Speaker 1: Kiyota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald.
Speaker 3: In seven minutes, thieves entered the Louver in.
Speaker 2: Paris and made off with eight priceless jewels. The necklaces, earrings,
Speaker 2: brooches and crowns had belonged to an array of nineteenth
Speaker 2: century royals, including Napoleon's wife Marie Amilie and Empress Eujaney,
Speaker 2: married to Napoleon the Third. The gang were organized professionals
Speaker 2: and had clearly scoped the world's most visited gallery and
Speaker 2: knew exactly what they were after. But after you've jumped all.
Speaker 3: Of those hurdles of security, what.
Speaker 2: Do you do with this highly recognizable royal regalia? Today
Speaker 2: on the front Page, art historian, author and curator doctor
Speaker 2: Penelope Jackson is with us to take a look at
Speaker 2: heists in general and whether it's really like the movies.
Speaker 3: Right, So, Penelope, here's what we know so far.
Speaker 2: It happened on a Sunday about nine thirty am local time,
Speaker 2: shortly after the museum opened.
Speaker 3: Four thieves used a vehicle.
Speaker 2: Mounted mechanical lift to access the Gallery of Apolo via
Speaker 2: a balcony. They cut through the glass panes, got in
Speaker 2: strettened guards, stole the items from two glass display cases,
Speaker 2: tried to set fire to the truck below, dropped a
Speaker 2: crown in their escape. I mean, it's all the makings
Speaker 2: of a Netflix movie. From your expertise, what was your
Speaker 2: first reaction to seeing this?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, look, when I woke out and read about
Speaker 1: it in the news, I kind of instantly thought about
Speaker 1: the brazenness of it, the audacity of how they went
Speaker 1: about it in broad daylight, just you know, half an
Speaker 1: hour after the Louve opened, And then I thought, it's
Speaker 1: obviously very sad for the French nation. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is you know, part of their history, their cultural history,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So that's really sad because you know, they
Speaker 1: these items, it's highly likely they won't come back or
Speaker 1: in the form that they were stolen in. But also
Speaker 1: it made me think about you know, every day in
Speaker 1: the Louver there's about thirty there's a cap of thirty
Speaker 1: thousand visitors. That's a lot of people that go there
Speaker 1: every day. And if you're you know, a tourist there
Speaker 1: and this is your once in a lifetime trip to
Speaker 1: the Louver and you were in that vicinity. How very
Speaker 1: scary that is. And I don't think, you know, the
Speaker 1: media hasn't really kind of made that point in a
Speaker 1: lot of instances that really Yes, the security has been
Speaker 1: kind of put into a question, but actually the five
Speaker 1: security guards there were threatened, and if you know, they
Speaker 1: protected the visitors that were in that space. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I was thinking how scary that would be to be
Speaker 1: in that inside that Netflix movie, as you said that
Speaker 1: would be It would be an awful situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, without giving away too many ideas,
Speaker 2: I suppose how are heists usually done?
Speaker 3: Is this plan fairly typical or is it just atypical
Speaker 3: given the brazeness.
Speaker 1: Like you said, look, every heist is different because obviously
Speaker 1: it happens in a different place and there would be
Speaker 1: a different motivation or there after different objects. But I
Speaker 1: think in this case, you know, there would have been
Speaker 1: a lot of planning. They would have thought about when
Speaker 1: to or have it. How you know, they'd organized a
Speaker 1: flat deck truck with a furniture ladder that you know, moves,
Speaker 1: and then they had motor scooters ready when they exited.
Speaker 1: They had glass cutters for the window. So yeah, this
Speaker 1: was highly organized. They probably would have visited that gallery
Speaker 1: several times and done their homework beforehand to work out
Speaker 1: how they would get in move quickly, because the whole
Speaker 1: thing happened, you know, inside seven minutes. Well another report
Speaker 1: said actually four minutes. Well, you know that's how long
Speaker 1: it takes to boil an egg. You know, it's pretty
Speaker 1: quick to drive up park, get that ladder up to
Speaker 1: the second floor, cut the window, get in, cut the cases,
Speaker 1: get the objects out in escape. And clearly they were
Speaker 1: in a hurry because they dropped you know, one item
Speaker 1: though that's actually damaged now because they dropped it. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: highly organized.
