they stole the artworks, but they couldn't sell them. And so, as I kept saying earlier, you know, they couldn't make any money. So what they did was they kept them as to get out of jail free cards instead of trying to, ah you know, trying to monetize them.
00:26:10
Speaker
I just want to follow up on something you you said that you've talked a couple of times about going undercover. And for this season of the podcast, that's been a real theme. We've had ah John Amendez, the CIA's former chief of disguise, come on and talk about how building fake identities work. We had Olivia Maas, a former DGSE clandestine services officer on. so So this feels very thematic. How does going undercover work in the art crime
Going Undercover in the Art Crime World
00:26:33
Speaker
world? you know how How do you establish your credentials as you know the fake appraiser or whoever it is you're supposed to be?
00:26:39
Speaker
Well, basically, there's a lot of different techniques to working undercover. The one I always used was to be yourself. In other words, not try to put on a disguise. I never put on disguises or change my voice or try to come up with a fake accent because those things can be seen through. So for tradecraft, what I would do is just be myself. I would tell truth, and truth is easier to remember.
00:27:04
Speaker
Sometimes these cases might go for six months, a year, two years. And you know if you start applying during the period of of the undercover, yeah you can't remember what you said. And there's a lot of different ways of doing that. If you live in a city, just live in that city. you know Don't try to say you live somewhere else because ultimately you'll meet someone who did live in the other city and you'll know more about it than you do. And so these are ways that you get caught. So basically you be yourself and you act like who you are.
00:27:33
Speaker
Whenever I was undercover, where was I say, dealer? you shady dealer or authenticator professor or you know a um ah buyer who had no knowledge, I always believed that's who I was. So when I was working in that case or working at that moment, I believed who I was and that's that's how i I could work it. Now, the reason I could do that is because the real part of it, of our crime, it's not the history of the art.
00:28:04
Speaker
or the or anything about the art. It's how to do a deal in the art world, a business deal in the art world. And luckily for me, my my parents were antique dealers. So I knew how to do a deal, and I do know how to deal in the art world.
00:28:19
Speaker
And so criminals basically who are not usually involved in the art world don't know how to do that, and they need someone to come in and be that person.
Profitability of Art Crime vs. Bank Robbery
00:28:27
Speaker
I remember one case I did in Madrid, Spain, working again as an authenticator for for some Eastern European mob group.
00:28:34
Speaker
And I was an American who was working for them on on consultancy. In other words, they were paying me a fee. And the guys who did the actual robbery, about $65 million dollars worth of paintings, they said to me, they were so happy to meet me. Because they were planning on doing a heist at the Van Gogh Museum. And they needed an expert like me to come in and help them sell it.
00:28:54
Speaker
no so So they were going to conspire with me to do these other jobs. you know While we were touching them on these $65 million of paintings, they stole from Madrid. Ultimately, they were apprehended, and the paintings were recovered as well. So that's that's what it is. you you know You have to believe in what you're doing, and you have to be comfortable with who you're actually acting as. Put it this way. You see what I look like. I wouldn't make a good you know biker. That's not my thing. you know You have to be who you are, and as a result, it works out okay. on ah On a recent episode of this season we did, it was called How to Rob a Bank. We had a former colleague of yours from the FBI, ah FX Reagan, come in. and One thing he really left me with is this idea that the average bank robber makes almost no money, that it's a really high risk crime for very low reward. You talked about this a little bit earlier, but I'm really keen to dive in. What what about art criminals? you know Why would someone be an art criminal versus, let's say, a bank robber?
00:29:53
Speaker
Coming back again to the the values, you know, the the average bank robbery in the United States is less than $1,000. That's how much it's actually taken. And just to give you an idea, recently, a ah Mickey Mantle rookie card, baseball card, little piece of cardboard for the 1950s, it sold at auction for $12 million. dollars Now, this is not autographed. This is just a rookie card on the first year that Mickey Mantle played baseball. And so if you can go and steal this baseball card out of a collection and sell it, even even if it's in terrible shape, this one was ah it was ah listed as a number 9 out of 10. So it was in good shape. But if you get one that's a 0.05, it's sold for $84,000.
00:30:36
Speaker
So what that says is that, you know, these criminals can go into these homes, you know, somebody's baseball card collection, and then come out and make a lot more money than they could rob in a bank. By the way, a bank robbery in the United States is a federal crime. Stealing a person's baseball card is a local crime. And can you imagine the result when you call the local police department, say the New York new york City Police Department or the Philadelphia Police Department, and you have someone on the line, you say, somebody stole my baseball card?
