February 13, 2025 • 55 mins
Listen, we all love art. But this dude LOVES art. So much so that he steals it and never lets go. His mom, though, isn't afraid of turning some loose. It's like they say: if you love something, set it free…into a canal.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Zaren Elizabeth Zaren.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Hey, Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey listen. How are you
doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm doing pretty well. Don't I look great?
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Look amazing?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I mean, I got my my Mark Twain wig on,
my fake mustache. I feel good. The white creak. This
is actually just a hoodie.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
A one giant onesie.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
That amazing. I alreadered this online.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
So Mark Twain hoodie. You know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Yes, I do out Mark Twain hoodie.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I do, Elizabeth, I do. I was gonna tell you,
but you tell me. I know one a friend of
mine when I was a younger man was a bass player.
It's probably still is. And he was in a band
with an actor named Letto, mister Letto, Jared Letto, right,
and then he was like, oh, I think thirty seconds
to march right, And so I was like, oh, that's
(00:51):
that sucks for you, man. I'm sorry to hear that.
How was I was a jerk? I say, anyway, but
now I laugh because he left the band. He did
other stuff, and I'm happy for him and everything else,
but Jared leto is, Now, I didn't know this he's
got like a cult.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
I was gonna say, he's like a cult leader.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
He hosts Mars Islands. They're called Mars Island, and so
he has this fan events and he has these fans
come out to these islands, private islands, because you got
to do this kind of stuff on a private islands.
You know, you can't do this anywhere. They have like
legal structures, and it's gotta be somewhere. It's like, i'd
like to see you are allowed to hook people. So
(01:29):
the fans, though, they pay for these immersive experiences, right,
and they go and they hang out with Jared Leto
and uh yeah, the whole band apparently is there, and
they've really leaned into it and said like, oh yeah,
we're totally a cult, Like yeah, cute we and uh yeah,
so isn't that fun? Jared's the cult and everyone's like
teasing about it. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous, and they all
(01:49):
wear white and everything.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Can send us there and then we can like do
a show, record a show.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I would love to And he's be like, this is
a ridiculous crime waiting to happen. He hasn't got a
show yet from the crime perfect. There you go.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Okay, right up a proposal. In the meantime, I'm going
to tell you what else is ridiculous? Please stealing because
it makes your privates tingle. This is a ridiculous crime.
(02:39):
A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers heists cons it's
always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Period period.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Okay, you just told us about some naked people in France.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I did. Freak Daddy's totally my friends in France.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I've got a mildly freak daddy French guy. It's like,
what freaky France sweek?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Why do we keep doing this vulcan mind meld?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
You know what?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Because we do not tell each other anything. What we're
going to do is we like to surprise each other.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
And then you're telling me the story. I'm like, oh, brother, listens,
wow freak France. Yeah, okay, So you know that art
heist are my comfort zone.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yes, I do know that. I know that if I
could give you one as a gift, I.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Will thank you because you know, sometimes, like most of
the time, no one gets hurt. Usually the thief is
usually ripping off some wealthy fat cat like money launderers. Anyways,
you know.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
There's some level of exploitation that got the art inter right.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
So what do I care if you can con or
rob a billionaire? I say, do it, and do it now.
Just don't tell me over again. They deserve it, even
Mark Cuban deserves it. Sometimes. I don't think people have
a grasp of how much a billion dollars is a lot. Like, Okay,
(03:57):
if you're trying to save a billion dollars and you're
able to say your money at like a rate of
one hundred dollars a.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Day, okay, one hundred dollars a day, yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
One billion divided by one hundred, So the dollars saved
per day is ten million days. Okay, ten million days
divided by three hundred and sixty five. That's the days
per year. Equals twenty seven thousand, three hundred ninety seven
point two six years to reach one billion dollars of years,
twenty seven thousand years years to reach a billion. And
(04:27):
like you, obviously you would never.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I'd probably get that in your life, Roberty.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Day, but neither would your children, grandchildren or great grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
You might sneak in a couple of Egyptian dynasties.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
So you could if you and one descendant per generation
saved one hundred dollars every day, and each of you
lived for ninety years, it would take you and three
hundred and four generations of your descendants to save up
one billion dollars a lot. A million seconds is eleven days,
one billion seconds is thirty one and a half years.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
I feel like I'm buried in numbers. Oh my, got it. Everywhere?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
A billion is one thousand million. So if I if
I spend one hundred thousand dollars a day, it would
only take me ten days to waste a million dollars.
If I spent one hundred thousand dollars a day, it
would take me twenty seven years to waste one billion dollars.
It's a lot of time, right, It's more than any
human being and their family could spend for one billion.
(05:24):
Now think about those with multiple billions. I got to
be dropping hundreds of billions.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
They're dropping millions a day just to even it shouldn't.
And then also, my money's making more money before I
can even spend it all exactly how I'm now in
Mackenzie Scott.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah, she can't get rid of it fast enough. We
should feel free to steal whatever we want from them
because it makes no difference. So say I, anyway, art
you're here, So I've told you so many art theft
all exactly when I when I saw this story, I
thought maybe I'd already shared it with you.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Get that excited it?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Well, it has all I was like, I feel like
I might have already. It has all the elements, right.
So it's a little bit different, and it lines up
more with one of our other criminals, the book thief
guy John Charles Gilkey. So he was different for a
lot of reasons. Modesto California storage facilities notwithstanding, sure, the
(06:17):
main thing is that he never sold what he stole,
like he cherished the books collected, built this library. He
was an appreciator. And that's the kind of art thief
I have for you today.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
I appreciate him.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
This guy never sold what he stole. He was gentle
with the art. He loved it. He wanted to surround
himself with beautiful things. Dateline, I'll says France, eighteen seventy one.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Nice. So that was when a boy child was born.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Stiff on GM funds leak it should be bright Weissa,
but Brightweiser. I'll just I'll dumb it down, sure, stiff
On Breitweiser. So his dad was high up in management
at a department store chain. Mom, pediatric nurse. They have
three docs in Zaren threebeth living well. Yeah, they lived
(07:09):
in this beautiful home, gorgeous home, antiques art that was
all the dad's family stuff because his great grandfather's brother
was this really famous Alsatian expressionist painter and his works
adorned the walls. Little kid Stefan, he he spoke French, German, English,
(07:34):
Alsatian only child, spoiled rotten, like a nerdy old soul,
totally perplexed with the modern world. He loved curios and
art and art.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
So while he's nerdy, he's also terrible in school. It's
to the disappointment of his family, and he's sullen. His
family is always trying to cheer him up. So one
day in high schoo well, his mom dropped him off
at the Archaeological museum in Strasburg. We're telling you about this.
So the German border, German Swiss borders. So this, uh,
(08:11):
these museum visits, they like, they cheered him up and
they drop him off in the morning, let him like
wander and ponder and then pick him up and he'd
be a new young man, refreshed. This feels like a
Wes Anderson movie. Okay. So then on on one day
they drop him off, he's meandering around the museum. He
brushes against the metal on the side of a Roman
(08:33):
coffin and a piece broke off and landed in his
hand magically, and he shoved it into his pocket. So
he gets home. He has this little box that he
has all the little things that he's collected in the woods,
on walks and that kind of stuff, and he adds
it to the box of all these small items. That
was his first art theft exactly. So he's just out
(08:59):
of height. His parents split up, and that's traumatic enough.
But everything in the gorgeous home, all the art, the
beautiful pieces of antique furniture, like I said, belong to
the dad, all from his side of the family. They
had a boat, a benzo in the driveway. He takes
it all when he leaves, just takes it and so
he bounces out stiff On is like, you know, I
(09:21):
want nothing to do with you, cuts contact completely. The
mom she can't afford this large home, so she and
stiff On they move. They have to downsize, which is
kind of like this understatement. They move into a little
apartment and they're on government assistance. It's like a little
house that has an attic, so as like the second floor,
So he's in the attic and that's his domain, and
(09:43):
then she has the rest of the place.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
But it's very small.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
So he starts shoplifting, not so much out of necessity
but like a big middle finger to the world.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
It's just like an angry team.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Yeah, completely Yeah, And he gets busted and he learns
his lesson, and the lesson was don't get caught.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Good lesson to learn. So he drifts around.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
He becomes a textbook disaffected youth. He's mad at the world, depressed.
Then he got a job at a museum and while
he was there, he stole a fifteen hundred year old
belt buckle.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, I can see this coming, and he like.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
He made sure to like rearrange the case so that
no one knew it was gone.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And then he quit.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
He's like, what I thought he.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Would take a lot more that little odds and ends.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
That was his first real art.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Theft Okay, that now qualifies. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
So there's around this time that he met this woman
and Catherine and Katherine Kleinkouse. Okay, and quote, I loved
her right away, he said. So he's just that she's it.
They're this passionate couple. They're like a little bit reckless,
and so he sees her as his muse and he
admires her taste and her aesthetic. And they each on
(10:51):
their own fail or drop out of their college programs.
They had bounced from job to job. So then one
weekend nineteen ninety four, they're in this Alsatian village of Than.
There's a museum there, and Steffan he saw something that
made his heart race, a flint stock pistol from the
seventeen hundreds. And it wasn't like the pistol part that
(11:13):
got him all head up. It was the carving on
the grip, the silver inlay. Yeah, He's like, I have
got to have this. And so he looks around and
he sees there's like there's no lock on the case.
It's this small museum in a small town. The only
employee was downstairs. They're upstairs. He looks, no cameras, there's
(11:34):
absolutely nothing protecting it. So he tells Anne Catherine like, look,
this is what I'm gonna do, and she's like, yeah,
go for it, like she has kind of like crazy
It's like.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Kind of like a French bee'sy bunny to my Claude
correct eld.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
So he slips open the back of the display case,
grabs the pistol, shoves it in his backpack, and then
they leave a museum all cool like coud. They out,
they get in the car, they get in the car,
they drive home. They're nervous the whole way, like, oh
my god, I can't believe we did that. And then
(12:09):
they find themselves there up in the bedroom in the
attic with the loot. And this was his second real
art theft and his first as a couple. So there
was so much in this pistol. It didn't just speak
to his love of beauty and craft. It was also
a big f you to his dad, because this is
the sort of thing that his dad had and then
(12:30):
his dad shared with him and then snatched away when
he left a right and so the theft also gave
him this like much needed head of adrenaline and serotonin
for someone who's so inclined to low daze, right, So
it's easy. Yeah, it's easy to get addicted to adrenaline
Russia's bursts of serotonin. I get that the serotonin part,
(12:52):
not the adrenaline, right, Like you're an adrenaline.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Junkie, as they say, Yes, I accurate, I'm allergic to it.
Short circuits system.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
It does well as an aside to an aside. Did
you know what I did to get a serotonin hit
two months ago?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
I don't know what.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I got myself a dog dogh for real. I am
back to being a childless dog lady and loving it nice.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yes, I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Thank you. I needed him. His name's Monty okay, and
I got him from a human Montana. He's named after Montiana.
He's named after in homage to Monty Don the gardener,
h English gardener.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
You talk about him, a real calm dardening guy.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yes, he came from the Wine Country, like I saw
him on pet Finder, drove my tail up there, immediately
got him home, hugged on him, loved don him pretty.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Much the perfect dog and weirdly perfect nice.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Anyway, I may get another one, just to get another
serotonin do ride this high into the end times.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
You can't feed them.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah exactly, which was you know what, I want to
be a bear or.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
My dogs find something and let it kill you. I
think I've been told.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Doing that anyway, art theft, So having stolen the pistol, Bonnie,
it could, they're on a roll, right, they strike again.
