A wave of museum thefts is exposing the vulnerabilities of institutions struggling to protect irreplaceable collections after year...

A wave of museum thefts is exposing the vulnerabilities of institutions struggling to protect irreplaceable collections after years of underfunding. Two thieves broke into the Renoir Museum in southern France and seized two paintings in under five minutes. Earlier this year, three paintings by Renoir, Cézanne, and Matisse and four priceless Renaissance works were stolen from two museums in Italy. The thefts are only the most recent in a series of museum robberies across Europe over the past year, following the brazen daytime jewelry heist at the Louvre in Paris. In a new report last month, Europol warned that museum robberies were becoming “almost a weekly occurrence,” with offenders increasingly employing violent and forceful methods. But a succession of spectacular thefts can create the impression of an escalating trend without necessarily proving one, and Europol’s report does not provide the data needed to establish a long-term increase. According to Donna Yates, UNESCO Chair in Cultural Heritage and Emerging Crime at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, there has been little systematic research comparing the frequency, targets, methods, and perpetrators of these crimes. There has also been speculation that the Louvre heist inspired a chain of copycat robberies, or that some of the thefts were commissioned or motivated by insurance payouts. There is little evidence yet to establish either explanation. https://lnkd.in/gguJs_Bn