00:31:07
Speaker
It's not going to have much impact, you know, with the investigation. So it's it's a whole different world now because of the value of these collectibles and the valuable that's out there. And then the other thing on that, and I hate to say this because I hate to tell people how to do crimes, but these baseball cards are not identifiable. and They don't have serial numbers. They're not unique. So as a result, even if it's stolen you and it's found, how do you identify to give it back to the owner? Because there's multiple out there.
00:31:37
Speaker
Quite a few. And how do you know which you one's yours? Unless you have certain markings or things like that on it. But ultimately it's very difficult to identify. Can I just use that anecdote as ah as a nice way to color what you already explained the way to in terms of who the buyer is. So an $84,000 street, that's called a street value all of the baseball card. Who's the person paying that money? And like, what kind of character is that? Are they,
00:32:03
Speaker
Are they aware that it's stolen? like the Does the fact that it's stolen even increase the value to them? Or does it decrease it because they're like, I have this valuable card, but I can't show it off because people are looking for it? Well, the $84,000 card format was sold at auction. It wasn't stolen. Sorry, man. just What I was doing was selling how how even a card that's in terrible condition That card is still worth $84,000 versus the $12 million one. But that's a good question. So the person who who's going to buy that, well, and yeah I hate to tell people how to commit crimes, but because you cannot identify these Mickey Mantle baseball cards, you know if you do come across one, you could make a lot of money and you know you have a hard time getting caught because it's it's difficult to identify it.
00:32:52
Speaker
We're talking to Robert K. Whitman about the incredible world of art and cultural crime. After the break, we'll talk about protecting and recovering these items.
00:33:09
Speaker
You have been listening to How to Get on a Watch List, the podcast series from Encyclopedia Geopolitica. If you like this show, don't forget to check out our other content at Encyclopedia Geopolitica, which you can find at howtogettontowatchlist.com, where you can find our analysis on various geopolitical issues, as well as reading lists covering topics like those discussed in the podcast. Please also consider subscribing to the podcast on your streaming platform of choice, giving us a rating, and joining our Patreon.
Protecting Art: Security Measures
00:33:52
Speaker
so Let's talk a little bit about protecting and recovering these items. so and Let's start with the protection piece. How do institutions like galleries, museums, protect prices items from being stolen? and Then a ah kind of second question to that is, you talked earlier about private homes. How do private homes with very expensive high-end art, do they try and mirror these institutions? How does protection their work?
00:34:15
Speaker
Well, in today's world, of course, there's a lot of IT out there with a lot of technology involving alarms, metal you know, metal detection, movement detection. So, you know, what we do in in in my company is we we do a lot of security surveys for museums, and we give recommendations on things that we see, and not just institutions, but also for private homeowners.
00:34:37
Speaker
and Basically, it's layered protection. It starts on the outside with lighting. It's layered lighting coming into the house, into the institution, and then movement detection detection within the institution, and then alarms as well. and yeah there's There's basically three aspects that we talk about. The one is is is human relations. In other words, you've got to have guards. You've got to have people who actually know what they're doing. Then electronic surveillance. Electronic surveillance is only good if the guards turn it on at night.
00:35:08
Speaker
And so what I mean by that is when we speak to people who have home homeowners, institution not institutions so much, but homeowners, they have to be able to operate the material. So the the human aspect to to actually operate the material, turn it on. And then, of course, we have the alarm aspects, which is yeah know what how does the alarm go off? Where does it get it reported to? So it's a three-phase system for whether it's an institution or a home. It's always the same.
00:35:34
Speaker
And that's what we look at. Now, remember, basically, all of these things are deterrence. Ultimately, if somebody wants to come in with him a handgun or a rifle and rob the house, rob the museum, you know, they're going to do it. And we tell people, let them have the objects. We'll get them back. Because we can we can get objects back, but we can't bring people back to life. So it's ultimately a deterrent situation. want Depending on the value of the collection, how much deterrence we can put in.
00:36:04
Speaker
Robert, i know I know you've painted a picture for us of who who the criminals are, but I feel like we're desperate to get it get a ah Thomas Crown type character out of this. Is there any cases you've worked on where where the criminal was particularly clever, brazen, where they exploited some major vulnerability or security failure ah to targetgo well the at Well, back to this point, we've talked about art theft.
