Frankfurt art theft (1994)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shade and Darkness by J. M. W. Turner, 1843

Three famous paintings were stolen from a Frankfurt art gallery in 1994. This case of art theft is unique in that the paintings were recovered by buying them back from the thieves; the people responsible for the theft were never brought to justice.

The theft took place on 28 July 1994 in the Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt. The stolen paintings were Light and Colour and Shade and Darkness, a sequence by J. M. W. Turner and on loan from the Tate Gallery in London, and Nebelschwaden by Caspar David Friedrich, on loan from the Kunsthalle Hamburg. Two of the thieves were apprehended quickly, but they would not volunteer information about the people who ordered the theft and police were unable to recover the paintings. Insurance companies paid about 40 million Euros to the paintings' owners.

Light and Colour by J. M. W. Turner, 1843

The central suspect, a major figure of the Yugoslavian Mafia in Frankfurt known as "Stevo", tried to sell the paintings to an underworld figure of Marbella. The two could not agree on a price, and undercover agents from the German police then joined the negotiations in 1995. A new deal for purchase of the paintings was set up, but it died in the last minute when Stevo's negotiator demanded a doubling of the advance payment. Stevo was arrested, but the evidence was deemed insufficient for prosecution; he was represented by the attorney Edgar Liebrucks who had defended several Mafia figures before. The German prosecutors then all but gave up on the case.

In 1998, the Tate Gallery paid 8 million pounds to the insurance company Hiscox in return for ownership of the paintings, should they ever resurface. Tate had previously received 24 million pounds from the insurance company as compensation for the loss. Sir Nicholas Serota, director of Tate, after having received green light from his supervisory board and justice officials, went ahead with a secret plan to buy back the paintings, known as "Operation Cobalt". An undercover agent from Scotland Yard contacted Edgar Liebrucks, and in late 1999 the lawyer began to negotiate with the Mafia on behalf of Tate. The two sides agreed on a purchase price of 5 million Deutsche Marks per painting. Stevo again increased the demanded advance payment from 1 million to 2 million Marks, and Liebbrucks took out a personal loan to cover this payment. The deal for the first painting went through, Liebrucks received about 320,000 Euros as compensation by Tate, and Shade and Darkness returned to London in July 2000. Further negotiations then halted; Stevo apparently had lost interest.

Nebelschwaden by Caspar David Friedrich, ca. 1820

In Fall 2002 two men contacted Liebrucks; they indicated that they had possession of the two remaining paintings and were willing to sell. Apparently, Stevo had stored the paintings with them, and possibly they were now acting on their own behalf, trying to hoodwink Stevo. The Tate Gallery then bought the remaining Turner painting for 2 million Euros; it returned to London around Christmas 2002. The two men took a six month vacation in Cuba.

Considering that the Tate Gallery received more from the insurers than it paid to the thieves, it profited to the tune of some 20 million Euros. Responding to a BBC documentary on the case, officials of the Tate Gallery insisted that all payments were cleared ahead of times with German and British authorities, and the millions were not paid to criminals as ransom, but for "information that lead to the recovery of the paintings".

The Kunsthalle Hamburg then authorized Liebrucks to recover the Friedrich painting. When the two men returned from their vacation, Liebbrucks was able to lower the price from initially 1.5 million Euros to 250,000 Euros. Confident that he would be recompensated later, the lawyer paid with his own money and returned the painting in August 2003 to the Kunsthalle. The two men left for Brazil. When the Kunsthalle refused to pay Liebrucks, he sued in 2005 and prevailed in June 2006, receiving the 250,000 Euros plus a fee of 20,000 Euros.