Here’s what could happen to the Louvre’s stolen jewelry

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From the outside, what happened on Sunday at the Louvre looked like a sports feat. In seven minutes, a gang of thieves climbed onto a furniture elevator, broke through a gallery window, dismantled display cases and left in broad daylight on motorcycles with a bunch of French crown jewels.

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But for Robert Whitman, a former senior investigator and founder of the FBI's National Art Crime Task Force, “the real art in art heist is not the theft, it's the sale,” he told The Washington Post.

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“These things are so well known that it's almost impossible to go anywhere and just try to unload,” he said of the stolen items, including hats, necklaces and earrings worn by members of the French royal family.

Wherever the thieves are, they probably aren't resting on their laurels yet, art crime experts told The Post. Their work has just begun.

What happens to an item after it's stolen from a museum depends on the nature of the item and, frankly, whether the thieves care about history and art—a scenario some say is unlikely, despite Hollywood mobsters' appreciation for art.

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Stolen paintings should remain untouched, since a little paint and canvas isn't of much value unless it amounts to, say, a recognizable Picasso or Leonardo. But jewelry, such as the nine pieces stolen from the Louvre (one of which was recovered because burglars dropped it), gives thieves more options because gems can be cut into smaller pieces and metals can be melted, allowing each item to be sold essentially piecemeal.

Many experts believe that by now the exhibits, including thousands of diamonds and other jewelry, have already been dismantled.

But Wittman hoped the thieves could keep the find in hopes that the French government would offer a reward. “One of them is a terrible tragedy,” he said of the destruction of the gems. “The other thing happens quite often.”

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“Even criminals… know that their value lies in their uniqueness because they are historical and have a heritage,” he added.

However, this does not mean that the items are treated first class.

“They're probably in a bag in someone's bedroom,” he said, pointing to a case he investigated in Madrid in which $50 million worth of paintings were hidden behind a refrigerator.

Leila Amineddole, an associate professor of law at Fordham University whose practice focuses on arts and cultural heritage, was less optimistic. “They don’t care at all about the jewelry,” she said. “I doubt any of the thieves said, 'Hmm, let me steal this for my wife or girlfriend, it will look nice on her.'

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“No one can wear this tiara in public,” she said.

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Amineddole said there was a small chance that thieves had buyers lined up to buy, say, the whole tiara, but “it's more likely to be taken apart.”

The jewels, which belonged to people such as Empress Marie Louise, the second wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, and other members of the royal family, may have worn them to coronations or meetings with dignitaries, Amineddole said. If they were taken apart, “that historic heritage value would be lost, and it's irreplaceable,” she said.

When objects are pursued for material value, says Erin Thompson, a professor of art crime at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, “they are transformed as quickly as possible to reduce the risk of detection.”

Precious metals can be melted down, as may have happened with the 18-karat gold toilet stolen from Blenheim Palace in 2019. Yogi Berra's World Series rings, stolen in 2014, were melted in a garage.

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Jewelry that needs to be cut represents an additional layer of logistics. The thieves must find a “rogue cutter,” Thompson said, who will recut the stones to make them unrecognizable.

“If you're really organized, maybe you'll think this through in advance,” she said. “If you're not that organized, you might be frantically Googling right now.”

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Typically, those behind the burglary make sure that the item leaves the criminals' hands so that they are not caught with them. This can also become an obstacle. In 2012, British thieves left stolen Chinese antiquities at a pre-agreed location but were later unable to find them. The prosecutor described the case as a “stolen, never found” failure.

If thieves continue to sell the product, payday could quickly turn sour. The situation is more complicated with works of art, the value of which is associated with their recognition; The FBI estimates that such paintings sell on the black market for only 7 to 10 percent of their potential value on the open market. And some painting thieves have fallen into their own trap as they try to get paid for their loot.

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Vincenzo Perugia, for example, stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911 and sat with it for two years (during which time he claimed to have fallen in love with it) only to be caught trying to buy it back from an art dealer in Italy. The men behind the theft of Edvard Munch's version of The Scream in 1994 suffered a similar fate when a police officer posed as an art dealer and claimed that the Getty Museum would pay them to return the painting.

When it comes to gems and metals, the difference between their value as raw materials and historical objects is huge, Thompson said, but they are still “worth a lot of money.”

As for jewelry, “it's a legal market with gray edges,” she said, pointing to jewelers' pledges not to handle conflict diamonds through the so-called Kimberley Certificate, documents she said are often forged.

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“As a jewelry dealer, you won't make money if you say no when people come to you with great deals,” she added.

Tim Carpenter, who spent 17 years investigating art crimes for the FBI, including as head of the Art Crimes Team, said there is a good chance the jewelry crossed international borders and expects the thieves to have buyers.

“As with any product, there are dealers that are truly ethical and there are those that are not,” he said. “This is what these organized crime groups rely on.”

Experts believe that it is unlikely that the gems will be returned in full. In similar situations, such as the 2019 jewelry theft from a museum in Dresden, Germany, the jewelry was only partially recovered. But if they do, they'll likely see even more attention: the saga of the theft of the Mona Lisa is often credited with making her an icon.

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In recent years, Carpenter said he has seen a “shift in tactics” as criminal gangs have become less focused on art and instead turned to precious metals, gold and jewelry because they have a separate market value by weight.

But Carpenter is irritated by questions about how much the jewelry is worth.

“As cultural heritage sites they are priceless,” he said. “…Until you figure out how to turn back time a few hundred years, meet the artists who created these jewels and offer to remake them – they are priceless.”

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