Speaker 2: Does this show that there are glaring gaps in the
Speaker 2: loovers security measures?
Speaker 1: That's obviously what people are asking and certainly when something
Speaker 1: like this happens, it will put their security under scrutiny,
Speaker 1: There's no doubt about that. But you know, the alarms
Speaker 1: did ring, so they worked, and there were five guards nearby.
Speaker 1: But as I said, thirty thousand people visit a day.
Speaker 1: They're in excess of thirty thousand objects on display at
Speaker 1: any one time. You know, it's a huge organization, and
Speaker 1: you know it's always that difficult thing that you want
Speaker 1: people to see objects and enjoy them, and they these
Speaker 1: pieces were in glass cases. But you know, how else
Speaker 1: can you protect them. I mean it's you know, the
Speaker 1: Mona Lisa of course in the same buildings, she's behind glass,
Speaker 1: and that actually deflects from seeing the painting up close,
Speaker 1: having that experience. And so yeah, it's a really hard
Speaker 1: call between you know, having the objects out there for
Speaker 1: visitors to enjoy an experience and protecting them. But yeah, look,
Speaker 1: I'm sure the louver will be looking at their security.
Speaker 1: There will be you know, a full investigation and report.
Speaker 1: But it's a bit of a kind of whenever this happens,
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a wake up call for us,
Speaker 1: the museums and galleries around the world to think, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's not be lax. Let's just you know, rethink what
Speaker 1: we do. So in a way, I guess that's that's significant.
Speaker 1: But you know, the other thing about security guards is
Speaker 1: that they have a huge responsibility to protect objects around
Speaker 1: the world in museums and galleries, and yet you will
Speaker 1: find that they most of them, the majority will be
Speaker 1: on minimum wage, and so often if there are budget cuts,
Speaker 1: they get rid of security stuff. I mean, just last
Speaker 1: week the art Getter, New South Wales announced cuts and
Speaker 1: among those cuts we're security stuff. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's a difficult situation, but I mean you've got to
Speaker 1: protect the objects because museums about are about caring and
Speaker 1: looking after objects.
Speaker 2: In September I saw that thieves took porcelain worth about
Speaker 2: six million euros from a museum in France. The whole
Speaker 2: could well have been commissioned by a foreign buyer. The
Speaker 2: article I read said, how prevalent is this kind of thing.
Speaker 2: I'm guessing these people who have so much money that
Speaker 2: the only thing they're left wanting in the world is
Speaker 2: something that money can't buy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's kind of what we call stolen
Speaker 1: to order. And look, you can only speculate in this situation.
Speaker 1: You know why those works, why those particular works were targeted.
Speaker 1: As I said, you've got, you know, something like thirty
Speaker 1: eight thousand objects in the louver on display and they
Speaker 1: went very specifically for these nine objects. But you know,
Speaker 1: like anything, you've got to think the other side. Okay,
Speaker 1: they've taken them, but what can the new owner do
Speaker 1: with them? And very little you know, they could keep
Speaker 1: them in a secret cupboard at home and look at them.
Speaker 1: I mean with the pieces of jewelry, you can't exactly
Speaker 1: turn up to the met Gala wearing them because now
Speaker 1: they are all over the internet, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: the fabulous thing about the world that we live in
Speaker 1: now and technology that those images. Any any heist, whether
Speaker 1: it's a painting, you know, royal jewels, porcelain, whatever, they
Speaker 1: can get images out there straight away, So anyone trying
Speaker 1: to sell them is it's going to come unstuck basically. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's kind of they could be stolen to order,
Speaker 1: but you know, we don't know the motivation.
Speaker 2: Well, it's really unfortunate actually because with the jewels, obviously,
Speaker 2: they're so recognizable that the only thing that you can
Speaker 2: assume that someone would do when they steal such a
Speaker 2: thing is chop them up into pieces and melt them down.
