Aftermath of an Art Heist

PARIS -The mark of a true art thief is the ability to dispose of the goods.

So what happens after a high-profile burglary at the Kunsthal? On Tuesday, the Rotterdam museum in the Netherlands was struck by thieves who snatched seven paintings on loan from the Triton Foundation, including works by Monet, Matisse, Gauguin and Picasso.

On Wednesday morning the Kunsthal reopened with replacement paintings from the Triton Foundation, but there is a murky journey ahead as it attempts to reclaim the missing artworks. If previous art heists are any example, the cast of characters in the next chapter could range from shady lawyers, Serbian criminals and assorted drug traffickers.

Many experts scoff that stolen works can be sold on the open art market because of the notoriety of the crime. But there are other opportunities. A common pattern in the last 15 years is that the stolen goods are used as collateral for drug deals, according to Sandy Nairne, the director o f the National Portrait Gallery in London, whose own museum had upgraded its security when it exhibited a Lucian Freud portrait of a woman that was among the works stolen from the Kunsthal.

“Anyone planning such a theft would have had some idea or in some form, about what they might do with the pictures,” said Mr. Nairne. “The problem we're dealing with is criminal gangsterism.”

Mr. Nairne suffered himself through a theft in 1994 when working for the Tate Gallery in London as a program director. The museum lost two paintings by J.M.W. Turner when they were on display in Frankfurt. They vanished for more than eight years. The recovery involved a series of go-betweens, including a defense lawyer with contacts in the underworld.

Mr. Nairne coordinated the recovery effort and recounts it in his new memoir, “Art Theft.”

“As far as the patterns that we're seeing, these kinds of thefts have nothing to do with the mythology of crime, the film version of ‘The Thomas Crown Affair,' ” he said.

Much like the criminals at the Kunsthal, the thieves in Germany struck late at night after closing. A security guard was grabbed by a masked man and was handcuffed, bound and pushed into a closet.

Eventually, the Tate spent more than $5 million for legal fees and expenses for information to recover the Turners, which are now back in London. The low-level thieves ultimately were arrested, but they had passed the artworks to someone else amid suspicions that the crime was ordered up by a member of the Balkan mafia in Frankfurt.

After a high-profile theft, one question is whether institutions will pay for information.

Mr. Nairne said he takes a more flexible view: “The hard line is that there should be no rewards or fees,” he said. “But I argue that there are circumstances where it is justified in terms of an overview of public value.”

What's the standard rate for paying for information ? Usually, he said, it's about 10 percent of the value of the stolen paintings - which in some cases are considered priceless.