Art thieves strike the Renoir Museum in an early morning heist

0:00There's been yet another heist at a museum in France. Early this morning, two thieves broken to the former villa of the artist Pierre Auguste Renoir, is now a museum. The thieves made off with four paintings, but they dropped two of them in the museum's gardens as they fled from arriving police. Here with details about what happened, and to explain why these high-profile thefts keep happening in Europe is reporter Rebecca Rossmann. She joins us from London. Hi, Rebecca. Hi. So tell us what you know at this point about what happened. So we know that just before dawn, two thieves they cut their way through offense, and quickly ran into the museum, grabbed four paintings, and here's the town's mayor, Brian Musselm, speaking of French media shortly after the heist. At 5.48 a.m., a commando, well equipped and well-relemeded, so he describes the thieves as being, quote, well-equipped and well-informed. And he also said that the police did arrive at the scene within five minutes of the museum's security alarms going off,

1:02and that did make a difference. What paintings did they make off with? So they made off with two paintings. One of them is called the Young Woman at the Well. The other is called Portrait of Madame Colona Romano, and they were both painted during France's Bel-Epoc era, which is around the late 19th and early 20th century. Any sense, Rebecca, of what those stolen pieces could be worth? France's culture minister did give an estimate for the four pieces taken off the walls at around nine million euros, so that's about $10.5 million. You could say the value is at least half of that for those that are still missing, because remember they left two in the garden as they were making their getaway. And I'd imagine there was also some damage to the two pieces that they left behind. You know, the puzzle of these high-profile thefts is that it is difficult, presumably, for these thieves to turn around and sell them, because authorities are already on the lookout for these specific works of art. So what about that aspect? Yes, that's a very good point. So with a lot of these highs,

2:03the thieves steal things like gold and silver coins or jewelry, because those are pretty easy to hide on the black market. The gold and the silver gets melted down. The jewels are pride apart and sold for parts. But with paintings, it's different. You'd think no one would want to touch them. They're almost radioactive, right? But then I was reminded of an interview I did earlier this year with Arthur Brand. He's a Dutch architect who helps recover stolen objects. And he told me these pieces are actually quite valuable to certain criminal gangs, because they use the stolen paintings as bargaining chips. Brand gave me this scenario where he presented himself as a mafia boss, who secretly owns a pair of stolen van Goghs. Then let's say he gets arrested on something serious, like drug trafficking. And then when they want to give me 20 years, I can say, look, I have two stolen van Goghs, which is world heritage. Why don't we cut my centers in half? I will give them back.

3:04So it's a little bit of blackmail. I saw some negotiating leverage. Exactly negotiating leverage. And I should say, you know, not all countries allow these types of deals. The Netherlands does not. But Italy does. Can't say who was behind this one wire high store, what the motivation was, but it's something to keep in mind. Do authorities have any theories on why this keeps happening? So one thing I've been told is that people have actually been inspired by other recent successful highs. There have been at least 10 major art highs in the last year alone. And Europe, the EU police agency, says there has definitely been a rise in these types of crimes. Criminals have picked up on the various lapses and shortcomings of museum security. And they see an opportunity to make a buck. I mean, a big buck, right? The Louvre jewels that were stolen last year were valued at over $100 million. What if anything is the French government or European authorities doing to try to prevent these sorts of thefts from continuing to happen?

4:04So I can say that the Louvre Museum quickly announced a new security plan after last year's heist. And the plans worth $92 million. That includes adding around 100 new security cameras, anti-intrusions systems, and anti-raming systems to prevent people from being able to enter the building. So France's culture ministry also published a plan in July to address these types of robberies. And that plan included several dozen measures from mapping out the most vulnerable sites to recruiting specialized police forces at museums and hiring extra security for particularly high-value works. That is reporter Rebecca Rosman and London. Rebecca, thank you. Thank you.