In Latest in String of High-Profile Art Heists, Thieves Make Off With Two Paintings From Renoir Museum

Officials in France say two paintings by French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir are missing after thieves broke into the Renoir Museum at Cagnes-sur-Mer, marking the latest high-profile theft in a string of burglaries since the robbery at the Louvre last year.The mayor of Cagnes-sur-Mer, Bryan Masson, said two thieves broke into the Renoir Museum on Tuesday morning and tried to steal four paintings, but dropped two of them. The duo made off with the Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano and Jeune fille au puits, both of which are worth around $10 million. Mr. Masson said the museum’s alarm went off at 5:48 a.m. local time and that police arrived within five minutes. He described the thieves as “well-equipped” and “well-informed,” saying they were wearing “helmets, gloves, and combat gear.”The Renoir theft comes nearly a year after a brazen heist of $102 million in jewels from the Louvre at Paris, when thieves were caught on camera fleeing from the museum in broad daylight using a cherry picker. That heist led to scrutiny of the Louvre’s security measures. The president of the Louvre, Laurence des Cars, told a French Senate committee last year that the museum’s alarms and cameras worked. However, he said there was a “weakness” in the institution’s perimeter security. Mr. des Cars admitted that there was a “terrible failure” at the Louvre, despite insisting that the security system at the Apollo Gallery — where the heist occurred — worked “perfectly.” A museum employee told ABC News that the password for the museum’s surveillance system was “Louvre.”As of July, five people have been charged in connection with the theft. However, investigators had not recovered most of the jewels.In the year since the Louvre, there has been an uptick in high-profile museum robberies. In March, masked burglars broke into the Magnani Rocca Foundation, near Parma, Italy, and stole three paintings by Renoir, Paul Cezanne, and Henri Matisse. Last month, Italian law enforcement officials recovered the three paintings. And in July, a group of masked burglars broke into the Musée Lalique at Wingen-sur-Moder in northeastern France and stole around roughly 20 pieces of jewelry, valued at more than $4.5 million. European law enforcement officials are warning that thieves are using more aggressive tactics in their thefts. Mr. Masson told reporters on Tuesday that the robbery at the Renoir Museum “should serve as a warning about the protection of our museums, which now face a new form of organized crime targeting works of art.” The European Union’s law enforcement agency, Europol, noted in a report last month that museum heists have typically been seen as non-violent acts of crime but there has been a shift “towards violent and forceful methods,” which could signal that there are new criminal networks behind the robberies.“Unlike typical cultural goods traffickers, who usually avoid violence and specialise in organised property crime or the theft of cultural goods, these individuals often have histories of involvement in other types of crime,” the report said. “Additionally, some thieves apprehended in recent cases appear to coordinate their efforts on an ad hoc basis, often recruited locally through social media and instant communication channels, without prior connections to each other.”Europol said there is “still an intelligence gap’ but it is possible the thieves are being “randomly recruited on a crime-as-a-service basis.”

In Latest in String of High-Profile Art Heists, Thieves Make Off With Two Paintings From Renoir Museum

In Latest in String of High-Profile Art Heists, Thieves Make Off With Two Paintings From Renoir Museum

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