The Crime Book

56

See also: Bill Mason 36 ■ The Theft of the World Cup 37 ■ John MacLean 45

S

tealthily dodging high-tech

motion sensors and round-

the-clock security guards,

an amateur art thief climbed up

the scaffolding outside Vienna’s

Kunsthistorisches Museum,

crawled through a broken second-

floor window, shattered a display

case, and fled with one of the

world’s great Renaissance artefacts.

The early morning theft of the

gold-plated salt cellar, worth an

estimated £52 million, on

11 May 2003, caused a scandal

across Austria. The intricate,

25-cm (10-inch) sculpture depicting

a trident-wielding Neptune was

the masterpiece of Benvenuto

Cellini, the famed 15th-century

Italian sculptor.

Despite its multimillion-dollar

value, the statue was essentially

unsalable because no legitimate art

dealer would touch it. Following

two failed ransom attempts by the

thief, in January 2006, police

arrested 50-year-old Robert Mang,

a security alarm specialist and

avid sculpture collector. He soon

confessed, admitting that the theft

was “rather spontaneous”.

Mang led police to the

Renaissance treasure, buried in a

wooded area 90 km (55 miles)

northeast of Vienna. Mang had

wrapped the sculpture in linen and

plastic and placed it in a lead box

to protect it from damage. In

September 2006, Mang was

sentenced to four years in prison

but was released early, in 2009. ■

IN CONTEXT

LOCATION

Kunsthistorisches

Museum, Vienna, Austria

THEME

Art theft

BEFORE

21 August 1911 Leonardo

da Vinci’s famed Mona Lisa is

stolen from Paris’s Louvre

Museum, but recovered two

years later when the thieves

attempt to sell it.

AFTER

16 October 2012

A Romanian gang breaks into

the Kunsthal Museum in the

Netherlands and steals seven

paintings worth £19 million.

The salt cellar was finished by

Cellini in 1543 and presented to

King Francis I of France. It is the

only remaining item of precious metal

work attributed to the Italian sculptor.

HE WAS AN EXPERT IN

ALARM SYSTEMS

THE THEFT OF THE CELLINI SALT CELLAR,

11 MAY 2003

056-057_Cellini_Salt_Cellar.indd 56 02/12/2016 14:40

57

F

rom August to November

2004, a team of enterprising

smugglers operated a

remarkable 2-km (1¼-mile) pipeline

under the Kyrgyzstan River to

transport huge quantities of vodka

from Russia to the ex-Soviet

country of Estonia in order to avoid

paying duty.

Estonia had only just joined the

European Union on 1 May 2004,

where vodka fetched a much higher

price than it did in Russia.

Unfortunately for the smugglers,

however, they could not find a

single buyer for the illegal vodka in

the country’s capital, Tallinn. They

finally offloaded it in Tartu,

Estonia’s second-largest city.

The operation was uncovered

by chance when workers digging

planting holes for trees found the

pipeline along the bottom of a

reservoir near the border town of

Narva. Customs officials seized

1,400 litres (306 gallons) of the

alcohol and shut down the pipeline.

They also later discovered a large

quantity of untaxed alcohol hidden

in a truck in Tallinn.

See also: The Hawkhurst Gang 136–37 ■ The Beer Wars 152–53

Officials estimated that by the

time the gang of 11 Russian

and Estonian smugglers were

caught, they had already pumped

7,450 litres (1,638 gallons) of vodka

from Russia to Estonia.

Two years later, Estonian police

discovered another smuggling

pipeline under the same river, but

it was shut down before any

alcohol was illegally transported

into the European Union. ■

BANDITS, ROBBERS, AND ARSONISTS

IN CONTEXT

LOCATION

Narva, Estonia

THEME

Smuggling

BEFORE

1916 After the state of

Michigan bans alcohol sales,

rum-runners smuggle liquor by

boat over the border from

Windsor, Ontario, in Canada

to Detroit, Michigan.

12 August 1998 Lithuanian

police uncover a pipeline

used to smuggle alcohol

from Latvia across the border

into Lithuania.

AFTER

6 January 2014 Philadelphia

police arrest a local attorney

for illegally selling bottles of

fine wine out of the basement

of his home; in all, they

confiscate 2,500 bottles valued

between $150,000 (£120,000)

and $200,000 (£160,000).

The investigation also

revealed that the men had

tried to sell some of the alcohol

in Tallinn... but the quality

of the spirit was too bad.

Mari Luuk

WEIRD AND

UNBELIEVABLE, BUT

IT’S A VERY REAL

CRIMINAL CASE

THE RUSSIA-ESTONIA VODKA PIPELINE, 2004

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