Speaker 2: Is that what usually happens?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, I think in this kind of situation, it's
Speaker 1: not like a painting where you can't change its physical
Speaker 1: properties very easily. You know, in this situation, they could.
Speaker 1: I mean one of those I think it was the
Speaker 1: Tiara or the Crown had literally had thousands of gems
Speaker 1: in it, you know, diamonds, emerald, you name it, and
Speaker 1: they were big two, so they could all be split
Speaker 1: up separately and divided, and you know, that's highly lightly
Speaker 1: that could happen. They could melt down the metals as well,
Speaker 1: and that's a pretty quick process. The problem is, unless
Speaker 1: they go to someone who really knows what they're doing,
Speaker 1: those stones could actually be damaged in the process of
Speaker 1: removal or breaking down. And the other thing is, of
Speaker 1: course they've got no provenance either, in other words, the
Speaker 1: history of ownership. You know, they can't legitimately sell them
Speaker 1: because someone's going to say, oh, well, you know, where
Speaker 1: did this great, big diamond, the size of it whatever
Speaker 1: come from? And of course they can't. They haven't got
Speaker 1: a you know that have to make up a backstory.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so it's kind of that that's you know,
Speaker 1: complicated in itself because it also involves more people. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got the four people who were part of the
Speaker 1: highest and then I think there were other people involved
Speaker 1: in the getaway. And then if you then go to
Speaker 1: someone to melt down precious metals and then someone else
Speaker 1: to actually split up the stones, you're you know, network
Speaker 1: is widening, and do you only have to get someone
Speaker 1: to spillbean's kind of thing. So yeah, it's a complex
Speaker 1: situation for them. And the other thing is that unfortunately,
Speaker 1: if they were going to do that, they'd probably be
Speaker 1: onto it pretty quickly so that they you know, they
Speaker 1: could say basically, so they haven't got the evidence if
Speaker 1: they were caught.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and given there are so many people involved, what
Speaker 2: are the chances of someone squealing perhaps, and what are
Speaker 2: the chances of these items actually being recovered.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting because if you look at other cases,
Speaker 1: there's one that I've been known about for quite some
Speaker 1: time and have been writing about, and there it was
Speaker 1: a case in nineteen seventy seven in Sydney there was
Speaker 1: an exhibition of the fabulous Australian artist Grace Crossington Smith
Speaker 1: and had an exhibition at the Dela Gallery the Macquarie
Speaker 1: Galleries and twenty eight of her paintings were stolen by
Speaker 1: three men overnight and now they have never ever emerged.
Speaker 1: And it's really interesting that you know that three people
Speaker 1: fifty years basically and nothing has you know, nothing has
Speaker 1: been recovered. So yeah, but you only have to get
Speaker 1: one person who you know, as I said, spills the
Speaker 1: beans kind of thing. So it's difficult. So in terms
Speaker 1: of recovery though, they reckon and this is a really
Speaker 1: hard thing to measure. That only about ten percent of
Speaker 1: artworks objects are ever recovered internationally, and that's a really
Speaker 1: low figure.
Speaker 4: Jewelry expert Alexander Legue fears the worst will never find them.
Speaker 4: He tells me, diamonds don't beep when you take them
Speaker 4: through airport's security. He assumes the treasures will be broken
Speaker 4: up and sold for a fraction of their real value.
Speaker 4: But that's not the worst of it. What does the
Speaker 4: loss of these jewels mean to France? This is France
Speaker 4: itself that has been stolen from us, He says. It's
Speaker 4: not just a piece of history, it's a piece of
Speaker 4: our country.