00:36:31
Speaker
yeah These individuals who basically go in and do a low-level crime, which could be a gunpoint or just a burglary where they go in and steal art. But when we talk about the Thomas Crown types of criminals, now we're looking at the other other set I call of crime, and that's the frauds, forgeries, and fakes.
00:36:47
Speaker
And that's a little bit higher level, especially with the forgeries and fakes. There's a difference between a forgery and a different NFA. A forgery is a a painting that's actually a but copy of one that exists and that someone tries to sell it as the original. okay So there's an original Renoir, they copy the Renoir, or a Chagall, and they try to sell it in a market somewhere else. And they say, that's the one.
00:37:11
Speaker
Whereas a fake is a painting that's done in the genre of an artist. It looks like a Saint John. It looks like a Renoir. And then what they do is they say, well, this is something new. It's never been seen. This is brand. This is an authentic piece that we've just found. And that's a fake. So these are a little bit more sophisticated because the individuals who are involved in this have to actually know what they're doing, have to know what the painting is supposed to look like. have to know how to create the painting, if that's what they're going to do, they're actually artists. And then you had the fraud. Now, of course, in both of those cases, the ultimate prime is fraud, because they're selling something to someone, and that person's relying upon their information and suffers a loss. And that's basically the definition of legal fraud in the United States. But there's other ways of committing fraud. And that would be like people who are not involved with shakes, people who go in and underbid
00:38:05
Speaker
Now, as they go in, they say, you're your specific artifact is only worth X. And they turn around and sell it for 10X. And the people who actually sold it to them for X believed that this appraisal was legitimate. So that could be a fraud. The use of a computer with email, that could be a wire fraud, or the use of a telephone to wire fraud. Use of the US postal system or FedEx or UPS, those are mail frauds.
00:38:35
Speaker
So, whenever these individuals, these fraudsters, use these different carriers and they send this information out to a us house prospective victim and the victim suffers a loss, they're committing a crime. So, these are all ways that these individuals do this. Now, I guess say that's a higher standard, should I say, than people who go into armed robbery.
00:38:58
Speaker
I mean, that's a whole long, you know, crime with basically, you know, forth, using forth.
Frauds, Forgeries, and Investigation Process
00:39:05
Speaker
These frauds, foragers, and fakers, they don't do that. They build people, and there's a lot of victims. Right now, 75 to 80% of all the crime in the art crime market is frauds, foragers, and fakes. Okay, and I guess then from a law enforcement perspective, that requires different solutions, right, in terms of the investigative process. Could could you maybe lay out layout for us what does the investigation process look like from the moment of an item being stolen and also a fraud being committed? Well, the whole investigative process for an item being stolen, when yeah when an investigator first goes in, it's like any stolen product. You look for forensic evidence, hair, it's fiber footprints, anything of that nature, maybe fingerprints.
00:39:52
Speaker
You look at the technique that was used, the ingress, the egress. ah You look for video surveillance. You know, it's there ubiquitous availableance in video surveillance now everywhere. Everybody has ring cameras and on their doors and everywhere else. So that's what you you basically look for in the very beginning of any type of investigative crime involving a theft. Then you go go and and check with the registries. There are lots of registries.
00:40:17
Speaker
the National Stolen Art File with the FBI, make sure that these registries all have the artwork stolen, listed in the registries, and then talk to dealers. Usually, you know, a piece that's stolen, say like, let's say the Mickey Mantle baseball card, you're going to go to Mickey Mantle, you're going to go to sports dealers, sports card dealers.
00:40:37
Speaker
and like make sure they know this card's out there and then it's available. And that way you can set up an informant and network that'll get back to you when the but the piece ultimately ends up you know coming to market. As far as for fraud, forgeries, and fakes, that's a different situation. you First, you have to interview the victim. So you want to go and once the fraud is identified or the forgeries identify, you go to the victim and you have to find out what they were told how they were told ah told that, whether any of that was done, like I said, each of the wires or the mail, and then you can go backwards from there and see if you have the evidence, the emails, the phone calls, maybe were taped, and anything like that, and then go from there to determine whether or not you have enough evidence to be able to actually prosecute and i'll convict a criminal. Are there rewards for these these kind of informants for people who participate in in the recovery process?
