Earlier in October, police said a group of thieves - including two dressed as construction workers - stole jewelry and loot worth millions of dollars before making their escape in broad daylight.
But these criminals weren't robbing the Louvre museum in Paris. The brazen theft happened at a home in New York City.
The day before that theft in New York, police said someone across the country broke into the Oakland Museum of California’s off-site storage facility and snatched more than 1,000 items including jewelry, laptops, Native American baskets and other historic artifacts.
The two recent U.S. thefts highlight how attractive high-value targets have become for criminals, who have recently targeted museums, luxury retailers as well as the rich and famous.
All kinds of valuable items ‒ artwork, handbags, watches, baseball cards, even rare cheese and wine ‒ make attractive targets for thieves because their worth has increased drastically with time, according to Robert Wittman, a retired FBI agent who founded the bureau's international art crime team.