Speaker 2: Tell me about the most notable heists in New Zealand. Ah,
Speaker 2: most notable, Well, I guess the ones that are probably
Speaker 2: most public. The first one I would say would be
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety eight from Auckland Art Gallery. There was
Speaker 2: an armed robbery and the guy took a paytan called
Speaker 2: Still on Top by the French painter James Tisso. It
Speaker 2: was actually recovered, but it had been really badly damaged,
Speaker 2: and it took the conservative Sarah Hillary there are two
Speaker 2: years to piece back together, but it was so that's
Speaker 2: you know, kind of empowering. And then the other one
Speaker 2: is more recent, was on April four's days two and seventeen,
Speaker 2: the two Linda portraits were yes from the International Arts
Speaker 2: centerum Parnell and you know, look again you wake up
Speaker 2: and see the story and think, oh my god, first
Speaker 2: of April, is this you know, a joke, And of
Speaker 2: course it was not. It took five years for those
Speaker 2: works to come back to be recovered, so they were
Speaker 2: really big news stories at the time. They were significant
Speaker 2: art works and you know, there were lots of questions
Speaker 2: asked around both of those, certainly Auckland Art Gallery when
Speaker 2: the work had been completely conserved it they did a
Speaker 2: wonderful marketing job of relaunching the painting out into the
Speaker 2: community and they.
Speaker 1: Told the story of the work that you know, the
Speaker 1: two year program to basically literally piece it back together too,
Speaker 1: So that was really good and the staff there, I know,
Speaker 1: we're always very proud that more people i think saw
Speaker 1: that exhibition than we to see the baby Lion cubs
Speaker 1: at the zoo or something like that. It was, you know,
Speaker 1: really really popular because it was a story because it
Speaker 1: was an armed robbery and the security guard was injured
Speaker 1: during the process. It was all very dramatic. It was
Speaker 1: very Netflix like. It stayed in the news for a
Speaker 1: long time. Yeah, So is.
Speaker 2: That why people, you think, really grab on to these
Speaker 2: kind of heighst stories. I mean, you've written books about
Speaker 2: the subject. Why are people so interested in these things?
Speaker 1: I think, you know, deep down, people really care about
Speaker 1: what in our collections because it's part of our collective history.
Speaker 1: Whether you know it's the Royal Jewels in France or
Speaker 1: taong are here or whatever. People care about that because
Speaker 1: they're irreplaceable. You know, a nineteenth century French painting in Auckland.
Speaker 1: You can't just buy another one. You know, they're highly valuable,
Speaker 1: or you know, the artist has been dead for so
Speaker 1: long it's not like they can just whip up another one.
Speaker 1: So people actually really really care about about our culture,
Speaker 1: about objects, and I think that's the intrigue. Yeah. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's also because there's kind of a point of difference.
Speaker 1: It's like, I've been amazed at how much international media
Speaker 1: interest there has been about this story, you know, and
Speaker 1: yet it's a really it's a tragic story in many
Speaker 1: ways because it's part of history that might never come
Speaker 1: back to the loover. You know, those precious objects.
Speaker 5: But here's a mistake. They dropped one of these broaches.
Speaker 6: They only rob what nine I think it was nine rotures,
Speaker 6: you know diamond like pieces. Well, you just drop a
Speaker 6: ninth of your whole entire load right there.
Speaker 5: That's an amateur move. I never dropped a piece of
Speaker 5: jewelry ever.
Speaker 6: In twenty five jewelry stores and eighteen million dollars, it's
Speaker 6: not going to happen.
Speaker 5: They also got the motorcycles caught right away. I mean,
Speaker 5: they're done there. What are you gonna find? They found
Speaker 5: a vest, they found wanted a construction vest. They're ready.
Speaker 6: So they made a couple of I call them avait mistakes,
Speaker 6: but they did get away.
Speaker 5: With a lot.
Speaker 2: And we often talk about money behind these things, but
Speaker 2: many of these pieces are just completely They're priceless, right,
Speaker 2: you can't put a number on them in terms of
Speaker 2: what worldwide I suppose what has been the biggest highst
Speaker 2: or something that has never been recovered that's remained a mystery?
Speaker 2: Because I know that the Mona Lisa was taken and recovered.
Speaker 2: Is there anything out there that you know remains to
Speaker 2: be seen.
Speaker 3: Could be hanging in some billionaires condo or.
Speaker 1: Something in the alaya like in the James Bond movie.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Look, there's a couple of points there that I'd make.