00:41:33
Speaker
Sure. yeah The biggest reward usually for for confidential informants and for for people who are cooperating witnesses is that they're usually indicted for something else and they get a downward departure in their sentencing when they come to trial. I had a case involving that Rembrandt that was a $35 million dollars Rembrandt in Sweden. me The cooperating witness was a drug dealer in Los Angeles.
00:41:57
Speaker
And he was looking at 10 years in prison on two two kilo buys from one of our drug squads. And so he came in and he cooperated, introduced me. It was actually introduced me physically to the thieves in Sweden, and at which point we recovered the painting. He was given a downward departure. He was looking at 10 years in prison. He got a probation. That was the biggest downward departure in California federal court's history.
00:42:21
Speaker
from 10 years in jail to to probation. So, as a result, he was—I guess he did receive a yeah ah nice reward for his efforts. Attaching to museums, right now the biggest art theft in the world, done at one time, was a theft in 1990 from the Isabella Stork Gardner Museum in Boston. On that night, St. Patrick's Day night in March,
00:42:46
Speaker
Two individuals dressed as Boston police officers went to the museum late in the early morning hours, and they convinced the two guards to let them in. Of course, they weren't police officers. They were thieves. They tied the guards up to pipes in the basement, and they went throughout the whole museum and stole 13 objects of art. The total value at that night was $300 million. dollars Today, those paintings are still missing. This is, what, 34 years later? And their value is $500 million. dollars And the museum's offering a $10 million dollars reward for the recovery of the paying stolen from the Isabella Stroke Garden and Museum. ah They included a Vermeer. It's the only Vermeer that's missing in the world called the Concert. And a Rembrandt Seascape known as the Storm Over the Sea of Galilee. The only Seascape known that Rembrandt ever did. So you can see that $10 million is a pretty nice payday for someone who could come up with those paintings. Do these stolen items often end up moving over borders?
Tracking Stolen Art Across Borders
00:43:44
Speaker
been transferred around the world? And if so, from the criminal's perspective, how do they smuggle it across borders? Well, interestingly enough, the Rembrandt that was stolen in Sweden, in Stockholm, ah we recovered in Copenhagen, Denmark. And they brought it down from the ah from Sweden to try to sell it to me in Copenhagen. And just to give you an example, the Isabella Stergarner Museum paintings Again, none of them have been recovered. But I was undercover for two years, chasing the Rembrandt and the Vermeer, working with thieves out of Miami. And we were negotiating the the the buyback of those two two of those paintings for $30 million. dollars
00:44:27
Speaker
And again, I was acting as a shady dealer, and I was working with a French criminal from Marseille. Interestingly enough, we were able to recover four paintings of Stalin from the fine arts museum in Nice, ah Monet, and a Sicily that are still today hanging in the Musée d'Orsay.
00:44:43
Speaker
and two brogos stolen from the Fine Arts Museum in Neith. And in that case, we also recovered two Picassos that were stolen from Diana Picasso, her apartment in Paris, ultimately working undercover with the the French police. but We didn't get our paintings. Unfortunately, ah my cover was blown. And the the thieves at that point ah said that they weren't going to deal with me anymore. But we did recover those other pieces for the French who see BC. So they do move.
00:45:12
Speaker
Paintings do move, they go across borders. And the reason for that is because paintings in and of themselves are not contraband. Money, guns, these are contraband. Drugs, ah they're all illegal within themselves. But paintings are not necessarily illegal within themselves. So customs officers often times don't recognize these pieces of being stolen. They don't know. How would they know? And so they get they go best across international boards rather easily. And especially in the EU, where the borders are open. So basically they can go from Germany to France to to Spain, and there's no issues.
00:45:53
Speaker
Yeah, they do move easily across borders. Which makes sense because you've been talking a lot about the amount of traveling you've done in your career for casework. So from from an FBI perspective, how does that work? Because I imagine most countries in the world will not have an FBI. They don't have specialists in this space the way the FBI does. How does it legally work? Do do you get invited by, let's say, a European country, do you get invited by the law enforcement agency agency to come in?
