A thief or crew of thieves lately carried out one of many largest artwork heists in California historical past, breaking right into a storage facility for the Oakland Museum of California below cowl of darkness and making off with greater than 1,000 treasured artifacts.
Oakland police stated the housebreaking passed off simply earlier than 3:30 a.m. on Oct. 15, which is 4 days earlier than robbers stole a trove of priceless Napoleonic jewels from the the Louvre Museum in Paris.
(Oakland Museum of California / Oakland Police Division)
Gadgets stolen from the Oakland museum included Native American baskets, jewellery, laptops, historic images and intricately carved ivory tusks. The Oakland Police Division is working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Artwork Crime Workforce to research the heist and retrieve the lacking artifacts.
“The theft that occurred represents a brazen act that robs the general public of our state’s cultural heritage,” stated museum Chief Govt Lori Fogarty in a press release. “Most of those objects have been given to the Museum by beneficiant donors.”
The Oakland Museum of California is house to greater than 2 million objects devoted to telling the story of California by collections of artwork, historical past and pure science. It options greater than 110,000 sq. ft of gallery house throughout a seven-acre campus.
(Oakland Museum of California / Oakland Police Division)
The storage facility focused by thieves is off-site; authorities didn’t disclose the deal with or how lengthy it took for employees to find the gadgets had been lacking.
The FBI’s Artwork Crime group is a extremely specialised unit of 20 brokers skilled in investigation theft, fraud and forgery of paintings in addition to cultural-property trafficking.
Anybody with info is requested to contact Oakland police at (510) 238-3951 or submit a tip to the Artwork Crime Workforce on-line or by calling (800) 225-5324.
