- [Narrator] Munch's The Scream,
Van Gogh's Poppy Flowers,
even the Mona Lisa herself.
They're part of a collection of masterpieces
with one thing in common.
They've all been stolen
in precise, daring, and occasionally
even exquisitely planned heists
involving everything from contortionists to speedboats.
We don't approve of what they do,
but there is a certain art to being an art thief.
- You are amazing. - I know.
- Wow.
- [Narrator] Here's a sketch of seven of the most
artful art thefts in history
to get you inspired for the many heists of Red Notice.
(dramatic music)
If there's a lesson from what happened in Stockholm in 2000,
it's that sometimes movie heists aren't that exaggerated.
Okay, maybe they are a little,
but like art, art heists can be bold.
In late December of that year at around 5:00 pm,
three gunmen stormed the city's still-open National Museum.
As if it were all some Swedish version of Die Hard,
one held security and visitors at gunpoint
on the ground floor,
while the others raced to grab the art
picking up two Renoirs and this Rembrandt
worth at least $46 million.
But the thieves saved their greatest flourish
for their getaway.
They detonated two car bombs outside the museum
blocking access to the peninsula it sat on,
all while making their escape in frickin' speedboats.
Even their eventual capture was dramatic.
It took five years,
but a founding member of the FBI's Art Crime Team,
posing as a crooked art dealer,
finally nabbed the thieves in Denmark.
- You don't look like a profiler.
- Yeah, I get that a lot.
- [Narrator] And you thought FBI Art Crime Agents
were just in the movies.
But also as in art,
some heists are best when subtle rather than provocative.
Witness what went down literally in Paraguay's capital
of Asunción in 2002,
during the most valuable exhibition
in the history of the country's National Fine Arts Museum.
Clearly masterful thieves using fake names-
- She's the Bishop.
- No shit.
- [Narrator] Rented a nearby storefront
and from it tunneled 80 feet over and 10 feet down
to get below the museum.
After two months of digging,
they breached the building undetected
and made off with millions in paintings.
Nothing has ever been recovered,
so maybe there's a benefit to the subtle approach.
The Dada master, Marcel Duchamp,
was known for crafting alter egos.
And disguise is certainly a brush in the art thief's kit,
as was seen in Boston in 1990
in what is still the largest heist in history.
On the night of March 18th,
with rowdy St. Patrick's Day parties raging outside,
two young guards buzzed what appeared to be
two conspicuously mustachioed police officers
into the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum,
known in the Boston underworld as a juicy target
with lax security.
Once inside, the men tied up the guards
and then plundered the museum of some $500 million
worth of art, 500 million.
Despite intense police and media scrutiny,
the frames remain empty.
The thieves have never been caught
making those some damn good disguises.
But just like great art can come from overlooked people,
like the much-mocked "Customs Officer" Henri Rousseau,
sometimes being ordinary is the best disguise.
That seemed to be the case in Paris in August of 1911,
when a man emerged from a closet in the Louvre
where he'd been hiding that night,
and strolled out into the Paris morning
with the Mona Lisa under a white smock,
the customary uniform for maintenance workers.
It's hard to imagine now,
but the world's most famous painting
was actually pretty ordinary then,
so no one noticed it was missing for 26 whole hours.
But then it turned into a national manhunt,
a matter of French pride that seemed to implicate everybody.
Conspiracies ran wild that American tycoons
had financed the operation
to build their personal collections,
and suspicion even briefly fell on poor Pablo Picasso,
who had a few minor stolen works in his possession.
But the police interviewed and dismissed
lowly Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian handyman
who had installed glass in the Louvre,
and who in fact had the Mona Lisa stashed
in his boardinghouse in a trunk with a false bottom.
After two years,
Peruggia got caught trying to sell the painting
to an Italian art dealer,
although he claimed he was just trying to repatriate it
to Italy.
The thief served just six months in prison
and was largely forgotten,
but the Mona Lisa went on to achieve a timeless fame.