00:46:23
Speaker
But you know surprisingly, corema you it's it's really, there are a lot of countries that do have specialists. As I was saying, in Paris, we have the OCBC. They have more than 30 investigators that are part of the Jean Tamaré and the national police. There's two full squads in Madrid and Spanish art desk squads. London has the Metropolitan Art Antique Squad. Carbonieri in Italy, they have more than 200 investigators, two brigades of antiquities investigators and and in Italy. So a lot of the different countries do have—now, when you talk about yeah Romania, Hungary, you know these other countries, no, they don't have a specific squad. Even Germany has two investigators.
00:47:06
Speaker
So the way that works with me, or once working with me, and it still works today, is that we would develop some type of lead out of the United States. And then what what would happen is we would talk to the specific country, whether it's Germany, or from Spain, or whatever, and we said, look, we've got this lead, and you know through our embassy, our our legal attitude in that that country, and we would say, we want to work with you to try to recover this material, and we could do this or that.
00:47:32
Speaker
Now, in France, I really couldn't work undercover. about You're not allowed to do that in France. In France, the only people who can work undercover is a specific group within the ah national police agency. Anyone else would be actually breaking French law. But police places like Spain, Denmark, Sweden, you know we could go in and work with the police as undercover operatives. So it depends on which country that you're going to.
00:48:00
Speaker
yeah that You have to follow the laws of the country. Actually, I remember twice I was actually arrested after doing the deals, because the attempt to buy stolen property in that country was illegal.
International Cooperation in Art Crime
00:48:12
Speaker
So as a result, the police had to arrest me, take me to a magistrate court. court Of course, they knew what was going on, and they let me go. And so as a result, you know we were we had to go through that process in order to be able to do the cases.
00:48:26
Speaker
I remember one time I was in Warsaw, Poland, and we recovered this ah these very valuable items that were stolen from the National Museum in Zimbabwe, in Harare. And they had been stolen. They got away with them. they took them to they They smuggled them to Poland, and they offered them for sale to a dealer in the United States. That's how we got wind of it. And at that point, I went undercover as a buyer for the dealer in Warsaw. I went to Warsaw. Unbeknownst to me, the Polish national police had not talked to the prosecutors in Poland. And so they didn't know I was there.
00:49:00
Speaker
But the SWAT team knew everything. They helped out. So we we did the thing very quickly. We got the case done. The individuals were arrested. And I was out of the country by the next morning. So we got got the work done, but we did have all the paperwork done correctly at that point.
00:49:16
Speaker
When I got back to the United States, the prosecutor had asked the FBI to look into this person who was ah staying in Poland trying to buy stolen property. So I actually got the lead to investigate myself. and' so It worked out well. In the end, ah Zimbabwe was happy to close, police were happy, and we got the material back.
00:49:36
Speaker
Is there some sort of international body that coordinates this kind of stuff? you know I'm wondering, does UNESCO have a role in this? who Who manages this kind of stuff? There's no actual international body that coordinates what I would call undercover work. Every country has their own statutes, their own laws, and we we would work together you know to try to ah that to do what we needed to do. was called It's called foreign police cooperation at the FBI.
00:50:06
Speaker
But there are a certain country are certain international bodies that do try to coordinate some of this. Right now, there's a group at the OSCE in Vienna, and there's a task force. I'm actually a member of that task force that has put together maybe, I guess by this point, probably 20, 25 countries.
00:50:23
Speaker
that have representatives on this task force, police officers, prosecutors, archaeologists, different types of scientists that that work together to help each other in cases that come up. So if there's a question in Switzerland and the prosecutor has some question about US s law, they can contact me. Or if there's a question, say, in Croatia. And we have ah every every two or three months, we'll have meetings. And so I think the last one was in Malta.
00:50:53
Speaker
And so we go to have meetings with the groups and we train local PD, local police officers, prosecutors, customs agents on on how to how to stop the transnational progress of stolen properties, stolen cultural work. I'm learning a lot here. um I still feel like there's going to be places where there's gaps where you you you can't necessarily deploy, especially trained police officers.
Private Sector's Role in Art Crime
00:51:20
Speaker
And um I'm assuming that the private sector fills some gaps here, and i'm I'm really curious to hear what role the private sector can play, does play, and of course, Robert Whitman, Inc, being part of that private sector. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Yeah, I am the private sector.
00:51:38
Speaker
I used to be the ah law enforcement, but not anymore. So what I do now oftentimes, I'll get a call from, you know, it's kind of frustrating, I'll be honest with you. And the reason I say that is because, you know, law enforcement often does not take this seriously. Our crime is often looked at as a victimless crime, you know, it's ah people think of it as being something like, you know, that's some rich guy who lost something, you know, valuable, and who cares about that.