It's wintertime, not a lot of tourists around, so they
hit up a castle and it's not like well trafficked
or like large minimal security. So they're walking around, Steffan
sees something a medieval crossbow. Take that think about medieval
(14:29):
cross them boys, is big, like wingspan, very big, hung
from the ceiling on a wire and like castle ceilings
are high. Undeterred. So and Catherine, she like acts as
the lookout. He goes and grabs a chair. Remember it's
winter and this place is empty, so he climbs up
(14:50):
on the chair unhooks the crossbow like nice, okay, but
now how do you get it out of there? And
so there's no fitting something that big in his little
backpack or her pocketbook. So Stefan he goes from window
to window and he's looking for a way to drop
this thing outside.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Oh yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
It's like too high up for most of them, or
like there was a person standing down there and he
has like a long wire or there's like a steep ravine. Yeah,
because it's like you have this fortress this for its
location exactly. So then he looks out and he sees
(15:29):
a steep drop, but there are like a bunch of
bushes below. You know, these things are made for battle crossbows, tough.
So he figures the bushes are going to break the
fall enough. He lowers it down on the wire then
just lets go. It thuds into the bushes. And then
so he and Ann Catherine, they're like do they like
nonchalantly make their way through the museum out the front door.
(15:51):
They get in the car, they drive around back. He
jumps out and he like gingerly like climb clamors over
this stuff, gets the crossbow from the shrubbery, tosses at
the back of the car.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Off they go nice. They're exhilarated, like.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
They couldn't believe what they just pulled off. They waited
to see if news of the theft made the papers.
It never had with that pistol, that never showed up
in the paper. So this time, though there is a
story about it but it looked like they didn't discover
it missing for a few days after the theft, and
the story was like, yeah, there are no leads, so
(16:24):
they got away with it and this was like the
best drug ever plus free crossbow. So let's take a break,
we come back. We're going to follow this duo as
they liberate French art and artifacts from unwinning museums and
collections or crossbows or crossbows anyway, art theft.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
It's my nickname in Nebraska theft. Mine's anyway art theft.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Three years on now, Stiffon and Catherine Bonnie Ekild they
have squirreled away more than one hundred of jet dart
in their attic apartment. And when I say.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Big, it's not big, right, No, it's like.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
They're living in the attic in the mom's place.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Like I'm imagining slanted walls, like I can't stand up
in most.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Walls, low lit, crammed with art. The mom never goes
up there.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Don't want to go up to their love.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
No, and she's like that smells up there, you know,
there's this musty and stuffy. Anyway, I do need to
clarify something I said before, how he got a rush
out of this and there was this almost addictive quality
to crimes, but it turns out there was actually more.
Steffan is said to suffer from Stendhall syndrome. Have you
(18:00):
ever heard of it? Uh?
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Huh Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Stendhal syndrome also known as Florence syndrome psychosomatic condition. Those
afflicted experience of racing heartbeat, fainting, confusion, sometimes hallucinations. Upon
viewing things like objects, art, natural phenomenon of great beauty.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
You can literally fall out.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
And it's named after the nineteenth century French author Stendall,
which is a pseudonym of Marie Elribe, who went to Florence,
Italy and just lost his sheep when he saw the
Basilica of Santa Croce, the final resting place of Matthew Veelli,
Michelangelo Galileo. He's just blown away.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
This is what he said.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Quote. I was in a sort of ecstasy from the
idea of being in Florence, close to the great men
whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of
sublime beauty, I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations.
Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah if I
could only forget, I had palpitations of the heart what
(19:01):
in Berlin they call nerves. Life was drained for me.
I walked with fear of falling.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
So I have a problem with stem dolls. I think
that it's like something anybody can reach and it's not
like a condition. It's like they act like it's a condition.
I'm like, now, I think that's just like you. Well,
it's like it's like if anybody encounters something. I'm sure
some people find it in nature, some people find it
in music. I have friends who just sob when when
Stevie Wonder sings, I mean, like in the musicians and
(19:28):
crazy musicians. So I get it, but it's like we
have to name that. Can we just call that like
a peak experience?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:35):
No, I'm with you.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
You know. Apparently to this day, Santa Maria Nouova Hospital
at Florence they treat tourists who get these dizzy spells
and disorientation after they look at David naked.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
You also you have to look up.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Or like anything in.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Florence amazing, so incredible.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
I saw amazing Caravaggio great.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I think I might have seen the same thing.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
I wonder were you following me?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Don't producer d why she asked these questions? Do a
sound effect?
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Did you see it there? Wow? Yeah, I saw too.
So that's what Steffan says he has, right, but his
version is a little more intense. He claims to feel
sexual energy a buzz nah, and so when we.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Talk about I feel that way about the ateen. Now
that's a condition.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Well, it's like we talk about serial killers who get
sexual satisfaction from what they do. Well, like stiff on
he gets off on stealing art.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah, did we actually do that we talked about I
don't remember to those I'm familiar. So he basically has
the same effect. But that's a psychosomatic connection. Right. Did
his mother like like do something where art became like
a psychosexual thing? He do not know. Oh I thought
that was part of.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
No he that's what he says. I have this, but
like extra this is this is the condition I have.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
But like downstairs, so I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Sorry.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
By now, the couple had like perfected their methods. They
they dressed like slightly.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
He just love to show him art, like baby, what
about that? Right?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
He's like, no, I want to see a shallice. So
they wore clothes that made him look like kind of
hip old money kids, like.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
They thrifted luxury brands.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
They were super charming. They'd scot places out and they'd
hit ones with subpar security. He he always made sure
the floors weren't creaky and that the staff is just
not engaged. And Catherine, she'd be the lookout. Uh. He'd
use he carried like someone here a Swiss army knife.
Got to uh, he used that for everything. He'd use
(21:58):
it to unscrew whatever, pride, what have you, liberate the
piece and then he would generally like shove it at
a backpacker in his pants leg.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
They hit the Rubens house in Antwerp, Belgium. Oh yeah, yeah, exactly.
This was his old house. And so you know, he
didn't do a lot of tiny canvases. He had substantial pieces.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Not a modest man, no, And.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
So Stefan he's like he he has to find something
that could fit under his jacket generally, but something that
still gets his motor running. He's just not there to
steal for new reasons.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Rubens might kill him.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
I mean, your head might explode. But so he there
he sees an ivory carving of Adam and Eve.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Oh, that's more his speed from.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Sixteen twenty seven that a friend of Rubens had done.
So there's this carving under a plexiglass dome. He pulls
out his trusty Swiss Army knife and he timed it
so that the one security guard who worked there had
like just passed and wandered around, and he knew, okay,
I got to time. But there were a lot of
screws and it can be slow going with a Swiss
(23:04):
Army Knights.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Old screws haven't moved in a long time.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Twenty minutes to get that's a long time. But he
managed to get the dome off, get the carving, shoved
it into his waistband kind of like a gun like
in the back. So he and Anne Catherine they like
breezily leave. They hop in the car head back to France.
And it was a normal heightst that they pulled over
and over and over again. That was just like one
(23:27):
of many art fair and Zurich they stole a filigree
and like gold sixteenth century goblet and an art fair
in Holland a sixteen oh two landscape of a pond
with swans and a seventeenth century seascape painted on copper
nice at an auction presale in Paris. They got a
painting from the school of Peter Brugel the Elder and
(23:50):
Peter Brugle the younger.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Both elder and the elder like hit him up, Hello, junior, Senior.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
They went in Belgium again, a tableau of a rural
market and a painting of housecats and hedgehogs.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Who got the hedgehogs and the housecats? Buddy, do you
got a fan?
Speaker 3 (24:13):
In Lele they got a Renaissance oil painting. Yeah, at
this point, never been. At this point, we're almost at
three hundred pieces.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Oh man, and.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
So again the attic. The most valuable work of art
that he'd stolen at this point was Sabille Princess of
Cleaves by Lucas Kronik the Elder. He grabbed that from
a castle in Bond and Bondon in nineteen ninety five.
The Guardian newspaper estimated in two thousand and three that
its value at auction would be more than five million pounds.
(24:44):
That's like ten and a half million dollars today. Damn,
so's he's stealing expensive stuff too. They hit up an
art fair in the Netherlands in Mastrik. They walk up
to this booth and it's run by this flashy London
art dealer named Richard Green, and they'd spoken with him
before and they found him super dismissive and another.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Fairly he was just rude.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Yeah, Stefan later told journalist Michael Finkel, quote Richard Green
and his Monte Cristo cigars and his Rolex too, like
that's some tupac.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Like yes, totally. A lot more hit him.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
So it was at this booth though, that Stefan and
and Catherine they saw something that lit them up. It
was a still life by Jan van Kessel the Elder
from sixteen fifty two.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
They had to excuse himself a new moment.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
He was like, he had to hold his backpack in
front of him. It was. It's this richly toned still
life of tulips, lily's snowdrops, dahlia's irises, cabbage all manner
of showy almost blousy flowers at peak blossom.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
It is hitting you too, in.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
A glass hobnail vase and like their pollen and over
ripe sugars attracting delicate butterflies.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
And there's a.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Tiny ladybug crawling up a wilted and torn leaf. Hint
a hint of spent petals.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
We're going to get scattered almost out of view on
the tabletop. There's a lizard mid stride.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
And the shade of the arrangement have dragonfly hovering off
to the right. It's all elegantly painted onto a thin
sheet of copper. So there you go. It's a fantastic, lush,
sensual piece and st He got that racing heart, that dizziness,
that buzzing inside, and that nufty Richard Green had it.
(26:48):
So this fair wasn't really the spot for theft though, right,
tons of people tons off. You had to show paperwork
when you left with a purchase, like they would scan
it to sure it wasn't something you could just roll
up and shoving your pants or your backpack copper too.
It's not like you can get roll it. Yeah, but
he was still captivated, sure zaren I want you to
(27:12):
picture this. You are a still life painting by Yon
van Kessel the Elder. Your technical title is a still
life of tulips, a crown, imperial snow drops, lilies, irises,
roses and other flowers in a glass of oase with
a lizard, butterfly and dragonflies and other insects. Not the
catchiest title, but you're magnificent. Almost three hundred and fifty
(27:33):
years ago. You started as a sheet of copper. Then
you were placed in front of a genius, such an
honor he drew on you, and from you a lush
portrait of a bouquet just past its peak, not yet spent,
but not full of life, just cresting the hill, and
now looking out on a downward slope. For nearly three
hundred and fifty years, people have stood before you, taking
(27:55):
you in, sometimes in awe, almost always with appreciation, although
occasional boredom. You've hung on walls and the elegant homes
of Belgian merchants. You've done some time in the gallery.
You were, for a short moment on the wall of
a study, and now you're on a pedestal and a
Dutch art fair. People stroll by, chatting, laughing. Some look
(28:17):
upon the art with eyes searching for a deal. Some
are there just to see and bc to mingle a network.
And then there's the predator before you, a young man
with brown hair and a broadcloth shirt and wirerimed glasses.