Speaker 1: One is that, you know, we talk about monetary value,
Speaker 1: but of course there's obviously different kinds of value. There's
Speaker 1: sentimental value, and there's cultural value, art historical value and
Speaker 1: so on. There was there's a case that's still unsolved
Speaker 1: unrecovered works in Boston Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum. They had
Speaker 1: thirteen works taken back in nineteen ninety one. And you know,
Speaker 1: we're talking about Rembrands and a Vermea, a man a
Speaker 1: really really significant artworks and they were taken Saint Patrick's day.
Speaker 1: The two guys had dressed up as police officers and
Speaker 1: managed to get into the building and they took these
Speaker 1: works away and they have never ever been recovered. And
Speaker 1: what is really airy, because I've actually visited the museum
Speaker 1: earlier this year, are the empty frames. You go in
Speaker 1: there and there are still the frames where they actually
Speaker 1: took the artworks from, which you know, as a poignant
Speaker 1: reminder that there used to be a Vermea there, or
Speaker 1: a rem Rand or a renoir, etc. And you kind
Speaker 1: of think, you know, where are they now, and so
Speaker 1: that's been a long time and they say that they
Speaker 1: can't even put a figure on there, but basically it's millions,
Speaker 1: you know. But as you said, that irreplaceable you know,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how much. If you know, if you could
Speaker 1: get the insurance money, can you replace them? Possibly not? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean in Australia there was the story in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six from the National Gallery Victoria in Melbourne. There
Speaker 1: Picasso was taken a nineteen thirty seven painting called Weeping
Speaker 1: Woman and at the time, you know, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of information out there in the media about how
Speaker 1: much it was worth, you know, in dollar CeNSE kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and it's now worth you know, supposedly a
Speaker 1: lot more. But the great thing was that it was recovered,
Speaker 1: you know, so that was a feel good story kind
Speaker 1: of thing. So look, you know, sometimes there are recoveries
Speaker 1: but sometimes not. But yeah, putting that dollar figure on
Speaker 1: it's kind of in a way, it's irrelevant. It's irrelevant.
Speaker 1: It's actually because it's also you know, people say, oh,
Speaker 1: how much is that worth? It's like, well, it's not
Speaker 1: like a public art museum are even going to sell
Speaker 1: the work. So yeah, it's kind of a bit of
Speaker 1: a moot point.
Speaker 2: And in terms of I mean, what does one do
Speaker 2: with a stolen painting because with the jewels and everything,
Speaker 2: I understand the logistics around, you know, getting someone to
Speaker 2: unpiece it and then trying to sell off individual pieces.
Speaker 2: But if somebody has the Mona Lisa or a Rembrand
Speaker 2: in their living room, it's going to be instantly recognizable,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 3: So what is the marketplace?
Speaker 2: Is there some kind of dark, deep dark corners of
Speaker 2: the web where you can sell it or.
Speaker 1: Well there is, but I mean the thing is you
Speaker 1: still wouldn't you know, have it above your metal beasts.
Speaker 1: You know kind of thing is still going to be
Speaker 1: found out. So unless you've got it in a cupboard
Speaker 1: and you just kind of open the doors and have
Speaker 1: a little look every day, yeah, it's very hard, that's right.
Speaker 1: So and you can't move these goods, you know, the
Speaker 1: value of them, you know, decreases hugely obviously because yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't sell them because you haven't got any proof
Speaker 1: of ownership. You haven't got any provenance with that work.
Speaker 1: So it's you know, who's going to fork out all
Speaker 1: that money for something like that. So yes, absolutely, it's
Speaker 1: the kind of people. They had a brick wall, I guess,
Speaker 1: and realize that they can't sell these works. Sometimes in
Speaker 1: that case, the works might be recovered, they might give
Speaker 1: a tip off whatever, you know. But yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: what can you do with them?
Speaker 2: I can't think of anything more selfish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, that's a really nice way of putting it,
Speaker 1: because you're deprived so many people of their cultural history. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's a very very selfish act.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us, Penelope.
Speaker 1: You're welcome. Thanks Chelsea.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzidherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who's also our editor.
Speaker 3: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
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Speaker 2: behind the headlines.