A Brief History of Art Theft

For centuries, the art market has operated on a sense of trust, and a business-on-a-handshake model. This was never ideal, and now, more and more criminals are exploiting one of the last unregulated multi-million dollar industries. Art theft has evolved into an efficient international black market, and those spectacular Hollywood-worthy thefts from major museums, glamorized in films, can be a diversion from the larger story a chance to celebrate a seductive myth rather than explore the reality of the crime.