Thursday, October 11, 2007

Hamptons Heist

From yesterday's New York Post:

"A crew of amateur art thieves stole roughly $600,000 worth of paintings from the Hamptons mansion of a former Revlon CEO and torched the home to cover up the heist, prosecutors said yesterday. Officials said the group's ringleader ... began working as a caretaker at the $6 million Quiogue mansion of businessman Jerry W. Levin during a renovation project in late 2005."

The scheme fell apart when the thieves began to contact art dealers to try to sell the pieces. One of the dealers they contacted had originally sold one of the stolen paintings to Levin and had worked with his insurance company to value the works.