Hot Art

by Joshua Knelman

  In February 2006, the Johnsons raided the home of real estate tycoon Harry Hyams and stole about three hundred museum-quality artworks worth over $142 million—at the time said to be one of the most valuable criminal hauls in the history of the United Kingdom. The Johnsons enjoyed targeting celebrities and public figures: they hit Formula One advertising magnate Paddy McNally and Sir Philip Wroughton, Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire.

  In the burglary of Stanton Harcourt Manor, a fourteenth-century home in Witney, Oxfordshire, one of the Johnsons leapt from a first-floor window to escape and broke both his legs. He told doctors treating him in hospital that he had fallen off his brother’s garage roof.

  In the end, though, arrogance was their undoing—they were caught trying to rip a bank machine out of a wall by hooking it up to the back of a 4x4. They crashed. After the trial, the gang members were jailed for a total of over thirty years. Investigators had hoped that the Johnsons would bargain down their sentences in exchange for the location of some of their treasure trove of stolen art, estimated in the tens of millions, but the Johnsons wouldn’t talk. They were playing the long game and had a retirement fund set up.

  Art Hostage predicted that the Johnson convictions would have little or no effect on the epidemic of home invasions playing out across Britain. And indeed just one week after their convictions, another string of burglaries unfolded, targeting high-end art and antiques. Paul revelled on his website, “Art Hostage proved right yet again!!!”

  Again and again Paul used his alter ego Art Hostage to post articles that linked art dealers to the steady flow of crimes then lambasted them for their greed and corruption: “Enough already with the hiding behind the cloak of respectability. Historically, criminals, Art and Antiques dealers in particular, crave respectability when they become successful.” Paul, just like the FBI and Don Hrycyk, pointed his finger at the nature of the transaction: “As for cash dealings, there is no excuse if the deal is lawful to use cash. Cash is only used in today’s world by those seeking to hide the purchase or sale, be it from the police, customs or the taxman.”

  Rather than knockers, the Johnsons were more like the gangs of well-armed criminals who were storming museums and art institutions around the globe. As Cremers described the scene from his perch at Museum Security Network, all thieves had to do was beat the response time. Paul had always stayed away from museums, but he knew his way around those crimes and understood the options open to criminals once a blockbuster heist had occurred. Headache art had become a splitting migraine.

  Here are a few examples he posted.

  In Brazil, at São Paolo’s Pinacoteca, three armed men held security guards at gunpoint and removed paintings and prints, including two works by Picasso. The paintings were later tracked to the home of a local twenty-nine-year-old baker, who’d kept them under his bed. It was the second time in a year that Picassos had been stolen in São Paolo; armed men had already entered the Museum of Art and taken Picasso’s Portrait of Suzanne Bloch.

  In Odessa, Ukraine, a painting by the seventeenth-century Italian artist Caravaggio disappeared from the Museum of Western and Eastern Art, ripped out of its frame by thieves who had entered through a window. The alarm system was obsolete.

  In Sweden, thieves smashed their way into a museum near Stockholm and stole five works by American pop artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein worth between $3 and $4 million. The thieves spent less than ten minutes in the building. The Warhols were among many he made of Mickey Mouse and Superman. Art Hostage pointed out that, depending on how many copies of those works existed, they could be moved into the legitimate market with relative ease. Warhol was a smart steal because he made multiples.

  In Germany, a painting by Carl Spitzweg worth over half a million dollars was stolen from the Kunsthalle Mannheim. In Rome, a group of organized thieves had been operating for twenty years; one painting they stole, a Pietro Paolo Bonzi, had moved to France and then on to Florida before it was recovered.

  In Australia, a small portrait by a seventeenth-century Dutch artist, Frans van Mieris, was stolen in June 2007. It was just twenty by sixteen centimetres and carried an estimated value of $1.3 million. Someone broke into a building at the Australian National University and stole a 1928 oil-on-canvas work by Tom Roberts. It was small enough to be hidden under a jacket. The thief was clever and also unbolted the title plaque on the wall, so two weeks went by before staff even realized the Roberts was gone.

