24 points ohjeez 3 days ago 9 comments
john_strinlai 1 hour ago | parent
it seems crazy to me to steal a famous painting from a museum. the number of people willing to purchase a black market painting worth ~$millions is probably like a dozen, and the transaction would be super high risk. so many easier crimes to commit.
tonyedgecombe 53 minutes ago | parent
For a while members of the mafia we’re stealing them to trade against their sentence if they got caught for some other crime.
SoftTalker 6 minutes ago | parent
Admit to additional crimes in exchange for a lighter sentence? How does that work?
goodcanadian 1 minute ago | parent
I doubt they admit to anything, but having some information that helps lead to the recovery of a valuable item could be worth something. To be honest, this is the first I have heard of the practice, but it sounds plausible to me.
DASD 58 seconds ago | parent
Crime gravity. If able to provide the solution to a crime that is considered more serious.
dennyabraham 5 minutes ago | parent
The numbers are higher than you'd expect. The trade in illegal (and so high rarity and limited access) goods is ongoing and flourishing via the use of third party intermediaries like free port systems [1] as well as networks of morally grey curatorial and preservation staff. Several notable archaeological "missing links" of the past few years came from said staff mediating access to private collections of undescribed provenance.
[1] https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2015/07/01/experts-identify-...