steal

Major Impressionist Art Theft Took Just 3 Minutes

Filed under: Art

Most of us picture art thieves as slinky sleuth types who sneak in under cover of night and quietly disable the alarm system, but apparently that's not what works best in Switzerland. This past Sunday 3 masked men dressed all in black burst into a private museum in Zurich in the middle of the day and took 4 paintings valued at £85 million by simply ripping them off the walls and running. They were in and out of the building and flying down the road in a beater of a white car in less than 3 minutes! Amazing. Sad, and outrageously embarrassing for Switzerland, but amazing.

The truly sad part is that they made off with some major and historic pieces of art: Cézanne's The Boy in a Red Vest, Degas's Viscount Lepic and his Daughters, Monet's Poppies Near Vetheuil, and Van Gogh's Blossoming Chestnut Branches. What a tragedy! I hope they get caught before the art is lost underground forever.

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Tags: art, expire-images:2009-2-12, impressionism, impressionist, steal, swiss, switzerland, theft

$1 Million Jewelry Theft at Heathrow

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Jewelry

Lindsay Lohan was leaving Heathrow Airport on Thursday when she noticed that her orange Hermes Birkin bag was missing. The bag itself might have gotten only a moment or two of mourning from the young celebrity, but the theft is now under investigation by Scotland Yard because that bag contained about $1 million worth of jewelry. Lindsay left it on her luggage trolley and must have turned away just long enough for someone to snag it. She is asking for the return her things, but given the value of the items taken, it seems unlikely that the thief will comply.

Update: Looks like someone actually found the bag and turned it in!

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Tags: airport, birkin, celeb, celebrity, heathrow, hermes, jewelry, lindsay lohan, steal, theft, tmz

Who Steals a Wedding Gown?

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Apparel

Given the size and delicacy of most wedding gowns, even the high price tags aren't usually enough to make them targets for thieves. It seems like it would be hard to smuggle one out of the store. But if you just go for the gown closest to the door, you might get lucky. A rare designer gown was stolen from an Alderley Edge bridal shop in the U.K. when they left the door open on a warm day.

The cream-colored tulle gown was made by Italian design house Toi Creazioni and embellished with gold lace, roses and ribbons and flares into a fishtail skirt. It is valued at £2,665 (about $5,000), but because the dress is so distinctive -- only one other shop in the country stocks it - and so very few like it are sold, the shop hopes to recover it. The shop owner said "it seems a very peculiar way to start married life in a stolen dress."

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Tags: dress, england, gown, steal, theft, uk, wedding, wedding dress