  In Russia, thieves climbed through an open window of the Hermitage overnight and stole priceless art.

  In Norway, the Supreme Court increased the sentences of two men convicted in the theft of the Edvard Munch masterpieces The Scream and Madonna, and a new trial was ordered for a third convicted man. Art Hostage commented, “The main reason why criminals target public museums and buildings is because they are seen as low risk for potential high return.”

  Art Hostage actively promoted the idea of tougher prison sentences: “Mandatory 10–20 years jail time for high value/ Cultural art theft from public buildings or museums is all that is needed to curb the intentions of the criminal underworld. This will lead to dispersal of all art theft into the private art collecting circles, who are better placed to protect their art collections.” Basically, Paul was saying, if you want people to stop stealing from museums, you have to be tougher on them. If not, the risk-reward factor is still great for anyone looking to make some quick money or pay a debt. It was that simple. The Art Loss Register’s database in 2011 included as missing or stolen: 659 Picassos, 397 Mirós, 347 Chagalls, 313 Salvador Dalís, 216 Warhols, and 199 Rembrandts.

  Paul told me his website attracted the attention of criminals who wanted to keep track of anyone writing about their crimes and to learn what other thieves were up to. “If you’re a criminal and you’ve just stolen something, you search the Web in the days afterward to see whether anyone has written about it or posted a picture.” But Paul’s relationship to his shadowy readership went deeper. Some criminals were emailing Paul directly to ask for his expert advice.

  In Vancouver, the Museum of Anthropology was broken into in the middle of the night. The thieves wore gas masks, deactivated the alarm, and sprayed bear repellent across the floor. They smashed through display cases and left with over a million dollars of art, including precious gold artworks by artist Bill Reid, whose sculptures decorate the Canadian twenty-dollar bill.

  Paul told me he received a mysterious email asking whether the stolen Reids could be returned for a reward, and how to do that properly. Could jail time be avoided? Paul decided to post the instructions on his blog. He advised the thieves to contact a lawyer, who could act as a third-party intermediary between police and thieves. There was no point in trying to sell the stolen art now, Paul told the criminals, because detailed descriptions of what had been stolen had been reported all over the world. It was too hot even for the most unscrupulous dealer. Three weeks after Paul’s posting, the Vancouver RCMP recovered the stolen work; no one was arrested. I contacted Bonnie Czegledi, who told me she had heard from a number of sources that a ransom had been paid.

  Paul had once again positioned himself as middleman, but this time he wasn’t dealing in stolen art. He was dealing in information, receiving it from and sending it to both detectives and criminals. From his house on the sea he surveyed the chaos and tried to make sense out of it. He told me that more thieves were now attracted to art as a commodity to steal. “There is a class of thief who ten years ago would have robbed a bank. Then they moved from banks to the transport vehicles carrying the money. Now they will rob a museum or a gallery. Museums generally can’t afford a great security system. Things really haven’t changed since I was working, in the sense that the crime is still low risk for high reward.”

  Paul’s golden rule, he said, still applied: stay under the radar. “The media are getting better at reporting thefts, but it’s still the case today that for every piece of headache art stolen, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of
smaller thefts that don’t come up on the radar. It’s your thieves’ everyday bread and butter.”

  And art thieves were ahead in every way, Paul said. “They have access to way more information now. They have global networks of art dealers and auction houses. Even a burglar who is a total idiot can go on eBay and see how much something is worth, and might even sell it there. eBay is perfect for selling multiples—non-recognizables.” Thieves were successful because the field was still wide open. Even with the Art Loss Register, the FBI, and Scotland Yard, law enforcement continued to lag way behind. Criminals were still ten steps ahead of police across the board—they were winning.

  “This is a bigger chess game now,” Paul said. The playing field was the world. A painting could be stolen in Los Angeles or New York and sold to a Russian collector, who would import the work of art into a country where police departments were notoriously corrupt. Paul predicted that art thefts in the United States would spike over the next decade. “For hundreds of years Britain was filling up its closets full of art. Then a lot of that art went across the ocean to North America. It followed the market and the money to the United States. All that loot in one place means that North America is now the target. What used to be a destination for stolen art has now become a source.”