00:52:05
Speaker
Well, the truth is that we all care because number one, it's a piece of cultural heritage. It might be owned by a specific person today, but you know, next month it might be in a museum or next year, whenever it's going to be. And it's a piece of cultural heritage that we all have an interest in. Secondly, it you know, it affects insurance prices.
00:52:23
Speaker
If someone has to pay someone loses a Renoir or a Picasso worth $10 million, you know the insurance company is going to pay off. Well, guess who pays that? Ultimately, all of our premiums go up. It's just like a hurricane you know or a natural disaster. Somebody has to foot the bill, and ultimately, it's going to be all of us.
00:52:40
Speaker
So they' there it's not a victimless crime. So as a result, you know, it's frustrating sometimes if the law enforcement doesn't take it quite as seriously. And when I say law enforcement, I specifically mean law enforcement on the street.
00:52:55
Speaker
beat cops, that type of thing. So I get calls from victims who just can't get an investigation done, serious a serious investigation done, on their loss. And what I'll do is I have to start all over from the beginning.
00:53:12
Speaker
and basically try to put a whole case together, which I usually do, put a case together using the investigative techniques that I have, and then presenting it to either the FBI or the local PD or Homeland Security Investigations for prosecution.
00:53:27
Speaker
I've found that that's that's a good way to do it because basically if you can put the whole case together and hand it over like you have a nice bow on it, oftentimes they'll take it because, you know, nobody wants to work really hard. I hate to say that, but it's the truth. So that's really the the process in the private sector for these types of situations.
00:53:48
Speaker
Sometimes, too you know you you you in the private sector, you go out and do an investigation, and you you're not successful. You can't recover the material. That's frustrating, because you know when that happens, you know somebody's going to be the victim of that.
00:54:01
Speaker
But that's that's all part of the private process. Also, too, the the private process involves security management. you know Police officers, police departments don't come in and create security for institutions or for collectors' homes. So they have to rely on the private process to do that. And as a result, you go in and you're protecting people, creating deterrence so that they won't become victims.
00:54:27
Speaker
I just want to follow up on what you said there about recovery. you know because i imagine As you say, know this is either cultural heritage or it's something that someone's going to care a lot about personally if it's if it's a private collection piece. How likely is it an item is recovered? Is there a proportion of cases where you do get the object objects back?
Chances of Recovering Stolen Art
00:54:45
Speaker
That's a good question, Louis. I would tell you right now that probably, you know, ah very high-value artworks, the Isabel Bellistore Gardner Museum theft is really an outlier. I mean, those 13 pieces were taken. None of them have been recovered, and it's been 34 years. That's pretty much an outlier.
00:55:04
Speaker
Usually, I would say 90% of the time, high-value art thefts are recovered. Artworks are recovered. Because it doesn't do any good to destroy them, and it doesn't do any good to hide them forever. Eventually, they're found. All these pieces are going to outlive us, at at least we hope. And so, in the end, they come back to the to the market or come back to the to the world, in fact.
00:55:27
Speaker
So a very, very high value material comes back. Now, when we talk about this property crime in general, it's about five to 10 percent. It's recovered. And now we're talking about televisions, computers, you know, ah things of that nature. But high value artworks are are more than likely going to come back.
00:55:45
Speaker
Now, low value, piece ten pieces that are like in the $5,000 to $10,000 market, they can go on what we call the secondary market, which could be small auction houses, flea market, know private sales. They can sometimes go under the radar because they can't be identified, number one. And because of the low value, they're not on the stolen art registry list. So sometimes that can happen. But that's not worthwhile.
00:56:13
Speaker
In other words, if someone goes out and steals a dolly print that's worth $300 and they sell it for $50, it's really not worth the time or the effort. so that's ah you know We're talking about high-end art here. It comes back pretty much 90% of the time. The question we always like to end this show on, you know what keeps you up at night? what was What was the worst case scenario in this world that that really worried you?
Undercover Stories: Danger and Challenges
00:56:37
Speaker
I guess in my career, there were two times that I was really worried. It was the first time I ever went undercover. An individual came into a jeweler in Philadelphia, and he said that he was an operative for the CIA. and He showed the du CIA credentials, an ID card and his badge, and he gave the jeweler $80,000.