Even after executing his artful heist,
Peruggia's problem was figuring out
what to do with his masterpiece going forward.
- You know what, Booth?
Maybe I don't know you.
But I've been building a profile on you
ever since you stole William Strang's Lady With A Red Hat
from the Tate back in 2014.
- You can't prove that was me.
I got that on Etsy.
- [Narrator] And that pops up again and again
in tales of art heist.
But especially in Athens, Greece in 2012,
where a 49 year-old construction worker
and self-proclaimed art freak
studied the guards and cameras in the National Gallery
for a whole six months.
Then, one night in January,
he climbed onto a balcony and repeatedly tripped
a small alarm on an unlocked door there,
causing the annoyed guard to disable the others.
The thief took off with a Picasso and a Mondrian,
but what to do with them?
Stolen, known works of art are almost impossible to sell,
they're radioactive.
So, in response to police sniffing around,
the thief just continued moving his paintings.
First to a warehouse,
then finally to this ravine under a bush
40 kilometers south of Athens.
That's where police found them
when the thief confessed under questioning.
So it might not be so weird after all
to find a bunch of stolen artwork in the jungle.
But, for some thieves, it's not just the heist
that's elevated to an art form.
It's the taunting.
- It's so nice to finally meet you, Mr. Booth.
Such a thrill to be face-to-face with the second-best
art thief in the world.
- [Narrator] That was certainly true of the ringleader
of the team who hit Oslo's National Gallery in 1994.
On the opening day of the Lillehammer Olympics,
two men climbed a ladder,
broke a window, cut some wires,
and took Edvard Munch's The Scream all in 50 seconds.
But they couldn't help but leave a note,
"A thousand thanks for the bad security."
That's because it was all the master plan of Pal Enger,
a brash former footballer with a passion
for stealing Munch paintings.
He'd already stolen Vampire in 1988.
Enger just couldn't help himself.
He aroused police suspicion
when he took out an ad in the paper announcing
that his son had been born "with a scream".
With the help of international law enforcement,
Enger was eventually sentenced to six years in prison-
- It's nice to meet a fan.
- [Narrator] But it's unclear
whether he's any less outspoken.
A Facebook page belonging to @PalEngerArt
still openly posts photos of the heist.
But other artists of crime
gained the respect of their audience
via their quiet craftsmanship.
It happened in Jerusalem in 1983
in what would go down as the costliest art heist
in Israel's history.
Housed at the L.A. Mayer Memorial Museum of Islamic Art,
the targets were a collection of priceless timepieces
that included Marie Antoinette's watch,
the so-called Mona Lisa of the clock world.
One night in April, a thief named Diller
used a hydraulic jack to bend the bars on the museum's fence
and then slithered in through a tiny window 10 feet up.
A strategically parked truck blocked the view.
He brought an air mattress to cushion his fall,
listening devices to monitor the guards,
even a bag of sandwiches.
- Sorry, big man, but there's no food or drink
in the museum.
Thank you.
- [Narrator] So many clocks were taken
that the police thought it was a multi-man job.
And for 25 years the case went unsolved,
until the thief's widow tried to sell back
some of his collection.
What were the investigators reactions to the news
that the man they sought so long was dead?
They called the thief legendary.
They were actually disappointed
they would never get to meet him.
So who says an art thief can't inspire?
You might have heard Picasso's famous quote,
"Art is theft."
We're not gonna go so far as saying that theft is art,
but some have made it look artful,
both in real life and the streaming screen.
See a couple of master thieves
demonstrate the art of the heist,
with the police in hot pursuit,
in Red Notice coming November 12th.
Of course, not all thieves can be so artful.
In Oslo in 2004 at the Munch Museum,
crowds watched as two clumsy culprits
ran straight into the building's plate glass doors.
But hey, they still managed to dust themselves off
and nab a different version of The Scream,
so who needs grace, anyway?
(shouting)