THIEVES’ SYNDICATE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21022, 10 May 1930, Page 17

THIEVES’ SYNDICATE.

VALUABLE PICTURES STOLEN. INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION. A “ syndicate of museum thieves,” which, in its dimensions, is said to resemble a great international industrial combination. is occupying the close attention of the Berlin police. The initiation of their investigation was. however, provided by their Brussels colleagues. ' The latter state that in the person of a man named Andre Daglio they have captured one of the leading spirits of the syndicate and “the master picture thief of the world.” * - . According to the details published m Berlin the syndicate has its own receivers, transport agents and financiers. The robbery section of the concern only enters into action when its members have received satisfactory guarantees that their booty—pictures, statuary 'and carpets or other objects of artistic or antiquarian value —can be safely conveyed across the frontier to another country and there be transformed immediately into caslp FINANCE FOR ROBBERIES. The finance department of the syndicate, which advances the funds necessary for carrying out big museum robberies and participates in the profits on the stolen works, is said to be heeded by an Italian banker. Art experts and students in many European towns are believed to have co-operated, consciously or unconsciously, in the syndicate’s work. The police at Berlin have long been interested in the- personality of Daglio, -and they profess knowledge of bis collaborators in various artistic circles. He is said to have been' so thorough iu hia operations that sometimes before he stole a picture he would, _ by tricks or pretexts. obtain a certificate of its authenticity from the greatest available authority on the master to whom it was ascribed. For the removal of the stolen treasures special cases and boxes were supplied by the syndicate’s transport department. Frameless pictures were sometimes conveyed across frontiers in the double wrappers of bales of innocent merchandise. Daglio is even credited with abstracting priceless originals from their frames in public . galleries and replacing them by first-class copies. It is suggested that his syndicate was responsible, for the recent theft of pictures from the Carlton Gallery in London. QUESTION OP DISPOSAL. One of the problems which puzzle the police all over the world is how people who steal the masterpieces of great painters and other treasures get rid of their booty. An important official of the French Surete Goncrale (Scotland Yard) told a representative of the Paris Stoir that there exists not only in America, but also in Europe, a big clientele for -such pictures. He divides the buyers into two classes. There are those whom ho terms the ” eccentric,” who buy anything and are the victims not only of the sellers of stolen pictures, but also of picture fakers. Then there are some wealthy collectors who-want to fill their galleries. It is very difficult to bring to justice the people who instigate the thefts, ns there is a vast organisation engaged <n them, said the official. He told of a very curious case -of the systematic theft of valuable treasures from churches iu the Auvergne district of France before; the war. SEARCH FOR TWO YEARS. For two years one of the best detectives tried to solve the mystery, but be failed to find any indication that the stolen treasures were being sold in France. Then he got a clue. At a little railway station near one of tie robbed churches he was informed that on two occasions, each preceding a robbery, a bicycle had been left in the cloakroom of the station and had been ■'Uhcu away after the robberies. t xh6 detective traced the owner of the bicycle to a little house in Paris • An inspector went to the house with the intention of questioning the occupant. The door was opened and the occupant' shot the inspector dead and then committed suicide. The police found the bicycle, but the identity of the dead owner remained a mystery. Nor was there any clue directly connecting him with the thefts .in the churches or as to the disposal of tha oropertv '