Stares at you with nothing short of lust. His eyes
burrow into your oils. You feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
This isn't natural.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
He eyes you like a creep would eye a beautiful
woman from across a crowded bar. It's unsettling. Suddenly there's
a commotion. Thief. Someone yells, oh, dear, so many of
your compatriots have been spirited away over the years by
the greedy, the desperate, the Nazis. Stop thief. The man
staring a hole into.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
You turns white.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
His eyes grow large. There's a thud and a and
he turns to his left. Down the aisle of booths,
a group of security guards tackle a man. All of
the booth proprietors pop their heads out like prairie dogs
to catch the action. Customers stand with their mouths agape.
Who would ever suspect something like that happening at a
place like this the creepwood. He looks quickly at the
(29:19):
woman behind him. She cuts a fine figure and vientedge
chanel and delicate features. She nods and he reaches out
to you. In an instant, you are in his sweaty paws,
and then shoved under his arm inside his blazer. It's
hot and musty. Under there, you feel his heart pound
against you. He and the woman make fast strides toward
the door, heading away from the set to with security.
(29:41):
Everyone there continues to watch the scrum while you're whisked
towards the exit. The gentleman at the door, who should
be asking to see a receipt for you, is too
busy rubbernecking about the cottief to notice the one's speed
walking by him. The man holding you picks up the
paste to a quick trot out in the gravel parking area.
He and the woman jump in a car, gently setting
(30:01):
you in the back seat. He throws his jacket over you,
and the engine roars to life. Back in the fair,
Richard Green returns to his booth. As he gets settled
in on the director's chair he's set up in the corner.
Something looks off. He realizes it immediately. The pedestal containing
that still life is gone fave, he yells out. In
the car. You think to yourself, Richard Green and his
(30:24):
Monte Cristo cigars and his Rolex two. So that that
was their most brazen theft until it wasn't. By this time,
it's like two thousand year two thousand. Huh, Stefan and
on on Catherine and Catherine they hit up a gallery
in Lucerne, Switzerland, and she wasn't feeling this one from
(30:46):
the jump, like something wasn't right. And it was really
warm out so they couldn't wear coats to conceal the loot.
And the gallery was right across the street from a
police station.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Always a tough a criminal. You're, hey, guys, at this place,
where are we going to? Ends across the street from
the police station and just be cool, be cool.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
No one else was in the gallery at all, and
so they were like the full focus.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Of the stat and also tough.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
But still Steffan saw something that got them all worked
up and he had no choice. Okay, it was a
painting by Villain van Elst like us, how.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Could you not stiff get some water?
Speaker 3 (31:23):
He looks around, take a moment, He reaches out, takes
the painting off the wall just like, tucks it under
his arm, and strolls out. Just okay, Well, the attempted
to stroll out because apparently he didn't act enough like
he knew. A gallery employee grabs him because they're like, wait,
this man's just walking out.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Sorry, you can't do this way. And also, why is
any Catherine not doing some kind of like falling down
and having a seizure.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
You know, they're getting two brazens. Well, she was too,
she was too enraptured.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
He has it. I don't know, she's just like I'm tired.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
She was not having Yeah, so a gallery and play
grass him drags him across the street to the cops
and he tells them this sob story. But I've never
done anything like this before. I don't know what came
over me.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
At boy, I'll.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Never do it again. Oh yeah, and they're like all right,
So they give him this eight month suspended sentence and
they ban him from entering Switzerland until the eight months
is over.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I really like it, and I'm not I'm not being
critical when I say this, but Europe's response to crime
is always, as an American just like that's so.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Cute, because yeah, it's like.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I'm not saying I'm not recommending our way. I'm just
saying I'm so when I hear if you do what
for the most it's so cute. It's not for violent
I prefer.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Crimes. They're just like, you know, people are people exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Stupid recognition of the fact we're all human as opposed
to like anyway, don't see what they're trying to profit
off their criminals.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Well yeah, but you know what they did. They got
the prince, they get his prince, and so this is
sort of a sign of things to come, like the
sloppiness Yea and Catherine, she's like starting to question their future.
They're not selling any of this and they just keep
cramming it into the attic. They don't even have their
(33:10):
own place, and he's the ing bigger and bigger stuff.
So they don't have their own place. They're living in
the mom's attic.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
He doesn't really work.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
She's got a gig as a CNA certified nursing assistant.
But they like barely covers the Billings bedpants. Yeah, is
this forever? Is what she's wondering. Are we ever going
to get married? We're gonna have kids? Am I just
looking down the road of decades of these heightsts until
we can't even personally fit into the area.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
One day we get to sleep downstairs because your mom
passed exactly.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
And so it comes to a head and Stefan broke
it to her. He's like, I am never going to stop.
This is who I am. She's shattered, but she stays
all right, I'll say, but you have to promise that
you're going to start wearing gloves because they got your
prints this time. And so he's like, yeah, yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Babe, Yeah right, no, probably I love gloves, yeah babe,
and then glove whatever you want, whatever you want, yeah sure.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
And so then one day in November of two thousand
and one, he shows up in the attic with a
new item. He's got this bugle from fifteen eighty four.
It's worth forty five thousand pounds from the Richard Wagner
Museum in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
And he knows there's like a whole like he had
like a moment with you. He comes in, he's like,
did you did you do your things?
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Oh my god, there are only three like it on
the planet. Like he's losing it. She's like, did you
wear gloves?
Speaker 2 (34:30):
He's like she should, honestly, she's going to stay with him,
iron off his fingerprints, just take your wear protection.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
He's like, no, no, exactly, it was too good.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
You got it. I'm saying, you gotta make it.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Loses it. She loses it. When he finds out he
didn't wear gloves, like, how could you do this?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Protection? You're praying everything.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
She's like, I gotta make it right. You left your
fingerprints in a museum where the bugle used to be
in Switzerland, where they took your prints. We have to
go back, and not to return it, but to wipe
down the prints.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Oh that's a double bad idea too, So don't return
to the scene of the crime.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Off they go.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
So we're going to make it right.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah, and Catherine, she went in to like clean up
while Steffan he wandered around in a park across the street.
There's this journalist who just happened to be walking his
dog on the museum grounds and he looks over received
stuff on and Some's just like not right.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
He's like, this is weird. She's acting odd.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
And he knew about the bugle theft, and so you know, Zaren,
if you see something, say something.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Or I'm split between I mean not just to myself,
like mutter to myself.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Usual what I Half the time I'm like, MI dro business.
The other half the time I'm like, if you see something,
say something, like.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
I see something. I try to make myself laugh about
what I see.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
That's good. That's a good way. That should be on
a way like public information board. If you see something,
just tell it to yourself.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
You can keep it to yourself and have a laugh.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
So he saw something, he said something. He goes in
and he tells the secure guard like there's a suspicious
guy outside. And Catherine hears this, and she's like this.
She makes a break for it. She comes running out
of the building just as the guards make their way
to Stefan and arrest him and Lucern police they gave
the dog a lifetime supply of food in appreciation for
(36:17):
his help.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Good dog, way to go.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
So meanwhile, Steffan, he's in the clink break time.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
She just keeps walking. She's like, she's like, oh, I.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Just was looking for my boyfriend. Yeah, let's take a break.
When we return, I'm going to tell you about the cops,
Stiffan and the bugle.
Speaker 4 (36:33):
Yeah, Stefan bite Visa.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Yeah that's what I said. He stole him.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Abuse, Yeah he did.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Yeah, I would write a folk song about it.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Told him a bugle. He was only thirty five.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I've told you my thing about killed.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Him, made his joints field.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
I think it was my brother. Who there's that Davy
Crockett killed him a bear him the bar. He thought
it was killed in a bar when he was only three.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
This his life rough.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Davy Crockett did all that.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
In three years. So went out the way you lived.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
So the cops they held him for days. He told
the cops, look, I was just trying to get like
a really nice Christmas present for my mom, but I
don't have any money, and she loves bugles, so I
just grabbed the bugle, Like who among us hasn't done that?
And all he really wanted to do was keep the
cops out of the attic. Yeah, of course, and to
(37:56):
my house, Rince, he'd done it before. So they like
they connected, Okay, this is your first time. I'm gonna
guess you have a hideout, like a little stash. He's
like no. They reach out to the cops in France,
they get a search warrant for the mom's place, but
it took like a month between the arrest and when
they can execute the search warrant. Ah, because it was
(38:18):
just like you know, cross border right, It's.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Like I guess, yeah, you got multiple countries. You're also
both Europeans. So you're kind of lacks about crime anyway.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Exactly European Union. But it's so they get there the
mom's home, and she's like, I don't know anything about it.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
I don't even have a sign. Oh I have a.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
They I don't go into the attic, she says, I've
never gone up there. That's his place up the stairs.
The cops go slowly, they turn, step by step, inch
by they throw open the attic door and there it
was nothing, absolutely bed and bare wall. I bet there
wasn't even dust monastic even. Yeah. So around the same time,
(38:59):
there's a man he's on a stroll nearby and he
sees something shiny in a canal and he wades in
and he pulls out a silver chalice. Oh god, and
he's like, man, this thing's gotta be like four hundred
years old.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Shaziam like la.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Score right, and then la he sees something else, a gobblet,
and then more silver work.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Homie threw the metal in the river.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Hah no, not bien, right, he called the cops. He's like,
no much, this pubbian way too much. So the police arrive.
They fish out almost one hundred and fifty pieces. What
the hell man and they gather everything up. They take
pictures of each item.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
So if you can't have it, no one can.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Well you'll find out. Then they send the stuff off
to this museum to be like restored. Identified Stefan. He
hadn't been able to talk to his mom or Anne
Catherine this whole time, like he could have brief calls,
but he's still locked up. She's he doesn't say anything unusual,
doesn't write any In the interrogation room, a detective meets
(40:06):
with him right comes in, puts down a photo of
a metal on the table, and it's one that he
had stolen, like not too long before. He picked up
the bugle a recent high recent. But the metal looks
all rusty and dirty, and that's not how he found
it or left it, so he's all confused. Then the
cop puts down another picture. It's this golden snuff box
that also looks pretty rough. And then finally the detective
(40:29):
spreads out a stack of one hundred and forty photos
on the table. It's everything that Stefan had stolen, painting
that wasn't a painting, eight years of stuff, right down
to the pistol item number one. He sees this confesses
to stealing everything. Oh, I bet and then he says
to the cop, but what about the paintings, and the
(40:52):
cops like paintings. He has no idea what he's talking about.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
So here's how he's.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Here's what went down. So Stefan gets arrested, and Catherine
and the mom never spoke publicly about it. Now, Stefan
he talked to Michael Finkel, the journalist, and there's a
whole book about him. But the other ladies didn't say anything,
and they never told Stefan anything. So this is all
like everyone trying to piece together what they think happened.
(41:24):
So it looks like Stefan gets arrested and Catherine, she
drives home. She tells the mom what happened, and then
it's like, let me show you.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
This attic your mind.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
So they know the cops obviously are going to be coming,
and the mom's like, I have to save my son.
And so they load all the small stuff into the
car and they drive to the ron Ryan Canal not
far from the house. They dump every non painting object
into it. This is the stuff that the guy found
and handed over. Then they go they go home and
(41:58):
they do another load and this time because probably like
in a little citrum, this time it's the big stuff.
