In the 1962 film, "Dr No", James Bond spots the actually stolen "Portrait of the Duke of Wellington" by Francisco Goya in Dr. No’s lair.

A question ARCA get's asked often is whether works of art stolen from museums end up with wealthy private collectors for their hidden lairs.

When journalists raise the idea of a “theft-to-order” commissioned by an elusive connoisseur who purchases stolen works to display in secrecy has persisted in popular imagination for decades.  Yet, in practice, this trope has little grounding in criminological reality.  As in many forms of property crime, museum theft is less often the result of grand conspiracy involving a “Dr. No” type figure, than it is about  opportunism and the exploitation of institutional vulnerabilities.  In truth, the motivations and personalities who make up the actors involved in art crime are far more complex, and have little to do with the Hollywood myth. 

Impulsive Crimes of Opportunity

Take, for example, the case of Kempton Bunton, a retired British bus driver, who confessed to stealing Francisco Goya’s Portrait of the Duke of Wellington from London’s National Gallery in 1961. Bunton wasn’t wealthy, nor was he a criminal mastermind.  He was a disgruntled pensioner who objected to public money being spent on expensive art while the poor had to pay for a TV tax, for watching the telly in their home.  The painting spent weeks not in a villain’s lair or secret vault, but behind a wardrobe in Bunton’s modest Newcastle council flat. That incident also made it to the big screen, in a film aptly titles "the Duke,  staring Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren. 

By contrast, some thefts do arise from explicit financial arrangements.

There are, however, the occasional, 

One infamous "if-you-steal-it-I-will-buy-it" arrangement is the 2010 Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris heist, carried out by French burglar Vjéran Tomic, nicknamed “Spider-Man” for his acrobatic rooftop exploits.  After methodical planning, he broke into the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris under the cover of darkness, gaining entry by manipulating window screws over several nights using acid.  He then entered through the window, sidestepped defective alarms, and absconded with five masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Amedeo Modigliani, and Joseph Fernand Henri Léger, estimated to be worth over €100 million. 

But Tomic did not act alone in the museum burglary: Jean Michel Corvez, a Parisian art dealer, is believed to have commissioned, or minimally financially incentivised,  the heist.  Corvez provided Tomic with a target list of artists desired by his clients, one of them being a Léger.  Corvez then offered the cat burglar payment once the works had been stolen. 

After the burglary, the paintings passed through a third accomplice, watchmaker Yonathan Birn, who was tasked with storing them, who later claimed to have destroyed them in panic. In February 2017 the trio were convicted.  Tomic received eight years; Corvez seven years, and Birn six. 

This case demonstrates how traditional property crime can intersect with art-market demand structures, transforming theft into a form of illicit commission.

Art crime also intersects with organised criminal economies, where artworks function as negotiable assets.

Right now there is an enormous drug trafficking trial underway in Belgium involving the alleged cocaine kingpin Flor Bressers, nick-named "the finger cutter" who over encrypted messages, told fellow criminals that he purchased the painting "Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer" by Frans Hals (worth millions) for €550,000 in September 2020, hoping to use it's return as a bartering tool with the authorities to keep then-girlfriend out of jail were they to be caught.   That painting was stolen, (for the third time in a span of thirty-five years,) by an enterprising thief from the Hofje Van Aerden museum.  That thief, Nils Menara, was sentenced to eight years in prison for the the theft of the Hal's painting as well as the theft of Vincent Van Gogh's  The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring.   Only the Van Gogh has been recovered. 

Earlier, drug trafficking kingpin and Camorra's affiliate Raffaele Imperiale, once one of Italy's most-wanted fugitives, bought two stolen paintings by Vincent Van Gogh taken from the Van Gogh Museum in 2002.  Both were later recovered after the convicted organised crime figure told the authorities were the paintings were. 

Such cases highlight how the symbolic and financial value of art can converge with individuals involved in large transnational organised crime circuits, where cultural property becomes a form of collateral or currency for underworld actors.

Even militias have found stolen art useful.