Reading 2

Unit 8- Reading 2

Page

A bold thief

Police can solve many crimes by using science. For instance. they might find evidence such as fingerprints where the crime happened. If the fingerprints match prints in a computer file.

the police can identify the criminal. The police can also look at pictures made by security cameras. The pictures might show who committed the crime. But sometimes there is no evidence to help the police solve the crime. This happened in one of the biggest art crimes of all time.

Stephane Breitwieser loved art. He loved art so much that he stole valuable pieces of art while he was traveling in Europe. However. Breitwieser did not want to sell the stolen art for money. He wanted to add the items to his collection.

HOW IT STARTED

His initial theft was in 1995.

He was 24 years old. He and a friend were visiting an ancient castle in Germany when he saw a beautiful painting. He wanted it. While his friend watched for security guards. Breitwieser removed the painting from the frame. He hid the painting inside his jacket and left the castle.

Four months later, he stole an ancient weapon from a small museum.

He decided to keep his collection of art at his mother’s house in France. Over the next six years. Breitwieser committed his life to increasing his collection. But he did not steal from large museums. Most of them had complex security systems that were able to notice thefts.

Instead, he went to small museums and displays that had few visitors. Such places were not likely to have cameras taking pictures of visitors. They were not likely to have many security guards.

In 2001, he was seen stealing a 500-year-old musical instrument in Switzerland. A security guard saw Breitwieser run from the museum with it. Two days later Breitwieser returned to the same museum.

The same guard saw Breitwieser. He called the police and Breitwieser was arrested.

Soon Breitwieser’s mother heard of the arrest. Her initial reaction was to help her son. To help him, she destroyed many of the artworks in his collection. She cut up some paintings and put them into her kitchen garbage disposal.

She chopped up other paintings and threw the pieces into a garbage can. A city garbage man emptied the garbage can the next day. She tossed objects such as weapons and sculptures into a nearby river. When the police came to search her house, they could not find any evidence of the missing art works.

HOW IT ENDED

Breitwieser stole 239 art works from over 170 museums and displays.

Together the artworks were worth about $1.4 billion. However, police had no evidence that he stole any of them. The stolen art was not at his house, and it was not at his mother’s house. Under the circumstances, they could not arrest him. A few months later, some of the missing art objects were found near the river where Breitwieser’s mother had tossed them.

When the police searched the water, they found almost 100 more. The police issued an order for Breitwieser’s arrest. He confessed that he had committed the thefts. He faced trial in a court of law and was sent to prison for three years. His mother and his friend were also sent to prison.