I'm sure, the charming sa sculptures, the crossbow, there's this
enormous one hundred and fifty pound Madonna and child statue.
Then his mom like she's super religious, and so first
of all, I don't know how he carted that out
(42:18):
from somewhere, but he stole it whatever, like did like
the firefighter carry for it. So the mom is like,
I can't, I can't just dish this in the dirt.
Like she goes and she finds a chapel in a
forest and like leaves it there. She didn't want to
offend the blessed Virgin. Okay, so the rest of it
they left.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
The is she hoping like the priest who finds it,
it's America. I'm not saying anything, So just come back
and you take it back. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
So the rest of the stuff they leave in places
where it would eventually be discovered, like purposefully they're hiding.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah, like someone will find this and leaving a baby
on a doorsteps exactly.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
And then there's the paintings, like that's the last batch.
So what do they do with those? Well, some of
them the mom cut up with scissors and shoved in
the garbage disposal on canvas. She just like crumpled up
and put in the trash. Oh I know. And then
all the ones that are on like wooden panels, and
Catherine to the mom. They load him into the car,
(43:15):
they go into the fire. They make a huge stack
and they set them all on fire, a giant funeral
pyre of priceless, incredible. I forget the forget the cost
of it. I don't care how much these are worth.
The beauty and the like human achievement to create something
(43:36):
like that.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
The fact that we wanted to keep them ashes ashes.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
And so Stefan finds out and he's heartbroken. I only
imagine these are his loves, his treasures, and like.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
You'll never get to see them, touch them.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
They had to place him on watch in jail because
they were worried her assumed he did. So he goes
on trial, sentenced to four years. It is s tomate
it that he stole over the years, two billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Worth of art.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
He had two billion dollars, and we now know how
much a billion really is. In the attic, they're on
government assistance, and she's you know he's anyway. His mom
goes to court for destroying the works. She's found guilty,
but only spent a few months in jail. And she
said in court that she thought it was quote, just
(44:28):
a bunch of junk, and that until her son's arrest,
she had no clue he'd been sealed.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
She was like a sitcom mother, you know, the one
you never see is hear the voice of and Catherine.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
She gets arrested and she tells the cops she doesn't
know anything about anything. She thought that he was just
a hoarder with great taste, like what is.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
This garage sales? How do you take a stone from?
Speaker 3 (44:52):
She refused to testify against her. He refused to say
anything the court. Well, the court buys her story. She
walks free. She doesn't even if the cops by the story.
She didn't go to courton. Yes, she spent one night
in jail. That was it. Right after he got busted,
she left him for another guy. He still refused to
contradict her statement. And then she went and got pregnant
(45:15):
with this new guy, and he was like, I never
want to talk to her again. But this point he's convicted.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
It's like she'd waited all that time for him to
like make it official, yeah, exactly, and then he didn't.
So she's like, well he will, uh huh. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
So he gets out of jail when he's thirty three.
It's two thousand and five. Life is no longer exciting
as a result of his crimes. He's barred from going
into a museum or any other place showing art.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
So like, there's a lot of public art. How do
you even enforce that? And in Europe?
Speaker 3 (45:45):
Yeah, you kidding me. But it still calls to him.
So he goes to an antiques face.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
You don't want to have him over to your house
for a party. You'd be like, oh, you can't work,
you can't got art. I have art, you can't come over. Sorry,
you know how it is. Yeah, but there's this siren call.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
He has to Belgium antiques Fair. It's there that he
sees a painting by Peter Brugle the Younger, This winter Land.
It gives him the buzzies. He feels that tingle before
he knows that he has stolen the painting in his outfit.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
Before he looks down.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
And so he takes his home, hangs it on the wall,
It makes him feel absolutely electric. He has a new
girlfriend by this point, of course, and she's like, where
where'd you get that? He's honest, he's like, I stole it,
but it's just one. I'm like, I'm not going to
do another one, don't worry.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
And he knows who he is, Yeah, the past.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
He's like, babe, babee, Okay, did you wear protection? He's like,
I were gloves. We're all good, and she's totally fine
with it. But then they break up and she's like,
I'm going to the cops.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Yeah, she's she you can't really have a partner who
knows about that because of this reason for them.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
If they they break up, there it goes. And so
she goes to the cop. He goes to jail. He
got out in twenty thirteen, forty one years old. He
came up with this idea that he was going to
become a museum security consultant, like a white oh.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Heist, Yeah, sure, why not?
Speaker 3 (47:15):
I like that there are no takers.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
There's no such thing, and it's not like hacking, where
there's actually people constantly trying to do this. It's like, oh,
we need someone to protect us. This is not a
our museum every night we have so my brain.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
This is also like kind of pervy thing where he's like,
let me just get in there and then look, I'll
let me see what you gott.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Be close to the arc, just want to look near it,
look at it. He's a glance at this point.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
He's just like hanging out with his mom every day,
just touch the frames. They go for walks in the woods.
He's on government assistance. He's like, got this little small
place near his grandparents farmhouse in i'l Sace, and he
stayed true to himself. He started stealing it.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Naturally, you got to live a little bit.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
But see that's the thing you got to live. And
so this time he's doing it for profit. No, so
he got caught trying to sell stolen stuff on eBay.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, Ibey was trying to sell stolen stuff on eBay.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Roman coins and like other little things, and he'd stolen
from museums in France, Germany. He went to trial April
twenty twenty three. He got sentenced to house arrest and
now he has to wear an ankle monitor until twenty
thirty one, when he'll be sixty years old. That sucks, right,
Zaren what is your ridiculous takeaway is was.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
There like a documentary about this guy or like some
kind of like I think maybe because I feel like
I've seen that when you're describing the uh there was
going to be an addict with the artwork. Either I've
just been you know, I've read a lot about crime
in my life, so I maybe have just seen this
story from at some point in twenty something. But I
have some strong imagery of that addict is chocolate block
(48:51):
filled with art, you know, just all leaned in and
all that.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
So there's supposed to be this movie, The Sleeping Shepherd,
it's in development that is like inspired by him with
Michael Pitt that he was on like Boardwalk Empire.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
I was thinking that very.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
Yeah, no, he's close. But you know Immageen Poots which
like God bless that she's imas and Catherine's an actress. Yeah,
I don't know isabelle Bert.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
French actress? Young kid? Right? I think he's got a
bright feature.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
It was back in twenty sixteen though when you go
to when you go to IMDb, the Sleeping Shepherd is
categorized as in development.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
I don't think that's happening.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
That's not happening. So anyway, it's it's an incredible story.
There are a bunch of like little mini docs that
I've seen, But the big thing is that Michael Finkle
book The Art Thief, which is interesting because he also
did the story of the Hermit in the Woods. He
wrote a book on that, and he has this weird
redemption story where he got busted for it's escaping you
(50:02):
know what what uh publication he wrote for. But he
he got in trouble for creating.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Like characters oh false.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
It was like a composite yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, you
like make up a person, right, So they had to issue,
you know, a retraction and he lost his job. And
so then now he does these books about It's fascinating.
He's a he's a great writer.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Anyway, Apparently the art Fabulous apparently.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
Tell spins a great tale. Zaren, what does your ridiculous
take away?
Speaker 2 (50:31):
My ridiculous take away, Elizabeth, thank you for asking.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
You're so welcome, so quick.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Art thieves are really fun because it's like, uh, almost
like you could steal a hymn, you know, like it's
like nobody's really hurt by the fact you've stolen this beauty.
We still have it, but at the same time it's gone.
So it's like, yeah, it's just an interesting thing, and
also about why we prize some things over others. And
then the part though about getting all heated by the artwork.
(51:00):
Imagine trying to explain that to someone with a straight face,
like who's like you're trying to get romantically involved with
and you're like, oh, nervous, like, look, there's something I
need to tell you, and you're like, what is it?
And they make that face like you're about to say
something weird and you're like, no, I know it's it's
gonna sound weird, but it's past that.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Are you used to seeing that face? Oh?
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Most of my ideas people give me that face. I'm like, look,
I got an idea. They're like, I don't know, maybe
I heard your ideas. I'm going to walk away now
before I have to hire a lawyer. So yeah, that's it.
It's just basically that intimate moment having to tell a partner,
you know, it really gets to heat it up. Sharing
a king, well what turns you on? You know? So
there you go. What about you, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3 (51:41):
I think that I don't I don't suffer from that condition,
and certainly not in the manner.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
That he does.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
But I mean, you do have these moments that are
sort of transcendent when you see pieces of art.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
Yes, that's what I thought. I thought, if you've.
Speaker 3 (51:56):
Already seen them, if you've admired something and you've only
seen it in print or digital on a screen, and
then you see it in person, the power of it. Yeah,
and especially a lot of times it's just like the
scope of the canvas or the scope of the item.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
Like David, it's huge, it's tall. You look up at him,
you're like.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Man, yeah, or like you know, Birth of Venus. Yes, so,
but you see these these pieces and or even if
it's not something you've seen before, you know, I've been
in museums or galleries where you just have to have
the wind taken out of you because something is so impressive.
And so I can see that. I feel bad for
this dude that he had all this loss in his life,
(52:33):
and I think was sort of pre programmed to to
you know, morose behavior anyway, and you know it gets
connected through the art. So he has this salvation, but
it's also his undoing. And we we need art as salvation.
We need music and visual art and you know, all
of these things literature. I don't want to call us art,
(52:55):
but like doing shows like this, you know, or it
saves us, and I hate when that then becomes someone's undoing.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
That's my takeaway. Solid you should you should do this professionally.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
I should thank you so much. That's a really great compliment, Dave.
I need to talk back.
Speaker 5 (53:19):
Oh my god, I went get.
Speaker 6 (53:27):
Hi producer die Zaren and Elizabeth. This is Marta. I
wanted to tell you. I was at a restaurant with
a friend this past weekend. A server, not the table server,
came by, threw some butter pets on our table and said.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
Now you're part of the crime.
Speaker 6 (53:42):
I just tole some you have to. I thought, that's ridiculous.
And then before we left, he threw two more butter
pats down, said see, remember, don't turn me in. Thank
you so much for all you do.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Wait, it be in a ridiculous criminal in the real world,
winning ridiculous creme. But the attitude that she went with it.
He didn't snitch to the manager. She's like, no, I'll
play it cool.
Speaker 3 (54:06):
You take the butter with me. What a restaurant sounds like?
A zoo.
Speaker 4 (54:11):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (54:12):
That's it for today. You can find us online at
ridiculous Crime d ot com. That's what they say.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
We're also fanatically for you.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
I guess I can't read their handwriting half the time.
We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Blue Sky and Instagram.
You can email us at ridiculous Crime at jamail dot
com h and then leave a talk back on the
iHeart app. It's free. Just I mean, how we've got
so many apps? What's another? U leave us to talk about? Please?
(54:42):
I'm begging you reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by
Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by Flemish
art fetishist Dave Cousten, starring Annalice Rutgers. Research is by
Marissa Brown who would never burn Art in the Woods,
(55:04):
and Alex French, who would. The theme song is by
security guards getting High behind the Castle Thomas Lee and
Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred.
Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive
producers are Noted Alsatian Art detectives Ben Boleen and Noel Brown.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
Wed Crime say it one more Times?
