Money & Business
ernment’s partner in the program.
But Clapp of the National Environ-
mental Trust points out that if Washing-
ton had acted aggressively in 2001 to
raise fuel economy standards to 40 mpg
over the next decade—an ambitious goal
but possible with hybrid technology—the
nation already would have saved 1.5 mil-
lion barrels of oil a day, the equivalent
of the total amount produced in the Gulf
of Mexico and lost during the hurricanes.
Clapp offers the 2001 comments of
Vice President Cheney that conserva-
tion “may be a sign of personal virtue,
but it is not a sufficient basis, all by it-
self, for a sound, comprehensive ener-
gy policy” as a way to understand the
nation’s present plight. The Bush ad-
ministration, Clapp says, is still “ap-
proaching it as a personal virtue and
Stop Guzzling, Start Cashing In
The popular and gas-saving Toyota Prius hybrid
A
s soaring gas prices strain the warns coworkers. But whenever
budgets of commuters, a
small but growing number of
employers are coming to the res-
cue. At least half a dozen compa-
nies, including Google, Timber-
land, and Patagonia, are giving
bonuses to workers who buy hy-
brid or other gas-saving vehicles.
Initially offered to promote feel-
good ideals like reducing pollu-
tion, the benefit is now proving a
hot ticket because it is good for
everybody’s pocketbook. Hybrids
such as the Toyota Prius, which is
rated as getting 55 mpg, can slash
commuters’ gas bills by more than
half. And employers say the bene-
fit reduces their human-resources
costs by raising loyalty and easing
recruiting.
Fast-food fuel. Workers at Patago-
nia are now more interested in the
company’s offer of $2,000 to em-
42 U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT • OCTOBER 10, 2005
10ENERGY_HEIST5 (3) BP 2515, MONICA
not as a national policy. ‘Be virtuous;
help us through this crisis.’ And once
it’s through, let’s party on.”
Harsh criticism, perhaps, and surely
the nation did not improve its energy se-
curity markedly under prior adminis-
trations after the 1970s oil crises.
“There’s a lot of rhetoric on the Hill
about reducing our dependence on un-
stable parts of the world,” says Verras-
tro of csis. But in 2004, with strikes in
Nigeria, sabotage in Iraq, and political
unrest in Venezuela, the largest sus-
tained oil-supply disruption was due to
Hurricane Ivan. This year, no one doubts
the biggest culprits will be Katrina and
Rita. “The problem is right here in our
own backyard,” says Verrastro. l
With Richard J. Newman
ployees who buy hybrids
or alternative-fuel cars,
says Coley Malloy of the
outdoor wear company.
She used the money to
have her 1984 Mercedes
diesel station wagon retro-
fitted to run on vegetable
oil recycled from fast-food
joints. That cut her
monthly fuel bills from
$300 to about $70. “It is a
lot of work to get the oil
and maintain the car,” she
THE ART
she drives by a gas-guzzling suv,
Malloy says, “I rev my engine and
let them smell the tacos.”
The benefit is also helping out
managers at Hyperion. The Silicon
Valley software company has hand-
ed out $5,000 grants to 75 workers By Ilana Ozernoy
who’ve bought cars that get at least
Y
ou know the story: A nefarious
45 mpg. Hyperion is so happy with
art collector sends a band of ac-
the benefit that it has posted advice
robatic thieves dressed in black
for other companies on its website,
turtlenecks to steal a rare and
encouraging managers to offer the
priceless piece of art. They pull hun-
grants to their workers to help the
dreds of thousands of dollars in rap-
environment and help themselves.
pelling equipment out of their back-
The grants improve morale and
packs and perform death-defying stunts
have been a terrific recruiting tool
to retrieve the artwork from a museum
among hard-to-find techies, Hyper-
that has cutting-edge security (usually
ion spokesman Bob Schettino says:
involving laser beams). The cat burglars
“We have people who come to us
then deliver the stolen painting to the
and say, ‘I really like what you guys
lair of their unscrupulous benefactor,
are doing. I want to look at job op-
who hangs it in his private quarters and
portunities at your company.’ ”
savors it in solitude (usually with a bot-
–Kim Clark
tle of French wine).
But the reality of art crime is a much
LEFT: KEVIN HORAN FOR USN&WR
42 1STPROOF

OF THE HEIST
more banal—and tragic—tale. It is an un-
derground business driven by common
criminals and petty thieves who walk
into museums in broad daylight and
steal from churches and libraries and
people’s homes. Much of what is stolen
is damaged or destroyed in the hands of
rough amateurs, and in the United
States only an estimated 5 percent is ever
recovered. The rest—stolen paintings
and icons, looted antiquities, and rare
books—is a $4 billion to $6 billion in-
dustry estimated to be the third-largest
black market in the world, after illegal
drugs and illicit arms.
A stolen painting or first-edition base-
ball card is worth only one tenth its value
on the street, but to a burglar, it still
could be more valuable than a stolen
JARED LEEDS FOR USN&WR
10ENERGY_HEIST5 (4) BP 2515, MONICA
The Gardner Museum
left empty frames as
a reminder of thefts.
