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Mona Lisa heist of 1911 concealed a perfect—and far more lucrative—crime
- aresant 17y agoJust spent 10 mins reading, good story but abridged version: - An Italian Louvre worker, Vincenzo Perugia, stole the Mona Lisa, claiming his motivation was that the French had stolen works from Italy. - Years later he attempted to give it back but claim a reward. He changed his story a few times about how he stole it. - The revelation of the larger crime was that a slick con-man claimed he helped Vincenzo steal the work for the purpose of selling credible fakes to a handful of American millionaires since it was widely reported that the original was stolen.
- known 17y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincenzo_Peruggia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincenzo_Peruggia
- rthomas6 17y agoThis is like some kind of real-life Ocean's Eleven.
- arch_hunter 17y agoThere was a British TV series that I watched some of a while back about a group of con artists (sorry, I can not remember the name right now). Several of the episodes had this same plot: the group of con artists would steal some valuable antique, and then sell forgaries of it, before returning it as part of a plea bargan.
- KC8ZKF 17y agoHustle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustle_(TV_series) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustle_(TV_series)
- mattm 17y agoWow, what a great story! I'm surprised the thief only served seven months in jail. I can't imagine it being that lenient today.
- reitzensteinm 17y agoI was half expecting some crazy penalty like life imprisonment or death. Made me realise how out of touch I am with early 19th century Europe!
- graywh 17y ago20th century
- reitzensteinm 17y agoOK that's embarrassing!
- barmstrong 17y agoYep, well also...it was a victimless crime. No one was physically harmed. Or maybe they give leniency for the "dude - you have balls of steel" factor...
- CamperBob 17y agoThings would've gone a bit harder for him if he'd been extradited to France, I suspect. In Italy, he could play up the Ollie North angle ("I'm a patriot, dammit!")
- someperson 17y agoIt makes me feel uncomfortable that sentences for crimes are orders of magnitude different depending on where you are being tried. I guess different communities have different weightings on certain crimes.
- 17y ago
- jac_no_k 17y agoInteresting story. Valfierno had a very effective PR and insight into the market. He would have made an effective head of PR or Sale.
- dhs 17y agoProbably selling CDOs.
- RobertL 17y agoAnd the moral of this story is that art collectors are people with too much money and too little intelligence.
- thedjpetersen 17y agoIts funny how different this story could have been told, if the plumber hadn't come by.
- pingou 17y agoWhat's interesting is that there are people willing to pay millions to have a piece of art that they can't show to anybody or brag about it. I guess these people are true art lovers.
- gamble 17y agoThe story is entertaining, but the con-man angle tacked at the end is highly dubious. Even if there was reason to believe that Valfierno even existed, its hard to swallow a century-old third-hand tale from an admitted con-man without a shred of evidence. Moreover, there's nothing about his story that explains the theft and plenty that contradicts known details. Sometimes lone nuts really do commit crimes beyond their stature.