I read an article called "10 impressive Art Heists"(ok it was in How Stuff Works, but it was about art so don't judge me).
For example, number 1 was about a guy who worked in the Louve, hid in a closet, and stole the Mona Lisa. A simple, easy, no force or trouble heist. He was caught, but his excuse was that he was returning it to Italy.
Number 10 was about a few guys who tunneled into the National Fine Arts Museum in Paraguay and stole paintings by Coubert and Piots. These clever thieves were never caught.
What is the purpose of this article, I wondered? Was it to encourage an academic life of figuring out the statistics and odds of locating famous works of art and then figuring out a full proof way to steal them? Perhaps it was about crime sometimes pays? Or is it crime does not pay, unless it does, but it should not?
Whatever the moral of the article is (if there is a moral) it is a fun article that inspires script writing ideas about art and intrigue.
"Does Crime Pay?" The very title shows just how widespread this idea is, and not just about art. In my opinion, assuming you don't get caught, crime does pay. (That's a pretty big assumption this day and age, but I digress.) That doesn't make it right, but it doesn't change the facts. Illegal trades are extremely profitable. Prohibition is an excellent historical example of this; alcohol consumption actually increased during the period when the substance was outlawed. What's more, the price of liquor rose, as the substance was illegal; in short, prohibition did anybody involved in the brewing or sale of alcohol a huge favor, financially speaking. I feel as though people don't really care as much about something as long as they can have it, but once it's taken away, everybody suddenly cares. Take the Woman's Suffrage movement of the early twentieth century - women petitioned for the right to vote en masse. Now that women have the right to vote, less than half of all women actually go to the polls to let their voice be heard. But if the Nineteenth Amendment were to be repealed, it wouldn't just be the voting half of women that went out to protest. Say gun control was to be completely established - by my logic, the sale of firearms would only become more profitable. So, yes, I think that crime can pay.
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