Speaker 4 (55:33):
Crime.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts
My heart Radio, Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Zaren Elizabeth Zaren.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Hey, Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey listen. How are you
doing today?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm doing pretty well. Don't I look great?
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Look amazing?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I mean, I got my my Mark Twain wig on,
my fake mustache. I feel good. The white creak. This
is actually just a hoodie.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
A one giant onesie.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
That amazing. I alreadered this online.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
So Mark Twain hoodie. You know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Yes, I do out Mark Twain hoodie.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I do, Elizabeth, I do. I was gonna tell you,
but you tell me. I know one a friend of
mine when I was a younger man was a bass player.
It's probably still is. And he was in a band
with an actor named Letto, mister Letto, Jared Letto, right,
and then he was like, oh, I think thirty seconds
to march right, And so I was like, oh, that's
(00:51):
that sucks for you, man. I'm sorry to hear that.
How was I was a jerk? I say, anyway, but
now I laugh because he left the band. He did
other stuff, and I'm happy for him and everything else,
but Jared leto is, Now, I didn't know this he's
got like a cult.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
I was gonna say, he's like a cult leader.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
He hosts Mars Islands. They're called Mars Island, and so
he has this fan events and he has these fans
come out to these islands, private islands, because you got
to do this kind of stuff on a private islands.
You know, you can't do this anywhere. They have like
legal structures, and it's gotta be somewhere. It's like, i'd
like to see you are allowed to hook people. So
(01:29):
the fans, though, they pay for these immersive experiences, right,
and they go and they hang out with Jared Leto
and uh yeah, the whole band apparently is there, and
they've really leaned into it and said like, oh yeah,
we're totally a cult, Like yeah, cute we and uh yeah,
so isn't that fun? Jared's the cult and everyone's like
teasing about it. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous, and they all
(01:49):
wear white and everything.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Can send us there and then we can like do
a show, record a show.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
I would love to And he's be like, this is
a ridiculous crime waiting to happen. He hasn't got a
show yet from the crime perfect. There you go.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Okay, right up a proposal. In the meantime, I'm going
to tell you what else is ridiculous? Please stealing because
it makes your privates tingle. This is a ridiculous crime.
(02:39):
A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers heists cons it's
always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Period period.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Okay, you just told us about some naked people in France.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
I did. Freak Daddy's totally my friends in France.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I've got a mildly freak daddy French guy. It's like,
what freaky France sweek?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Why do we keep doing this vulcan mind meld?
Speaker 3 (03:05):
You know what?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Because we do not tell each other anything. What we're
going to do is we like to surprise each other.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
And then you're telling me the story. I'm like, oh, brother, listens,
wow freak France. Yeah, okay, So you know that art
heist are my comfort zone.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yes, I do know that. I know that if I
could give you one as a gift, I.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Will thank you because you know, sometimes, like most of
the time, no one gets hurt. Usually the thief is
usually ripping off some wealthy fat cat like money launderers. Anyways,
you know.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
There's some level of exploitation that got the art inter right.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
So what do I care if you can con or
rob a billionaire? I say, do it, and do it now.
Just don't tell me over again. They deserve it, even
Mark Cuban deserves it. Sometimes. I don't think people have
a grasp of how much a billion dollars is a lot. Like, Okay,
(03:57):
if you're trying to save a billion dollars and you're
able to say your money at like a rate of
one hundred dollars a.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Day, okay, one hundred dollars a day, yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
One billion divided by one hundred, So the dollars saved
per day is ten million days. Okay, ten million days
divided by three hundred and sixty five. That's the days
per year. Equals twenty seven thousand, three hundred ninety seven
point two six years to reach one billion dollars of years,
twenty seven thousand years years to reach a billion. And
(04:27):
like you, obviously you would never.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I'd probably get that in your life, Roberty.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Day, but neither would your children, grandchildren or great grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
You might sneak in a couple of Egyptian dynasties.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
So you could if you and one descendant per generation
saved one hundred dollars every day, and each of you
lived for ninety years, it would take you and three
hundred and four generations of your descendants to save up
one billion dollars a lot. A million seconds is eleven days,
one billion seconds is thirty one and a half years.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
I feel like I'm buried in numbers. Oh my, got it. Everywhere?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
A billion is one thousand million. So if I if
I spend one hundred thousand dollars a day, it would
only take me ten days to waste a million dollars.
If I spent one hundred thousand dollars a day, it
would take me twenty seven years to waste one billion dollars.
It's a lot of time, right, It's more than any
human being and their family could spend for one billion.
(05:24):
Now think about those with multiple billions. I got to
be dropping hundreds of billions.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
They're dropping millions a day just to even it shouldn't.
And then also, my money's making more money before I
can even spend it all exactly how I'm now in
Mackenzie Scott.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah, she can't get rid of it fast enough. We
should feel free to steal whatever we want from them
because it makes no difference. So say I, anyway, art
you're here, So I've told you so many art theft
all exactly when I when I saw this story, I
thought maybe I'd already shared it with you.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Get that excited it?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Well, it has all I was like, I feel like
I might have already. It has all the elements, right.
So it's a little bit different, and it lines up
more with one of our other criminals, the book thief
guy John Charles Gilkey. So he was different for a
lot of reasons. Modesto California storage facilities notwithstanding, sure, the
(06:17):
main thing is that he never sold what he stole,
like he cherished the books collected, built this library. He
was an appreciator. And that's the kind of art thief
I have for you today.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
I appreciate him.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
This guy never sold what he stole. He was gentle
with the art. He loved it. He wanted to surround
himself with beautiful things. Dateline, I'll says France, eighteen seventy one.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Nice. So that was when a boy child was born.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Stiff on GM funds leak it should be bright Weissa,
but Brightweiser. I'll just I'll dumb it down, sure, stiff
On Breitweiser. So his dad was high up in management
at a department store chain. Mom, pediatric nurse. They have
three docs in Zaren threebeth living well. Yeah, they lived
(07:09):
in this beautiful home, gorgeous home, antiques art that was
all the dad's family stuff because his great grandfather's brother
was this really famous Alsatian expressionist painter and his works
adorned the walls. Little kid Stefan, he he spoke French, German, English,
(07:34):
Alsatian only child, spoiled rotten, like a nerdy old soul,
totally perplexed with the modern world. He loved curios and
art and art.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
So while he's nerdy, he's also terrible in school. It's
to the disappointment of his family, and he's sullen. His
family is always trying to cheer him up. So one
day in high schoo well, his mom dropped him off
at the Archaeological museum in Strasburg. We're telling you about this.
So the German border, German Swiss borders. So this, uh,
(08:11):
these museum visits, they like, they cheered him up and
they drop him off in the morning, let him like
wander and ponder and then pick him up and he'd
be a new young man, refreshed. This feels like a
Wes Anderson movie. Okay. So then on on one day
they drop him off, he's meandering around the museum. He
brushes against the metal on the side of a Roman
(08:33):
coffin and a piece broke off and landed in his
hand magically, and he shoved it into his pocket. So
he gets home. He has this little box that he
has all the little things that he's collected in the woods,
on walks and that kind of stuff, and he adds
it to the box of all these small items. That
was his first art theft exactly. So he's just out
(08:59):
of height. His parents split up, and that's traumatic enough.
But everything in the gorgeous home, all the art, the
beautiful pieces of antique furniture, like I said, belong to
the dad, all from his side of the family. They
had a boat, a benzo in the driveway. He takes
it all when he leaves, just takes it and so
he bounces out stiff On is like, you know, I
(09:21):
want nothing to do with you, cuts contact completely. The
mom she can't afford this large home, so she and
stiff On they move. They have to downsize, which is
kind of like this understatement. They move into a little
apartment and they're on government assistance. It's like a little
house that has an attic, so as like the second floor,
So he's in the attic and that's his domain, and
(09:43):
then she has the rest of the place.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
But it's very small.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
So he starts shoplifting, not so much out of necessity
but like a big middle finger to the world.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
It's just like an angry team.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Yeah, completely Yeah, And he gets busted and he learns
his lesson, and the lesson was don't get caught.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Good lesson to learn. So he drifts around.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
He becomes a textbook disaffected youth. He's mad at the world, depressed.
Then he got a job at a museum and while
he was there, he stole a fifteen hundred year old
belt buckle.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, I can see this coming, and he like.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
He made sure to like rearrange the case so that
no one knew it was gone.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And then he quit.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
He's like, what I thought he.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Would take a lot more that little odds and ends.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
That was his first real art.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Theft Okay, that now qualifies. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
So there's around this time that he met this woman
and Catherine and Katherine Kleinkouse. Okay, and quote, I loved
her right away, he said. So he's just that she's it.
They're this passionate couple. They're like a little bit reckless,
and so he sees her as his muse and he
admires her taste and her aesthetic. And they each on
(10:51):
their own fail or drop out of their college programs.
They had bounced from job to job. So then one
weekend nineteen ninety four, they're in this Alsatian village of Than.
There's a museum there, and Steffan he saw something that
made his heart race, a flint stock pistol from the
seventeen hundreds. And it wasn't like the pistol part that
(11:13):
got him all head up. It was the carving on
the grip, the silver inlay. Yeah, He's like, I have
got to have this. And so he looks around and
he sees there's like there's no lock on the case.
It's this small museum in a small town. The only
employee was downstairs. They're upstairs. He looks, no cameras, there's
(11:34):
absolutely nothing protecting it. So he tells Anne Catherine like, look,
this is what I'm gonna do, and she's like, yeah,
go for it, like she has kind of like crazy
It's like.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Kind of like a French bee'sy bunny to my Claude
correct eld.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
So he slips open the back of the display case,
grabs the pistol, shoves it in his backpack, and then
they leave a museum all cool like coud. They out,
they get in the car, they get in the car,
they drive home. They're nervous the whole way, like, oh
my god, I can't believe we did that. And then
(12:09):
they find themselves there up in the bedroom in the
attic with the loot. And this was his second real
art theft and his first as a couple. So there
was so much in this pistol. It didn't just speak
to his love of beauty and craft. It was also
a big f you to his dad, because this is
the sort of thing that his dad had and then
(12:30):
his dad shared with him and then snatched away when
he left a right and so the theft also gave
him this like much needed head of adrenaline and serotonin
for someone who's so inclined to low daze, right, So
it's easy. Yeah, it's easy to get addicted to adrenaline
Russia's bursts of serotonin. I get that the serotonin part,
(12:52):
not the adrenaline, right, Like you're an adrenaline.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Junkie, as they say, Yes, I accurate, I'm allergic to it.
Short circuits system.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
It does well as an aside to an aside. Did
you know what I did to get a serotonin hit
two months ago?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
I don't know what.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I got myself a dog dogh for real. I am
back to being a childless dog lady and loving it nice.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yes, I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Thank you. I needed him. His name's Monty okay, and
I got him from a human Montana. He's named after Montiana.
He's named after in homage to Monty Don the gardener,
h English gardener.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
You talk about him, a real calm dardening guy.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yes, he came from the Wine Country, like I saw
him on pet Finder, drove my tail up there, immediately
got him home, hugged on him, loved don him pretty.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Much the perfect dog and weirdly perfect nice.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Anyway, I may get another one, just to get another
serotonin do ride this high into the end times.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
You can't feed them.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah exactly, which was you know what, I want to
be a bear or.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
My dogs find something and let it kill you. I
think I've been told.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Doing that anyway, art theft, So having stolen the pistol, Bonnie,
it could, they're on a roll, right, they strike again.