  Paul said that if he had to go back to being a knocker, he’d pick Florida as his base. “All of those old rich people who filled beach mansions with art. C’mon. Perfect!”

  And just like Czegledi, Paul had become a reformer when it came to the business of art. “Across the board, art has to become a transparent business. Prices keep rising, and there are still no regulations in the art trade. Art and art theft are now a huge circular game. The objects don’t change. They get passed around. In most cases their value increases. They outlive us all.”

  In September 2008, the U.S. mortgage crisis erupted into a global meltdown. U.S.-based Lehman Brothers announced it was broke, aig raised its white flag, stock markets around the world tumbled, banks fell into bankruptcy. Even oil prices took a hit. But one corner of the economy seemed bulletproof.

  In mid-month, a two-day auction at Sotheby’s of one artist’s work netted more than $200 million. The auction featured 223 works by British contemporary artist Damien Hirst. A group of international investors gathered in a room in London and bought dead animals preserved in formaldehyde. A zebra in a tank sold for $12 million. Art economist Charles Dupplin remarked in the New York Times, “It’s another landmark and an astounding day for the art market in a year that has seen many long-standing records demolished, despite the gloomy world economy.” A New York dealer commented, “Today people believe more in art than the stock market. At least it’s something you can enjoy.” Paul told me, “See. This will never stop. It’s a great investment.”

  The more I got to know Paul, the more I wondered when he was going to be recognized as an international super-pundit. It was impossible to keep track of all the people with whom Paul was communicating—possibly hundreds of insiders from around the globe. There were thieves, including infamous Canadian jewel thief Daniel Blanchard, who was featured in Wired magazine. Blanchard had stolen a diamond from an Austrian museum, and he’d stolen from hundreds of banks. Paul was a fan of his and emailed me a few pictures Blanchard had forwarded to him, of a woman and dog posing with thousands of dollars of plastic-wrapped Canadian cash. Paul even knew the name and reputation of the Toronto thief I had met in 2003.

  On Art Hostage, Paul’s audience also included the detectives who hunted the thieves. “In the entire world I can count on my hands the detectives who know how to investigate art thefts,” Paul said. “They are all truly eccentric characters. You have to be in order to jump into that kind of work.” Paul felt sorry for the art detectives, often loners who, like him, had a passion for missing artwork but who had few resources to spend and often watched as missing masterpieces slipped past the geographical lines of their jurisdictions and out into the international black market.

  Paul had kept up a relationship with Richard Ellis; they exchanged email on a host of issues and art thefts in Britain. In fact, Paul was connected to a number of police departments in the United Kingdom. He also traded email with FBI agent Robert Wittman, who said he read the Art Hostage blog for “entertainment” value above all else. When Wittman retired, Paul was sad about it. He had followed Wittman’s career closely. As Art Hostage, he wrote some nostalgic posts, hoping Wittman would reconsider, and a few weeks after the agent retired, Paul emailed Wittman asking whether he was still in the game.

  Wittman’s response: “Of course I am still in the game. . . Call or email anytime and let’s unleash hell!” That cheered Paul up.

  About Interpol, Paul was gloomy: “Interpol is totally useless—they gather information but have no jurisdiction to conduct investigations. I call them ‘Interplod.’ There’s no flow of information on the law enforcement side of the equation. Believe me, thieves are laughing all the way to the bank, and most of them aren’t even that smart.”

  Besides thieves and detectives, a growing number of writers, researchers, journalists, and documentary filmmakers were contacting Art Hostage. At one point, Paul sent me an edited trailer for a documentary series that featured him as the host. It was slick, and there were some great scenes of “Turbo Paul” strolling down a street waxing poetic about art theft mysteries. Journalists were also sending him notes, looking for quotes on stories when major thefts occurred. In late 2009, Paul told me that he was in contact with David Samuels about a story Samuels was writing for the New Yorker on the Pink Panthers, the superstars of the organized crime world who had orchestrated spectacular thefts from jewellery stores in London, Tokyo, Dubai, and Monaco. The Pink Panthers were a global outfit, and the international hubs of the super-rich had become their criminal playground. At the end of that piece, Samuels meets with one of the master thieves in the Panthers crew. The thief tells Samuels that if he comes back to Montenegro he might show him “a Cezanne”—as Paul pointed out, he was perhaps referring to the Cézanne that had been stolen in the 2008 Swiss armed robbery.

