Eight months after Salvador Dali's "Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio" was stolen in a New York gallery, a Greek national has been indicted on a grand larceny charge. Fine art paintings have a long history of being targeted by criminals:
New York (CNN) -- Exactly eight months after the "brazen" theft of a Salvador Dali painting from a Manhattan art gallery, a Greek national was indicted Tuesday on a grand larceny charge, according to the New York County District Attorney's Office.
Phivos Istavrioglou, 29, is accused of stealing the 1949 Dali watercolor "Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio" on June 19 from the Venus Over Manhattan gallery.
Istavrioglou is charged with one count of second-degree grand larceny and is scheduled to appear in court next Tuesday. He is being held on $100,000 bail, according to David Cohen, Istavrioglou's attorney.
Istavrioglou was detained by Homeland Security agents on Saturday and arrested by the New York police after flying from Milan, Italy, to New York's Kennedy International Airport, according to a district attorney's office media release.
An undercover detective posing as an art gallery business manager had invited Istavrioglou to New York, proposing to hire the defendant as an art gallery consultant, according to the district attorney's office.
In June, Istavrioglou allegedly posed as a potential gallery customer, lifted the painting off a wall, placed it in a shopping bag and left the gallery, according to the district attorney's office statement.
Surveillance video showed a suspect walking out of the gallery with a shopping bag, the district attorney's office statement said.
"Today's indictment brings us one step closer to bringing an international art caper to a close," New York County District Attorney Cy Vance said in the statement.
The painting was sent back to the United States anonymously and was recovered at Kennedy International Airport customs on June 28. It was intercepted in a cardboard shipping tube en route to the same gallery. The painting was then returned to the gallery. The painting is valued at approximately $150,000.
Cohen says his client is not facing mandatory jail time and that he plans on challenging his client's high bail.
© 2013 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
In 1473, Hans Memling's "The Last Judgment" was stolen by pirates and became the first documented art theft.
Adam Worth, the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's diabolical character Moriarty, stole "Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire," painted by Thomas Gainsborough in 1876.
In 1911, Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" was stolen from the Louvre by an Italian who had been a handyman for the museum.
Among their many crimes, the Nazis plundered precious artworks as they gained power during World War II. "Adele Bloch-Bauer I" by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt was confiscated from the owner, the widower of the painting's subject, when he fled from Austria.
Many works of art that were taken by the Nazis were never recovered or were only returned after years of legal battles. "Christ Carrying the Cross" by Italian artist Girolamo de' Romani was returned to his family in 2012.
"The Scream" was one of two Edvard Munch paintings that were stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, in 2004.
In 2007, Pablo Picasso's oil painting, ''Portrait of Suzanne Bloch," was taken from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art but was recovered two years later.
Seven famous paintings were stolen from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, in 2012, including Claude Monet's "Charing Cross Bridge, London."
|