It's wintertime, not a lot of tourists around, so they
hit up a castle and it's not like well trafficked
or like large minimal security. So they're walking around, Steffan
sees something a medieval crossbow. Take that think about medieval
(14:29):
cross them boys, is big, like wingspan, very big, hung
from the ceiling on a wire and like castle ceilings
are high. Undeterred. So and Catherine, she like acts as
the lookout. He goes and grabs a chair. Remember it's
winter and this place is empty, so he climbs up
(14:50):
on the chair unhooks the crossbow like nice, okay, but
now how do you get it out of there? And
so there's no fitting something that big in his little
backpack or her pocketbook. So Stefan he goes from window
to window and he's looking for a way to drop
this thing outside.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Oh yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
It's like too high up for most of them, or
like there was a person standing down there and he
has like a long wire or there's like a steep ravine. Yeah,
because it's like you have this fortress this for its
location exactly. So then he looks out and he sees
(15:29):
a steep drop, but there are like a bunch of
bushes below. You know, these things are made for battle crossbows, tough.
So he figures the bushes are going to break the
fall enough. He lowers it down on the wire then
just lets go. It thuds into the bushes. And then
so he and Ann Catherine, they're like do they like
nonchalantly make their way through the museum out the front door.
(15:51):
They get in the car, they drive around back. He
jumps out and he like gingerly like climb clamors over
this stuff, gets the crossbow from the shrubbery, tosses at
the back of the car.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Off they go nice. They're exhilarated, like.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
They couldn't believe what they just pulled off. They waited
to see if news of the theft made the papers.
It never had with that pistol, that never showed up
in the paper. So this time, though there is a
story about it but it looked like they didn't discover
it missing for a few days after the theft, and
the story was like, yeah, there are no leads, so
(16:24):
they got away with it and this was like the
best drug ever plus free crossbow. So let's take a break,
we come back. We're going to follow this duo as
they liberate French art and artifacts from unwinning museums and
collections or crossbows or crossbows anyway, art theft.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
It's my nickname in Nebraska theft. Mine's anyway art theft.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Three years on now, Stiffon and Catherine Bonnie Ekild they
have squirreled away more than one hundred of jet dart
in their attic apartment. And when I say.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Big, it's not big, right, No, it's like.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
They're living in the attic in the mom's place.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Like I'm imagining slanted walls, like I can't stand up
in most.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Walls, low lit, crammed with art. The mom never goes
up there.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Don't want to go up to their love.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
No, and she's like that smells up there, you know,
there's this musty and stuffy. Anyway, I do need to
clarify something I said before, how he got a rush
out of this and there was this almost addictive quality
to crimes, but it turns out there was actually more.
Steffan is said to suffer from Stendhall syndrome. Have you
(18:00):
ever heard of it? Uh?
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Huh Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Stendhal syndrome also known as Florence syndrome psychosomatic condition. Those
afflicted experience of racing heartbeat, fainting, confusion, sometimes hallucinations. Upon
viewing things like objects, art, natural phenomenon of great beauty.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
You can literally fall out.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
And it's named after the nineteenth century French author Stendall,
which is a pseudonym of Marie Elribe, who went to Florence,
Italy and just lost his sheep when he saw the
Basilica of Santa Croce, the final resting place of Matthew Veelli,
Michelangelo Galileo. He's just blown away.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
This is what he said.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Quote. I was in a sort of ecstasy from the
idea of being in Florence, close to the great men
whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of
sublime beauty, I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations.
Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah if I
could only forget, I had palpitations of the heart what
(19:01):
in Berlin they call nerves. Life was drained for me.
I walked with fear of falling.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
So I have a problem with stem dolls. I think
that it's like something anybody can reach and it's not
like a condition. It's like they act like it's a condition.
I'm like, now, I think that's just like you. Well,
it's like it's like if anybody encounters something. I'm sure
some people find it in nature, some people find it
in music. I have friends who just sob when when
Stevie Wonder sings, I mean, like in the musicians and
(19:28):
crazy musicians. So I get it, but it's like we
have to name that. Can we just call that like
a peak experience?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:35):
No, I'm with you.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
You know. Apparently to this day, Santa Maria Nouova Hospital
at Florence they treat tourists who get these dizzy spells
and disorientation after they look at David naked.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
You also you have to look up.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Or like anything in.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Florence amazing, so incredible.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
I saw amazing Caravaggio great.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I think I might have seen the same thing.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
I wonder were you following me?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Don't producer d why she asked these questions? Do a
sound effect?
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Did you see it there? Wow? Yeah, I saw too.
So that's what Steffan says he has, right, but his
version is a little more intense. He claims to feel
sexual energy a buzz nah, and so when we.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Talk about I feel that way about the ateen. Now
that's a condition.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Well, it's like we talk about serial killers who get
sexual satisfaction from what they do. Well, like stiff on
he gets off on stealing art.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah, did we actually do that we talked about I
don't remember to those I'm familiar. So he basically has
the same effect. But that's a psychosomatic connection. Right. Did
his mother like like do something where art became like
a psychosexual thing? He do not know. Oh I thought
that was part of.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
No he that's what he says. I have this, but
like extra this is this is the condition I have.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
But like downstairs, so I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Sorry.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
By now, the couple had like perfected their methods. They
they dressed like slightly.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
He just love to show him art, like baby, what
about that? Right?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
He's like, no, I want to see a shallice. So
they wore clothes that made him look like kind of
hip old money kids, like.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
They thrifted luxury brands.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
They were super charming. They'd scot places out and they'd
hit ones with subpar security. He he always made sure
the floors weren't creaky and that the staff is just
not engaged. And Catherine, she'd be the lookout. Uh. He'd
use he carried like someone here a Swiss army knife.
Got to uh, he used that for everything. He'd use
(21:58):
it to unscrew whatever, pride, what have you, liberate the
piece and then he would generally like shove it at
a backpacker in his pants leg.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
They hit the Rubens house in Antwerp, Belgium. Oh yeah, yeah, exactly.
This was his old house. And so you know, he
didn't do a lot of tiny canvases. He had substantial pieces.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Not a modest man, no, And.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
So Stefan he's like he he has to find something
that could fit under his jacket generally, but something that
still gets his motor running. He's just not there to
steal for new reasons.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Rubens might kill him.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
I mean, your head might explode. But so he there
he sees an ivory carving of Adam and Eve.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Oh, that's more his speed from.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Sixteen twenty seven that a friend of Rubens had done.
So there's this carving under a plexiglass dome. He pulls
out his trusty Swiss Army knife and he timed it
so that the one security guard who worked there had
like just passed and wandered around, and he knew, okay,
I got to time. But there were a lot of
screws and it can be slow going with a Swiss
(23:04):
Army Knights.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Old screws haven't moved in a long time.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Twenty minutes to get that's a long time. But he
managed to get the dome off, get the carving, shoved
it into his waistband kind of like a gun like
in the back. So he and Anne Catherine they like
breezily leave. They hop in the car head back to France.
And it was a normal heightst that they pulled over
and over and over again. That was just like one
(23:27):
of many art fair and Zurich they stole a filigree
and like gold sixteenth century goblet and an art fair
in Holland a sixteen oh two landscape of a pond
with swans and a seventeenth century seascape painted on copper
nice at an auction presale in Paris. They got a
painting from the school of Peter Brugel the Elder and
(23:50):
Peter Brugle the younger.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Both elder and the elder like hit him up, Hello, junior, Senior.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
They went in Belgium again, a tableau of a rural
market and a painting of housecats and hedgehogs.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Who got the hedgehogs and the housecats? Buddy, do you
got a fan?
Speaker 3 (24:13):
In Lele they got a Renaissance oil painting. Yeah, at
this point, never been. At this point, we're almost at
three hundred pieces.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Oh man, and.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
So again the attic. The most valuable work of art
that he'd stolen at this point was Sabille Princess of
Cleaves by Lucas Kronik the Elder. He grabbed that from
a castle in Bond and Bondon in nineteen ninety five.
The Guardian newspaper estimated in two thousand and three that
its value at auction would be more than five million pounds.
(24:44):
That's like ten and a half million dollars today. Damn,
so's he's stealing expensive stuff too. They hit up an
art fair in the Netherlands in Mastrik. They walk up
to this booth and it's run by this flashy London
art dealer named Richard Green, and they'd spoken with him
before and they found him super dismissive and another.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Fairly he was just rude.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Yeah, Stefan later told journalist Michael Finkel, quote Richard Green
and his Monte Cristo cigars and his Rolex too, like
that's some tupac.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Like yes, totally. A lot more hit him.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
So it was at this booth though, that Stefan and
and Catherine they saw something that lit them up. It
was a still life by Jan van Kessel the Elder
from sixteen fifty two.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
They had to excuse himself a new moment.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
He was like, he had to hold his backpack in
front of him. It was. It's this richly toned still
life of tulips, lily's snowdrops, dahlia's irises, cabbage all manner
of showy almost blousy flowers at peak blossom.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
It is hitting you too, in.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
A glass hobnail vase and like their pollen and over
ripe sugars attracting delicate butterflies.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
And there's a.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Tiny ladybug crawling up a wilted and torn leaf. Hint
a hint of spent petals.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
We're going to get scattered almost out of view on
the tabletop. There's a lizard mid stride.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
And the shade of the arrangement have dragonfly hovering off
to the right. It's all elegantly painted onto a thin
sheet of copper. So there you go. It's a fantastic, lush,
sensual piece and st He got that racing heart, that dizziness,
that buzzing inside, and that nufty Richard Green had it.
(26:48):
So this fair wasn't really the spot for theft though, right,
tons of people tons off. You had to show paperwork
when you left with a purchase, like they would scan
it to sure it wasn't something you could just roll
up and shoving your pants or your backpack copper too.
It's not like you can get roll it. Yeah, but
he was still captivated, sure zaren I want you to
(27:12):
picture this. You are a still life painting by Yon
van Kessel the Elder. Your technical title is a still
life of tulips, a crown, imperial snow drops, lilies, irises,
roses and other flowers in a glass of oase with
a lizard, butterfly and dragonflies and other insects. Not the
catchiest title, but you're magnificent. Almost three hundred and fifty
(27:33):
years ago. You started as a sheet of copper. Then
you were placed in front of a genius, such an
honor he drew on you, and from you a lush
portrait of a bouquet just past its peak, not yet spent,
but not full of life, just cresting the hill, and
now looking out on a downward slope. For nearly three
hundred and fifty years, people have stood before you, taking
(27:55):
you in, sometimes in awe, almost always with appreciation, although
occasional boredom. You've hung on walls and the elegant homes
of Belgian merchants. You've done some time in the gallery.
You were, for a short moment on the wall of
a study, and now you're on a pedestal and a
Dutch art fair. People stroll by, chatting, laughing. Some look
(28:17):
upon the art with eyes searching for a deal. Some
are there just to see and bc to mingle a network.
And then there's the predator before you, a young man
with brown hair and a broadcloth shirt and wirerimed glasses.
