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Thieves escape by motorboat after royal jewels heist in Sweden
- kevin_b_er 8y agoThey will be sold to a rich "private collector" who will keep them for a few generations then they'll be returned. The "private collector" will likely not have any issues with their moral turpitude.
- acjohnson55 8y agoIf the goal is to convert these artifacts to liquid wealth, the smash-and-grab and getaway are probably the easiest parts.
- Retric 8y agoIt's easy enough to melt them down to revive some value. It's only hard to sell them for their historic vs material value. So, hopefully they already have a buyer lined up.
- GFischer 8y agoI hope. Some valuable historical artifacts have been sadly melted, like the original Jules Rimet trophy.
- cies 8y agoOr destroyed. The Iraq national museum comes to mind.
- zaarn 8y ago"Hey guys, Cody here, today we're going to extract some gold from these royal jewels." If they melt it, I demand the process to be uploaded on youtube to satisfy my curiosity.
- scrumper 8y agoSo logically there is a market. This scheme wasn't opportunistic, it was planned and involved some investment. The perpetrators therefore aren't complete morons; they have surely thought about what they'd do after making their getaway. I would like to know something about this market for stolen unique treasures.
- DmenshunlAnlsis 8y agoIts not hard to imagine some Russian oligarch, Saudi prince, or American billionaire getting off on having these in their private collection.
- cies 8y agoOnce they have 'm they can copy it very well several times and then catapult their profits!
- yellowcherry 8y agoI always assume there's a buyer lined up before these things ever happen. But then, when they stole The Scream a while back they clearly had no exit strategy, so who knows?
- r00fus 8y agoHow do they know they got the original back?
- acjohnson55 8y agoAssuming there are copies, "the original" is the one everything believes to be the original. If the one actually created by Munch is a different one, it's not worth a whole lot if people don't generally believe that to be the case.
- Someone 8y agoNitpick: it is a bit weird to talk of the original or even of the Scream. Munch created four versions, two paintings and two pastels (in addition, about 45 prints of a lithograph were made, a few of which were hand-colored by Munch) It seems we don’t know for sure which is the oldest. One of the paintings and one of the pastels both are from 1893. It’s natural to assume the pastel was a study for the painting, but we don’t know for sure. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream)
- chatmasta 8y agoThis reminds me of the opening scene of The Italian Job (one of my favorite movies), when they drop the safe through the floor into a Venice canal, where they crack it under-water while a decoy motorboat above-water leads police on a wild goose chase.
- arnarbi 8y agoI know it's an oldish movie, but that's really an unnecessary spoiler.
- pathseeker 8y agothe opening scene
- slazaro 8y agoI won't complain about it being a spoiler since the sentence begins by saying that it's from a movie so anybody could stop reading before reaching the description, but it is a spoiler, it's a twist that happens that is spoiled by knowing what happens.
- arnarbi 8y agoYes, it spoils the opening scene. It's a deliberate twist that isn't revealed until several minutes in. Anyways, it doesn't matter and my comment didn't contribute to good HN discussion. Apologies to all.
- discreteevent 8y agoYou should look out for the original Italian Job as well (if you haven't seen it). The mini driving is great (when the mini was in its heydey, winning rallies, left foot braking...)
- jnurmine 8y agoBold but stupid. They have no way to sell these objects. Unless it was made-to-order, the thieves are out of luck with monetization. While the objects will likely be found, the saddest thing is that they will also likely be damaged when handled by a bunch of careless people. The objects are several hundreds of years old and are not made to be handled roughly. For example the Västerås objects were apparently dumped from a car and this left its marks. I'm hoping these will be returned. I also hope the Svenska kyrkan starts to take better pre-emptive care of storing these culturally important objects.
- oh_sigh 8y agoWhy sell when you could just return them for a 'finders fee'? Send a demand into the authorities(with proof of possession of the artefacts) for $Xm in some crypto currency with good anonymity like monero or zcash. Once you receive the transaction, go leave the artefacts in the woods some where and then give the authorities the GPS coordinates.
- newswriter99 8y ago>go leave the artefacts in the woods some where and then give the authorities the GPS coordinates. Or don't. Who's going to stop you after you get the money? You still have the jewels you can still sell them, or put them in your own private collection. That's why police don't usually comply with criminal demands for ransom; criminals don't obey the law in the first place, why would they be expected to hold up their end of a deal?
- cies 8y agoOr sell bit-by-bit. With 50% before and 50% after the good are "delivered". Thereby building some level of trust and allowing the buyer not to take too much risk at once.
- oh_sigh 8y agoIf there really isn't a market, then keeping them could only bring trouble if you're ever found with them. Maybe you really do care about the cultural value of them, but also want to get rich in the meanwhile.
- mongol 8y agoI want to know under whose responsibility they were when this happened. Because it should not be as easy as just smashing some glass to get to them, this feels like negligence.
- beerlord 8y agoThe men were described as 'non-Nordic' https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl6K-ZalOGC/?hl=sv&taken-by=survivethejive https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl6K-ZalOGC/?hl=sv&taken-by=surv... In 2012 a 19-year old Somali migrant was invited to live in the Swedish royal palace. He proceeded to steal $120,000 worth of jewellery, selling pieces to drug dealers. http://www.thecourtjeweller.com/2018/02/princess-christinas-diamond-and-pearl.html http://www.thecourtjeweller.com/2018/02/princess-christinas-...
- obmelvin 8y agoWhy is this relevant? edit: sorry if I was feeding a troll. I've had a long day and really couldn't tell if I was just missing the connection to GP's question
- dokem 8y agoI hope they get away with it. Knowing that the royal jewels were successfully stolen is more interesting than looking at them behind some glass for 15 seconds.