  In May 2010, five paintings worth more than $160 million vanished in a grand theft from a Paris museum. Then, in early June, Paul sent me an email with a subject line that read, “New York Times Article.” He wrote, “Long time no hear ???? thought you might like this article in the nyt Magazine for tomorrow. How you getting on with the book?” I followed the link to the Times site, to an article by Virginia Heffernan, Samuels’s wife and at that time a columnist for the New York Times Magazine. Her piece was called “Heist School” and featured Art Hostage commenting on the Paris theft and the state of international art theft. Heffernan, it turns out, was a long-time fan of the blog. “Cheers, Turbo Paul, you scare me,” Heffernan wrote, and then a few paragraphs down, “The minute I saw the Paris heist in the news, I knew Turbo Paul would be psyched: traffic to Art Hostage would spike, his brain would rev high and he would get to peddle innuendo and what he presents as underworld intelligence. When news of big heists break, ‘I am at my toxic best,’” Paul had told her.

  I phoned Paul that Sunday. “Hal-loh!” he said, once I said it was me. “Did you read the article in the New! York! Times!”

  “Has traffic to the Art Hostage site spiked?” I asked.

  “The web traffic is up from three hundred hits to three thousand, and America is five hours behind me!” Paul boomed. “It’s gone absolutely berserk!” He then imagined what it must have been like for all the people who despised him to read the piece online. “How much coffee is dripping down flat-screen desktops! They read the New York Times and spat their coffee against their screens, threw their cups of coffee at their laptops in disgust, green with envy. I’m the person everyone hates! They say, ‘Art Hostage, I would never read that filth, that disgusting profanity. I wouldn’t even dignify clicking on a link!’ But they check my site three times a day!”

  Paul also said that he was receiving a parade of emails from people who had previ
ously dismissed or maligned him but who were now congratulating him on the attention. In classic Turbo-style, he said, “Now everyone’s like, ‘Can I suck your cock? Would you like to fuck my sister?’ Suddenly, because of an article in the New York Times, everyone wants to be my friend. At the end of the day, that’s people,” he told me. “Art theft is a small, incestuous world, and people always come back to the same groups, the same affiliations. And I am always lurking there.”

  I asked Paul how he felt about all the media attention focussed on the Paris theft, and about the quality of the analysis in the articles. “Art theft is like herpes,” he responded. “It lays dormant and suddenly it comes back every once in a while, and then everyone notices. But the virus is always there in the spine. As usual, there are those who are saying Dr. Nos don’t exist. The art is too famous to sell? Well, c’mon, a hundred million dollars’ worth of paintings! It’s saleable. The initial thieves always sell them. If you’re an armed robber and sell stolen art for $100,000 on a million, it’s still a good day for you.”

  Did the exposure from the Times article make him want to refine his blog at all, I wondered, based on the attention and the potential for audience growth? Paul laughed. “I’m the same as before. I’ve only got one gear, and that’s turbo. What you see is what you get. No bells and whistles. The blog is about what’s happening, and what I’m thinking. I’m a loose cannon, and no one knows what I’m going to do next,” he told me. “It would have been much nicer to get a PhD. Instead, I got a PhD in knocking. I have no regrets in that respect. With hindsight, we’d all have bought Microsoft shares for two dollars instead of three hundred dollars, right?”

  During our many phone conversations, I never did find out how Paul earned money. As far as I knew, he had no job. Was he living on his savings from his knocking days? Surely the money would be running out. Paul didn’t seem to worry about that. He focussed on his blog, on growing his international network, and on protecting his niche position as the “godfather of information.”