Stares at you with nothing short of lust. His eyes
burrow into your oils. You feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
This isn't natural.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
He eyes you like a creep would eye a beautiful
woman from across a crowded bar. It's unsettling. Suddenly there's
a commotion. Thief. Someone yells, oh, dear, so many of
your compatriots have been spirited away over the years by
the greedy, the desperate, the Nazis. Stop thief. The man
staring a hole into.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
You turns white.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
His eyes grow large. There's a thud and a and
he turns to his left. Down the aisle of booths,
a group of security guards tackle a man. All of
the booth proprietors pop their heads out like prairie dogs
to catch the action. Customers stand with their mouths agape.
Who would ever suspect something like that happening at a
place like this the creepwood. He looks quickly at the
(29:19):
woman behind him. She cuts a fine figure and vientedge
chanel and delicate features. She nods and he reaches out
to you. In an instant, you are in his sweaty paws,
and then shoved under his arm inside his blazer. It's
hot and musty. Under there, you feel his heart pound
against you. He and the woman make fast strides toward
the door, heading away from the set to with security.
(29:41):
Everyone there continues to watch the scrum while you're whisked
towards the exit. The gentleman at the door, who should
be asking to see a receipt for you, is too
busy rubbernecking about the cottief to notice the one's speed
walking by him. The man holding you picks up the
paste to a quick trot out in the gravel parking area.
He and the woman jump in a car, gently setting
(30:01):
you in the back seat. He throws his jacket over you,
and the engine roars to life. Back in the fair,
Richard Green returns to his booth. As he gets settled
in on the director's chair he's set up in the corner.
Something looks off. He realizes it immediately. The pedestal containing
that still life is gone fave, he yells out. In
the car. You think to yourself, Richard Green and his
(30:24):
Monte Cristo cigars and his Rolex two. So that that
was their most brazen theft until it wasn't. By this time,
it's like two thousand year two thousand. Huh, Stefan and
on on Catherine and Catherine they hit up a gallery
in Lucerne, Switzerland, and she wasn't feeling this one from
(30:46):
the jump, like something wasn't right. And it was really
warm out so they couldn't wear coats to conceal the loot.
And the gallery was right across the street from a
police station.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Always a tough a criminal. You're, hey, guys, at this place,
where are we going to? Ends across the street from
the police station and just be cool, be cool.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
No one else was in the gallery at all, and
so they were like the full focus.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Of the stat and also tough.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
But still Steffan saw something that got them all worked
up and he had no choice. Okay, it was a
painting by Villain van Elst like us, how.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Could you not stiff get some water?
Speaker 3 (31:23):
He looks around, take a moment, He reaches out, takes
the painting off the wall just like, tucks it under
his arm, and strolls out. Just okay, Well, the attempted
to stroll out because apparently he didn't act enough like
he knew. A gallery employee grabs him because they're like, wait,
this man's just walking out.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Sorry, you can't do this way. And also, why is
any Catherine not doing some kind of like falling down
and having a seizure.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
You know, they're getting two brazens. Well, she was too,
she was too enraptured.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
He has it. I don't know, she's just like I'm tired.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
She was not having Yeah, so a gallery and play
grass him drags him across the street to the cops
and he tells them this sob story. But I've never
done anything like this before. I don't know what came
over me.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
At boy, I'll.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Never do it again. Oh yeah, and they're like all right,
So they give him this eight month suspended sentence and
they ban him from entering Switzerland until the eight months
is over.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I really like it, and I'm not I'm not being
critical when I say this, but Europe's response to crime
is always, as an American just like that's so.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Cute, because yeah, it's like.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I'm not saying I'm not recommending our way. I'm just
saying I'm so when I hear if you do what
for the most it's so cute. It's not for violent
I prefer.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Crimes. They're just like, you know, people are people exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Stupid recognition of the fact we're all human as opposed
to like anyway, don't see what they're trying to profit
off their criminals.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Well yeah, but you know what they did. They got
the prince, they get his prince, and so this is
sort of a sign of things to come, like the
sloppiness Yea and Catherine, she's like starting to question their future.
They're not selling any of this and they just keep
cramming it into the attic. They don't even have their
(33:10):
own place, and he's the ing bigger and bigger stuff.
So they don't have their own place. They're living in
the mom's attic.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
He doesn't really work.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
She's got a gig as a CNA certified nursing assistant.
But they like barely covers the Billings bedpants. Yeah, is
this forever? Is what she's wondering. Are we ever going
to get married? We're gonna have kids? Am I just
looking down the road of decades of these heightsts until
we can't even personally fit into the area.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
One day we get to sleep downstairs because your mom
passed exactly.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
And so it comes to a head and Stefan broke
it to her. He's like, I am never going to stop.
This is who I am. She's shattered, but she stays
all right, I'll say, but you have to promise that
you're going to start wearing gloves because they got your
prints this time. And so he's like, yeah, yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Babe, Yeah right, no, probably I love gloves, yeah babe,
and then glove whatever you want, whatever you want, yeah sure.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
And so then one day in November of two thousand
and one, he shows up in the attic with a
new item. He's got this bugle from fifteen eighty four.
It's worth forty five thousand pounds from the Richard Wagner
Museum in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
And he knows there's like a whole like he had
like a moment with you. He comes in, he's like,
did you did you do your things?
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Oh my god, there are only three like it on
the planet. Like he's losing it. She's like, did you
wear gloves?
Speaker 2 (34:30):
He's like she should, honestly, she's going to stay with him,
iron off his fingerprints, just take your wear protection.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
He's like, no, no, exactly, it was too good.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
You got it. I'm saying, you gotta make it.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Loses it. She loses it. When he finds out he
didn't wear gloves, like, how could you do this?
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Protection? You're praying everything.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
She's like, I gotta make it right. You left your
fingerprints in a museum where the bugle used to be
in Switzerland, where they took your prints. We have to
go back, and not to return it, but to wipe
down the prints.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Oh that's a double bad idea too, So don't return
to the scene of the crime.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Off they go.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
So we're going to make it right.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah, and Catherine, she went in to like clean up
while Steffan he wandered around in a park across the street.
There's this journalist who just happened to be walking his
dog on the museum grounds and he looks over received
stuff on and Some's just like not right.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
He's like, this is weird. She's acting odd.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
And he knew about the bugle theft, and so you know, Zaren,
if you see something, say something.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Or I'm split between I mean not just to myself,
like mutter to myself.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Usual what I Half the time I'm like, MI dro business.
The other half the time I'm like, if you see something,
say something, like.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
I see something. I try to make myself laugh about
what I see.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
That's good. That's a good way. That should be on
a way like public information board. If you see something,
just tell it to yourself.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
You can keep it to yourself and have a laugh.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
So he saw something, he said something. He goes in
and he tells the secure guard like there's a suspicious
guy outside. And Catherine hears this, and she's like this.
She makes a break for it. She comes running out
of the building just as the guards make their way
to Stefan and arrest him and Lucern police they gave
the dog a lifetime supply of food in appreciation for
(36:17):
his help.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Good dog, way to go.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
So meanwhile, Steffan, he's in the clink break time.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
She just keeps walking. She's like, she's like, oh, I.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Just was looking for my boyfriend. Yeah, let's take a break.
When we return, I'm going to tell you about the cops,
Stiffan and the bugle.
Speaker 4 (36:33):
Yeah, Stefan bite Visa.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Yeah that's what I said. He stole him.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Abuse, Yeah he did.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Yeah, I would write a folk song about it.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Told him a bugle. He was only thirty five.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I've told you my thing about killed.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Him, made his joints field.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
I think it was my brother. Who there's that Davy
Crockett killed him a bear him the bar. He thought
it was killed in a bar when he was only three.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
This his life rough.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Davy Crockett did all that.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
In three years. So went out the way you lived.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
So the cops they held him for days. He told
the cops, look, I was just trying to get like
a really nice Christmas present for my mom, but I
don't have any money, and she loves bugles, so I
just grabbed the bugle, Like who among us hasn't done that?
And all he really wanted to do was keep the
cops out of the attic. Yeah, of course, and to
(37:56):
my house, Rince, he'd done it before. So they like
they connected, Okay, this is your first time. I'm gonna
guess you have a hideout, like a little stash. He's
like no. They reach out to the cops in France,
they get a search warrant for the mom's place, but
it took like a month between the arrest and when
they can execute the search warrant. Ah, because it was
(38:18):
just like you know, cross border right, It's.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Like I guess, yeah, you got multiple countries. You're also
both Europeans. So you're kind of lacks about crime anyway.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Exactly European Union. But it's so they get there the
mom's home, and she's like, I don't know anything about it.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
I don't even have a sign. Oh I have a.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
They I don't go into the attic, she says, I've
never gone up there. That's his place up the stairs.
The cops go slowly, they turn, step by step, inch
by they throw open the attic door and there it
was nothing, absolutely bed and bare wall. I bet there
wasn't even dust monastic even. Yeah. So around the same time,
(38:59):
there's a man he's on a stroll nearby and he
sees something shiny in a canal and he wades in
and he pulls out a silver chalice. Oh god, and
he's like, man, this thing's gotta be like four hundred
years old.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Shaziam like la.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Score right, and then la he sees something else, a gobblet,
and then more silver work.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Homie threw the metal in the river.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Hah no, not bien, right, he called the cops. He's like,
no much, this pubbian way too much. So the police arrive.
They fish out almost one hundred and fifty pieces. What
the hell man and they gather everything up. They take
pictures of each item.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
So if you can't have it, no one can.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Well you'll find out. Then they send the stuff off
to this museum to be like restored. Identified Stefan. He
hadn't been able to talk to his mom or Anne
Catherine this whole time, like he could have brief calls,
but he's still locked up. She's he doesn't say anything unusual,
doesn't write any In the interrogation room, a detective meets
(40:06):
with him right comes in, puts down a photo of
a metal on the table, and it's one that he
had stolen, like not too long before. He picked up
the bugle a recent high recent. But the metal looks
all rusty and dirty, and that's not how he found
it or left it, so he's all confused. Then the
cop puts down another picture. It's this golden snuff box
that also looks pretty rough. And then finally the detective
(40:29):
spreads out a stack of one hundred and forty photos
on the table. It's everything that Stefan had stolen, painting
that wasn't a painting, eight years of stuff, right down
to the pistol item number one. He sees this confesses
to stealing everything. Oh, I bet and then he says
to the cop, but what about the paintings, and the
(40:52):
cops like paintings. He has no idea what he's talking about.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
So here's how he's.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Here's what went down. So Stefan gets arrested, and Catherine
and the mom never spoke publicly about it. Now, Stefan
he talked to Michael Finkel, the journalist, and there's a
whole book about him. But the other ladies didn't say anything,
and they never told Stefan anything. So this is all
like everyone trying to piece together what they think happened.
(41:24):
So it looks like Stefan gets arrested and Catherine, she
drives home. She tells the mom what happened, and then
it's like, let me show you.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
This attic your mind.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
So they know the cops obviously are going to be coming,
and the mom's like, I have to save my son.
And so they load all the small stuff into the
car and they drive to the ron Ryan Canal not
far from the house. They dump every non painting object
into it. This is the stuff that the guy found
and handed over. Then they go they go home and
(41:58):
they do another load and this time because probably like
in a little citrum, this time it's the big stuff.
I'm sure, the charming sa sculptures, the crossbow, there's this
enormous one hundred and fifty pound Madonna and child statue.
