Anatomy of a brazen heist

13 November 2012 - 02:01 By SIPHO MASOMBUKA
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South Africa could be the latest hunting ground for thieves looking for valuable paintings in what has been regarded as a worldwide pandemic following the theft of five paintings worth more than R17.5-million from the Pretoria Art Museum on Sunday.

Three men - one posing as an art teacher and the other two as students - walked away with the precious artworks by internationally acclaimed artists after tying up a staff member and robbing him at gunpoint.

The brazen robbery has prompted the museum to remove all valuable paintings for safekeeping.

Gordon Massie, managing director of art insurance company Art Insure, said this was the first time in Gauteng that thieves used a "European modus operandi" to steal artworks.

There was a similar incident in Cape Town some time ago.

According to Massie, there had been a worldwide increase in the frequency of art theft. South Africa, he said, was also beginning to experience a spike.

"It is a worrying signal . Thethieves knew exactly what they were looking for and they did it swiftly and made a clean getaway ... This is exactly what has been happening in Europe in the past few years," he said.

Massie warned that trustees of the stolen artworks could kiss their chances of recovering them goodbye should they opt to use standard insurance investigators in their recovery pursuit.

"Chances of recovering any artwork are dependent on expertise used in effecting a recovery. There are certain tactics to be used to increase the probability of recovery. So, if the trustees of these works are pursuing recovery using special investigators and the correct networks then the chance is higher. But if they are using normal insurance investigators, then the chances are reduced," he said.

Johannesburg Art Museum chief curator Antoinette Murdoch said the paintings would be impossible to sell locally as they would be recognised as stolen.

"They will probably make their way to Europe or other countries. It is highly unlikely they will be sold locally unless they are sold on the black market, where they will fetch far less than their worth," she said.

Murdoch said South African artworks were fetching good prices on the international market, adding that the recent spate in art thefts could have been sparked by this trend.

The thieves made off with Irma Stern's 1931 masterpiece Fishing Boats valued at R9-million, Gerard Sekoto's R7-million Street Scene, Maggie Laubser's 1936 Cat and Petunias valued at R1-million, Hugo Naudé's Hottentot Chief prized at R300000 - all oils on canvases - as well as JH Pierneef's Eland and Bird valued at R45 000, a Gouache drawing on paper.

Irma Stern's R12-million Twee Maleier Musikante was also targeted but left it behind after it could not fit into the getaway car.

According to Tshwane municipality spokesman Pieter de Necker, the suspects asked for the specific paintings.

He said nothing untoward was suspected as students and art teachers frequented the museum and asked for these paintings.

"They knew exactly what they wanted. They really did their homework," he said.

The museum has three private security guards per shift and CCTV surveillance system which had not been working since last week Thursday and was only fixed yesterday morning.

Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Katlego Mogale yesterday said investigators were following a lead.

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