- marmshallow 8y agoThis mentality does not scale
- rafael859 8y agoUnrelated, but I think that this short phrase is a very good summary of Kantian ethics :)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- lomnakkus 8y agoThat seems... short-sighted. There's a huge amount of 'interesting' things one can do which are illegal, immoral, depraved and worse. (I'd argue that stealing is generally at the very least illegal and immoral, but opinion may vary depending on who the 'injured' party is.)
- overcast 8y agoSo instead hidden away in some private stash, where no one will ever see them.
- cgag 8y agoAgreed. Its interesting and hilarious.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoIs "interesting" your #1 measure for the value of an action? That seems problematic. 9/11 was interesting as hell--we're still talking about it and retelling the stories.
- 8y ago
- mongol 8y agoThere was a similar heist of Renoir and Rembrandt paintings from Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, where the thieves fled by boat too. Eventually they were found because they bought the boat the day before and the seller could lead the police to the suspects!
- ape4 8y agoWhy does that guy with perfect English have subtitles?
- notadoc 8y agoThere's a curious habit in US media to put subtitles on anyone with an accent. I would like to think it's to make video easier to watch without sound, or for the deaf, but I don't think that's the reason.
- mjevans 8y agoIt's for people like my parents who have a difficult time with some accents. It's just easier to subtitle it if there's any risk of it being unclear.
- omginternets 8y ago>There's a curious habit in US media to put subtitles on anyone with an accent. Which is ironic because there are plenty of Americans with undecipherable accents!
- monadgonad 8y agoThis is not US media.
- biggc 8y agoSo that the video is accessible to people who are hard of hearing?
- lomnakkus 8y agoFor the hard of hearing, non-native speakers who are used to subtitles from non-dubbed movies, etc. etc. I suppose. I do know that, as a non-native English speaker, I've always appreciated having English subtitles for English-speaking films. It helps immensely if you miss a word, there's a little too much mumbling, or whatever. One of the best (in both ways) examples being the movie Snatch.
- pathseeker 8y ago
- johnohara 8y agoThe perpetrators of Tuesday’s heist risk up to six years in prison for aggravated theft. Nobody hurt. No weapons seen. One witness describing a white motor boat -- which narrows it down dramatically. I guess all you can do is wait for a mistake of some kind.
- pwaai 8y agoI know stealing is morally wrong but I can't help but admire the audacity and the success in the backdrop of a kleptomaniac economy that forces neo-liberalist free market ideals on other developing economies while practicing protectionism. It's like waking up to find out the credit card interest rate fee was literally pulled out of the ass of a banker who bribed the people in charge entrusted by "democratic vote" purchased with high end transexual escorts and expensive sushi flown over from Tokyo. Or how about the fact that European economy was largely the result of usurpation, larceny, and deception upon naive colonial subjects? Sweden out of all countries, I find it to be highly ironic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNLFPLe1tzI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNLFPLe1tzI
- sexydefinesher 8y agoSweden would basically be a third world country if it wasn't for resource extraction in England and Kievan Rus.
- dang 8y agoPlease don't post political rants here, whatever the politics. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- pvaldes 8y agoHum... I'm wondering if the police could trace a motorboat path, at least partially, studying the dislodged sediment, If you scan the bottom and find a fresh groove you could try to build a vector at least. If the trace is missing in some shallower canals, maybe they could refine the search.
- kpil 8y agoUh, lake Mälaren is 440 sq mi and up to 200 ft deep. It's one of the largest lakes in Europe. 5th if ignoring Russia. They get so much news anyway.
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoWhat’s amazing to me is that the thieves face up to six years in prison for this. I feel like in the US it would be 30 years! Note that I don’t actually know, six years just struck me as short.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoStealing the crown jewels probably counts as lese majeste. That used to be a death penalty offense.
- vidarh 8y agoIt's not the crown jewels. It's a set of "royal jewels" that were crown jewels for a past king. They're not the crown jewels that are in use by the current royal family.
- foobarian 8y ago> I feel like in the US it would be 30 years! Assuming the SWAT team does not accidentally shoot them down.
- kpil 8y agoThe general idea in Sweden used to be that en criminals should become rehabilitated, rather than punished. The crime rate is much lower than US, but I doubt it's related to the relatively lenient sentences. Right now it seems to attract burglars from our eastern neighbours more than anything else, since they risk 3-4 month in jail compared to up to 10 years... I also doubt that many people gets "rehabilitated" in Swedish prisons - probably higher risk they are recruited to ISIS. I think the trend is that you either never do another crime again, or you continue until you either die or get old. Because of that, I would personally like to see much harsher punishments for crimes that involves physical violence (or threats thereof) and especially repeated offences - which is more or less not considered at all in Sweden, just to get rid of the criminals from the streets for longer periods, and also stop the recruiting into the growing number of criminal gangs.
- 8y ago
- coldtea 8y agoLike when one's watching the eponymous genre of movies, I always want people that made some (non violent) heist to make it uncaught. Doubly so if they stole from royalty...
- c3534l 8y agoThey didn't steal from royalty, they stole from a church that had them displayed.
- locrelite 8y agoGeorge Clooney doesn't exactly phone it in, but we've seen this Act 1 before, and the plot eventually, and mercifully, ends on an unlikely emotional beat that neither satisfies nor offends his uncritical fans. 4/10.
- kypro 8y agoUnrelated, but eye witness here has a really interesting YT channel covering European history, it's worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/user/ThomasRowsell https://www.youtube.com/user/ThomasRowsell