Then his mom like she's super religious, and so first
of all, I don't know how he carted that out
(42:18):
from somewhere, but he stole it whatever, like did like
the firefighter carry for it. So the mom is like,
I can't, I can't just dish this in the dirt.
Like she goes and she finds a chapel in a
forest and like leaves it there. She didn't want to
offend the blessed Virgin. Okay, so the rest of it
they left.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
The is she hoping like the priest who finds it,
it's America. I'm not saying anything, So just come back
and you take it back. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
So the rest of the stuff they leave in places
where it would eventually be discovered, like purposefully they're hiding.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah, like someone will find this and leaving a baby
on a doorsteps exactly.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
And then there's the paintings, like that's the last batch.
So what do they do with those? Well, some of
them the mom cut up with scissors and shoved in
the garbage disposal on canvas. She just like crumpled up
and put in the trash. Oh I know. And then
all the ones that are on like wooden panels, and
Catherine to the mom. They load him into the car,
(43:15):
they go into the fire. They make a huge stack
and they set them all on fire, a giant funeral
pyre of priceless, incredible. I forget the forget the cost
of it. I don't care how much these are worth.
The beauty and the like human achievement to create something
(43:36):
like that.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
The fact that we wanted to keep them ashes ashes.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
And so Stefan finds out and he's heartbroken. I only
imagine these are his loves, his treasures, and like.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
You'll never get to see them, touch them.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
They had to place him on watch in jail because
they were worried her assumed he did. So he goes
on trial, sentenced to four years. It is s tomate
it that he stole over the years, two billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Worth of art.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
He had two billion dollars, and we now know how
much a billion really is. In the attic, they're on
government assistance, and she's you know he's anyway. His mom
goes to court for destroying the works. She's found guilty,
but only spent a few months in jail. And she
said in court that she thought it was quote, just
(44:28):
a bunch of junk, and that until her son's arrest,
she had no clue he'd been sealed.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
She was like a sitcom mother, you know, the one
you never see is hear the voice of and Catherine.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
She gets arrested and she tells the cops she doesn't
know anything about anything. She thought that he was just
a hoarder with great taste, like what is.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
This garage sales? How do you take a stone from?
Speaker 3 (44:52):
She refused to testify against her. He refused to say
anything the court. Well, the court buys her story. She
walks free. She doesn't even if the cops by the story.
She didn't go to courton. Yes, she spent one night
in jail. That was it. Right after he got busted,
she left him for another guy. He still refused to
contradict her statement. And then she went and got pregnant
(45:15):
with this new guy, and he was like, I never
want to talk to her again. But this point he's convicted.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
It's like she'd waited all that time for him to
like make it official, yeah, exactly, and then he didn't.
So she's like, well he will, uh huh. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:27):
So he gets out of jail when he's thirty three.
It's two thousand and five. Life is no longer exciting
as a result of his crimes. He's barred from going
into a museum or any other place showing art.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
So like, there's a lot of public art. How do
you even enforce that? And in Europe?
Speaker 3 (45:45):
Yeah, you kidding me. But it still calls to him.
So he goes to an antiques face.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
You don't want to have him over to your house
for a party. You'd be like, oh, you can't work,
you can't got art. I have art, you can't come over. Sorry,
you know how it is. Yeah, but there's this siren call.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
He has to Belgium antiques Fair. It's there that he
sees a painting by Peter Brugle the Younger, This winter Land.
It gives him the buzzies. He feels that tingle before
he knows that he has stolen the painting in his outfit.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
Before he looks down.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
And so he takes his home, hangs it on the wall,
It makes him feel absolutely electric. He has a new
girlfriend by this point, of course, and she's like, where
where'd you get that? He's honest, he's like, I stole it,
but it's just one. I'm like, I'm not going to
do another one, don't worry.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
And he knows who he is, Yeah, the past.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
He's like, babe, babee, Okay, did you wear protection? He's like,
I were gloves. We're all good, and she's totally fine
with it. But then they break up and she's like,
I'm going to the cops.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Yeah, she's she you can't really have a partner who
knows about that because of this reason for them.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
If they they break up, there it goes. And so
she goes to the cop. He goes to jail. He
got out in twenty thirteen, forty one years old. He
came up with this idea that he was going to
become a museum security consultant, like a white oh.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Heist, Yeah, sure, why not?
Speaker 3 (47:15):
I like that there are no takers.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
There's no such thing, and it's not like hacking, where
there's actually people constantly trying to do this. It's like, oh,
we need someone to protect us. This is not a
our museum every night we have so my brain.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
This is also like kind of pervy thing where he's like,
let me just get in there and then look, I'll
let me see what you gott.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
Be close to the arc, just want to look near it,
look at it. He's a glance at this point.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
He's just like hanging out with his mom every day,
just touch the frames. They go for walks in the woods.
He's on government assistance. He's like, got this little small
place near his grandparents farmhouse in i'l Sace, and he
stayed true to himself. He started stealing it.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Naturally, you got to live a little bit.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
But see that's the thing you got to live. And
so this time he's doing it for profit. No, so
he got caught trying to sell stolen stuff on eBay.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah, Ibey was trying to sell stolen stuff on eBay.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Roman coins and like other little things, and he'd stolen
from museums in France, Germany. He went to trial April
twenty twenty three. He got sentenced to house arrest and
now he has to wear an ankle monitor until twenty
thirty one, when he'll be sixty years old. That sucks, right,
Zaren what is your ridiculous takeaway is was.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
There like a documentary about this guy or like some
kind of like I think maybe because I feel like
I've seen that when you're describing the uh there was
going to be an addict with the artwork. Either I've
just been you know, I've read a lot about crime
in my life, so I maybe have just seen this
story from at some point in twenty something. But I
have some strong imagery of that addict is chocolate block
(48:51):
filled with art, you know, just all leaned in and
all that.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
So there's supposed to be this movie, The Sleeping Shepherd,
it's in development that is like inspired by him with
Michael Pitt that he was on like Boardwalk Empire.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
I was thinking that very.
Speaker 3 (49:12):
Yeah, no, he's close. But you know Immageen Poots which
like God bless that she's imas and Catherine's an actress. Yeah,
I don't know isabelle Bert.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
French actress? Young kid? Right? I think he's got a
bright feature.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
It was back in twenty sixteen though when you go
to when you go to IMDb, the Sleeping Shepherd is
categorized as in development.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
I don't think that's happening.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
That's not happening. So anyway, it's it's an incredible story.
There are a bunch of like little mini docs that
I've seen, But the big thing is that Michael Finkle
book The Art Thief, which is interesting because he also
did the story of the Hermit in the Woods. He
wrote a book on that, and he has this weird
redemption story where he got busted for it's escaping you
(50:02):
know what what uh publication he wrote for. But he
he got in trouble for creating.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Like characters oh false.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
It was like a composite yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, you
like make up a person, right, So they had to issue,
you know, a retraction and he lost his job. And
so then now he does these books about It's fascinating.
He's a he's a great writer.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Anyway, Apparently the art Fabulous apparently.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
Tell spins a great tale. Zaren, what does your ridiculous
take away?
Speaker 2 (50:31):
My ridiculous take away, Elizabeth, thank you for asking.
Speaker 3 (50:33):
You're so welcome, so quick.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
Art thieves are really fun because it's like, uh, almost
like you could steal a hymn, you know, like it's
like nobody's really hurt by the fact you've stolen this beauty.
We still have it, but at the same time it's gone.
So it's like, yeah, it's just an interesting thing, and
also about why we prize some things over others. And
then the part though about getting all heated by the artwork.
(51:00):
Imagine trying to explain that to someone with a straight face,
like who's like you're trying to get romantically involved with
and you're like, oh, nervous, like, look, there's something I
need to tell you, and you're like, what is it?
And they make that face like you're about to say
something weird and you're like, no, I know it's it's
gonna sound weird, but it's past that.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Are you used to seeing that face? Oh?
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Most of my ideas people give me that face. I'm like, look,
I got an idea. They're like, I don't know, maybe
I heard your ideas. I'm going to walk away now
before I have to hire a lawyer. So yeah, that's it.
It's just basically that intimate moment having to tell a partner,
you know, it really gets to heat it up. Sharing
a king, well what turns you on? You know? So
there you go. What about you, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3 (51:41):
I think that I don't I don't suffer from that condition,
and certainly not in the manner.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
That he does.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
But I mean, you do have these moments that are
sort of transcendent when you see pieces of art.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
Yes, that's what I thought. I thought, if you've.
Speaker 3 (51:56):
Already seen them, if you've admired something and you've only
seen it in print or digital on a screen, and
then you see it in person, the power of it. Yeah,
and especially a lot of times it's just like the
scope of the canvas or the scope of the item.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
Like David, it's huge, it's tall. You look up at him,
you're like.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Man, yeah, or like you know, Birth of Venus. Yes, so,
but you see these these pieces and or even if
it's not something you've seen before, you know, I've been
in museums or galleries where you just have to have
the wind taken out of you because something is so impressive.
And so I can see that. I feel bad for
this dude that he had all this loss in his life,
(52:33):
and I think was sort of pre programmed to to
you know, morose behavior anyway, and you know it gets
connected through the art. So he has this salvation, but
it's also his undoing. And we we need art as salvation.
We need music and visual art and you know, all
of these things literature. I don't want to call us art,
(52:55):
but like doing shows like this, you know, or it
saves us, and I hate when that then becomes someone's undoing.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
That's my takeaway. Solid you should you should do this professionally.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
I should thank you so much. That's a really great compliment, Dave.
I need to talk back.
Speaker 5 (53:19):
Oh my god, I went get.
Speaker 6 (53:27):
Hi producer die Zaren and Elizabeth. This is Marta. I
wanted to tell you. I was at a restaurant with
a friend this past weekend. A server, not the table server,
came by, threw some butter pets on our table and said.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
Now you're part of the crime.
Speaker 6 (53:42):
I just tole some you have to. I thought, that's ridiculous.
And then before we left, he threw two more butter
pats down, said see, remember, don't turn me in. Thank
you so much for all you do.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Wait, it be in a ridiculous criminal in the real world,
winning ridiculous creme. But the attitude that she went with it.
He didn't snitch to the manager. She's like, no, I'll
play it cool.
Speaker 3 (54:06):
You take the butter with me. What a restaurant sounds like?
A zoo.
Speaker 4 (54:11):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (54:12):
That's it for today. You can find us online at
ridiculous Crime d ot com. That's what they say.
Speaker 2 (54:20):
We're also fanatically for you.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
I guess I can't read their handwriting half the time.
We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Blue Sky and Instagram.
You can email us at ridiculous Crime at jamail dot
com h and then leave a talk back on the
iHeart app. It's free. Just I mean, how we've got
so many apps? What's another? U leave us to talk about? Please?
(54:42):
I'm begging you reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by
Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by Flemish
art fetishist Dave Cousten, starring Annalice Rutgers. Research is by
Marissa Brown who would never burn Art in the Woods,
(55:04):
and Alex French, who would. The theme song is by
security guards getting High behind the Castle Thomas Lee and
Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred.
Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive
producers are Noted Alsatian Art detectives Ben Boleen and Noel Brown.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
Wed Crime say it one more Times?
Speaker 4 (55:33):
Crime.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts
My heart Radio, Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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