The Rescue Artist

News like that draws crowds, and the crowds are not composed entirely of solid citizens.

pair of thieves had set out to steal a monumental Henry Moore bronze from a garden. The statue, called King and Queen, proved too massive to move, so the thieves took a chainsaw to the figures and cut off their heads, figuring they could at least sell those.

criminals would much rather live in a fantasy world. They could easily learn how things really work, but they don’t want to listen to anything other than the sound of their own voices.”

criminals will always check out the people they’re dealing with,” says Ellis, “and you have to be prepared for them to pay somebody within the institution to get them the information they want

In Italy, for example, if a person buys a painting in good faith from a legitimate dealer, the new owner immediately becomes the rightful owner whether or not the painting was stolen. Japan is nearly as permissive: after two years, all sales are final. Steal a painting, hide it for two years, sell it in Japan, and the buyer can freely hang it for the world to see. In the United States, in contrast, the rule is that “no one can sell what he does not own

In the world of art crime, London is one of the great crossroads. (The United States, with the single colossal exception of the Gardner theft, is a backwater in comparison.)