00:57:02
Speaker
And he said he wanted to buy diamonds for his informants in Europe. And so he wanted to loose diamonds. He wanted a million dollars worth of loose diamonds. And he gave the guy 80,000 to start out to prove he was legitimate. So the jeweler said, OK, I'll see if I can come up with a million dollars worth. And of course, he called the FBI and got me. And he told me the situation. And now you have to understand, CIA doesn't hand out credentials. They don't have badges. None of that is you know that's legitimate.
00:57:32
Speaker
So we knew it was a fake. So I said to him, no, you don't tell him you're going to meet him. you know You'll come to meet him at his hotel. And when you do, you'll have a briefcase with the million dollars in diamonds in the briefcase. And they say, we're going to do this. And this was on a Friday. So I told them to meet him. We'd meet him on Monday. So I had the whole weekend to think about how this guy could get me. Which was a bad idea. I should have done to the next day. But I had a whole weekend to just sit and worry about it.
00:58:00
Speaker
So when we got there to the hotel, my first thought was they were going to, you know, get me coming across this parking lot. All they had to do was drive up, you know, pull out a gun, shoot me and grab the briefcase, right? That's all I needed to do. Well, I had to walk across the parking lot and I got into the hotel. Nothing happened. Thank goodness.
00:58:18
Speaker
I get in. I call him. I say, come on downstairs to the lobby. We're going to, you know, I'm going to meet with you. And he says, okay, come downstairs. And now we had agents all through the ah lobby of the hotel. And he says, I want you to come upstairs and talk to me now. I said, well, first, you know, let's talk about this here a little bit first. And he saw that I had a briefcase and it was attached to my wrist with a handcuff.
00:58:42
Speaker
And I said, well, I'm not going to go up to your room. Let's just do it here. And he said, okay. And at that point I called in the agents and we arrested him. Well, it was interesting. He had a hatchet and a gun on him. And the reason was he's going to take me out to his room and cut my arm off.
00:58:56
Speaker
And he had all the mirrors in the room turned around. So if we were fighting, he wouldn't fall into the mirrors. And he had left a suicide note. And he had parked his car right under the window of his room, so he could go out the window and jump into his car. So we ah we were able to get to touch him in the end. And he got five ears for attempted robbery. So that was the first time. And the mistake there, and the thing I worried me was that all weekend, I had all that time to sit around and worry about it.
00:59:24
Speaker
And then a second time, was i was at the I was working on the government in Miami, and we we did that Picasso deal. The two Picassos were recovered and and at the Louvre, by the way. That's where they were recovered, right by the yeah ah pyramid. And the undercover French police were there. The guys found out that there was some kind of a leak of information out of Miami. So they thought I was the informant. So they put a hit on me.
00:59:49
Speaker
And so these ah these individuals wanted to meet with me, and I had to go and meet with them. I met them at the diplomat hotel in the bar as a diplomat. And I never carried a gun undercover, because that would just create more danger. Whenever you carry a weapon, then the bad guys got to have a weapon, and you know it just escalates, ratches up the the problems. So I never carried a gun. But in that case, I carried two guns, one in each pocket.
01:00:13
Speaker
And the reason was because they had said and told me—I knew who they were—they had told me before that the way they killed people was with wood knives. They'd get you in a car on and they'd stab you. And quite honestly, you know if that's the situation, by the time you can get a gun out in a car, you'll have been stabbed many times. okay That's just the way it is. So that's why I met them in a bar.
01:00:35
Speaker
across from a table, so they'd have to come across the table to get to me. So those two times were interesting. I was able to talk about it. I said there must have been a wiretap or something. It wasn't me. And I had no idea what they were talking about. And I basically could talk about it. Since they wanted to do more deals, make more money, it was fairly easy to get them off the idea. So those were two times where I kept up a little bit at night thinking about it. But hey, it's a little bit
01:01:06
Speaker
That's ah that's a a hell of a career. i'd so I've learned a lot here. so Robert, thank you very much for joining us. oh No worries. It was a pleasure to talk to you guys. You've been listening to Robert K. Whitman discussing how to steal a masterpiece. Our producer for this show was Edwin Tram. Our researchers were Alex Smith and Alexandra Shokovich. To all our listeners and Patreon supporters, thank you so much for listening and supporting how to get on a watch list.
01:01:32
Speaker
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