Ram-raid art theft: Where are our treasures?
Million-dollar Lindauer portraits may have left the country as it emerges Customs was not alerted about their loss for 12 hours.
An international art crime expert says it’s unlikely police will find the thieves who stole two Gottfried Lindauer paintings.
It is more than three months since the paintings, worth $1 million, were grabbed from the International Art Centre in Parnell in the early hours of April 1 by brazen burglars who rammed a window before making off with two portraits — Chieftainess Ngatai-Raure and Chief Ngatai-Raure — ahead of their auction.
And now the Herald on Sunday can reveal Customs was not alerted to the theft for more than 12 hours — giving the thieves ample time to board a plane without raising suspicion.
Police describe the heist as wellplanned. Two men in a stolen vehicle are believed to have sprayed the window with a weakening compound before ramming it twice. Two men were caught on a security camera, before escaping in a white Holden Commodore with fake license plates, driven by a third person. The other vehicle was abandoned.
Detectives released footage of the Commodore, and security images of two men outside the gallery at the time, and Interpol and Customs were notified — but in the case of Customs, not until the night of April 1.
Experts spoken to agreed it wouldn’t have been difficult for thieves to smuggle the works out of the country, either by rolling them up into a suitcase, or shipping them and labelling them as generic freight.
The earliest international flights out of Auckland after the 4am raid were at 6.30am to Australia and Fiji, followed by 8am to Hong Kong, 8.45am to Korea, and 9am to Tokyo. Customs said it wasn’t contacted by police until that night. The exact time couldn’t be verified.
“Police requested Customs to be on the lookout for passengers carrying or exporting paintings,” a spokesperson said.
“Alerts were created in our system and a notification sent to all Customs ports to be on the lookout for the stolen paintings.”
Detective Inspector Scott Beard declined to comment, except to say he didn’t believe the time Customs was alerted affected the investigation in any way. He declined to confirm whether the people in security footage had been identified. The last public update on the investigation was months ago.
Christopher Marinello, an expert on art recovery based in Italy, wasn’t optimistic the thieves would be caught, but believed the works could still be recovered. “I am confident the paintings will surface,” he said.
“When the thief realises he or she can’t sell the pictures for their true value, they will be traded or sold at a fraction of their worth until some poor soul not doing any sort of due diligence decides to take a chance on making some money on the paintings. We might get lucky and trace the chain to the actual thief but the more time that goes by, there is less chance of this happening.”
Experts have theorised the culprits could be naive opportunists, activists, gang members, or international underworld figures.
Previous high profile art thefts included Anthony Ricardo Sannd’s brazen snatch and grab of a milliondollar Tissot, which he cut from its frame and stashed under his bed, and activists’ seizure of Colin McCahon’s Urewera Mural. Negotiations led to its return the following year.
University of Auckland art history lecturer Ngarino Ellis said too much time had gone by for it to be likely that thieves were planning a ransom.
“They’ve lost their window of opportunity — when everyone is on tenterhooks,” she said.
“The New Zealand police are tenacious and because it’s such a high profile heist, and it stung at the heart of most New Zealanders, they’re more likely to solve the crime, (but) it might not be today or tomorrow.”
She said the value of Lindauer paintings would “absolutely” have increased since the heist. Just days after, one sold at a Dunbar Sloane auction for a record $227,000.
Last year Auckland Art Gallery put a call out for Lindauers, as part of an online project cataloguing the painter’s works. Maori art curator Nigel Borrell said Lindauer was prolific, and he estimated there were hundreds of his works in private New Zealand collections and overseas.
The renewed interest in his paintings, an international demand for the unique colonial style, and comparisons of Lindauer to Charles Goldie, would be enough to pique would-be criminals’ interest, he said.
He believed the works were damaged in the theft, and intense media and police scrutiny would have “hamstrung” the thieves.
“They probably don’t know quite what to do with them, if they still have them. They’ll be in a very odd space with what to do with them [because the paintings] are being watched very closely.”
International Art Centre director Richard Thomson had “every bit of faith” in police. “Our security was second to none, quite frankly, but some subtle changes have been made and those are not up for discussion,” he said.
“The police may choose to fill you in on how complex this particular incident was. As far as running the business, we were open on the day of the raid and have been every day since. We are the go-to institution for the resale of national art treasures so it’s business as usual.”