It’s not The Thomas Crown
Affair, but theft of artwork
is a big-bucks business
stereo and may be just as easy to obtain. Munch Museum in Oslo in August
“Petty thieves have come on to the fact 2004, they did so in broad daylight.
that stealing art is more profitable than Brandishing pistols, they yanked two of
conventional crime,” says fbi Special Munch’s most famous paintings—The
Agent Robert Wittman, who has been on Madonna and The Scream—right off the
the art beat for over 15 years. “An aver- walls in front of stunned museumgoers
age bank robbery is less than a thousand and security guards. The thieves walked
dollars, and one Rembrandt is worth at out, shoved the paintings into the back
least a million, so one art theft is like a of a black Audi, and drove off. They are
thousand bank burglaries.” still at large.
Easy money. Stealing a painting, it The biggest art heist in America hap-
seems, is sometimes easier than robbing pened in an equally prosaic fashion. Fif-
a bank. Many museums have small se- teen years ago, two thieves masquerad-
curity budgets and spend more money ing as cops were ushered into the
on acquiring new art than on securing Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in
it. Then there is the Catch-22 of putting Boston by a sleepy security guard on
art on display: If the public has access night duty. The thieves quickly over-
to the paintings, so do the thieves. When powered the museum’s two guards,
two masked thieves sauntered into the handcuffed them, and spent the next
U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT • OCTOBER 10, 2005 43
43 1STPROOF
 Money & Business

hour and a half plucking some of the Meanwhile, the ap- al property—$140 million
world’s most valuable artwork from the petite for art in America worth since 1999 alone,
walls. The stash of art they made off is only growing, making including an original
with—now estimated to be worth at least it the biggest consumer copy of the Bill of Rights,
$300 million—included Rembrandt’s market in the world for missing since 1865, and
only known seascape, The Storm on the stolen art, experts say. five Norman Rockwells
Sea of Galilee, an oil work by Jan Ver- “You have a lot more that were stolen in the
meer, five drawings by Degas, and a people who have money, 1970s. Wittman says he
bronze Chinese beaker, thought to have who want status, and often recovers items in
originated in 1200–1100 B.C. “All of this are looking to buy art,” sting operations or when
artwork is part of a cultural history,” says says Straus, throwing her he gets wind of an up-
Anne Hawley, director of the Gardner arms into the air. “We’re coming sale.
Museum. “When these materials are re- insatiable here! People Stolen art can pop up
moved, it’s as if Beethoven’s Fifth Sym- build bigger and bigger at thousands of auction
phony is removed. It’s more than a mon- houses. There isn’t even The Madonna houses, flea markets, and
Thieves stole a version
etary theft—it’s a cultural theft, which enough inventory to fill estate sales across Amer-
of this Munch work in
makes it so heinous.” The Gardner case the demand for art.” Oslo. Value: $15 million. ica. In an industry where
also remains unsolved. Straus says it is very business is often done
But while big heists of brand-name art difficult to sell a pur- anonymously, by private
make headlines, a steady trickle of valu- loined painting in a busi- contract or in backroom
able, albeit less famous, stolen col- ness that runs on reputation, because no dealings, the auction is the most public
legitimate art dealer or auc- and transparent forum, an unofficial sys-
tion house will want to trade tem of checks and balances. “Everything
in stolen property. The art of we’re going to sell is available online
art theft lies in the ability to [and] from time to time, people will call
convert stolen property into in and say, ‘Wait a minute! That’s my
hard currency. Though few property,’ ” says Jo Backer Laird, senior
good statistics from the crim- vice president and general counsel in
inal underworld are available, Christie’s New York office.
experts say that paintings, After the massive looting of archaeo-
which are easier to transfer in- logical sites in Iraq, the fbi expects
conspicuously across interna- stolen antiquities to soon flood the U.S.
tional borders than large sums marketplace. “People don’t even really
of money, are often used as know what’s being stolen,” says David
collateral in drug trades. Shillingford, who runs the Art Loss Reg-
No deals. Art thieves might ister’s New York office. “If something is
also try to claim a ransom on being dug out of the ground, you don’t
a painting, which in the short even know it was stolen because the
term costs the insurer a frac- first person to see it for 6,000 years is
View of Auvers-Sur-Oise tion of the cost of paying out a the thief.”
This Cézanne was taken from the University of
policy. But “art-napping” is a Partly in anticipation of an influx of
Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. Value: $3 million.
practice insurance companies Iraqi artifacts, the fbi fielded an art
say they are loath to encourage. crime team last year (previously, art
“It’s the same as governments was lumped into the broad category of
lectibles makes up the bulk of the black who don’t negotiate with terrorists,” says property theft). Wittman shepherded
market: Civil War-era swords and Amer- Straus. “If you’re going to seven agents through a
icana, rare-edition books, B-list paint- negotiate with thieves, mini art school to teach
ings. The Art Loss Register, the world’s you’re going to encourage them “the difference be-
largest database of stolen cultural prop- more of the same.” tween a Rembrandt and
erty, lists over 160,000 paintings, sculp- The more likely sce- a Picasso.” Unlike the
tures, and other antiquities, adding nario is that a thief, hav- Italian carabinieri or the
10,000 to 15,000 new entries a year. ing realized that a stolen Spanish art theft squad,
(Among the items listed are the 13 items van Gogh is not so easy to which boasts hundreds
stolen from the Gardner Museum, some dispose of, will simply sit of art cops, Wittman re-
300 works by Marc Chagall, and over on the painting until he mains the fbi’s only full-
500 Picassos.) “My greatest regret is that thinks it is safe for it to time man on the job.
there isn’t a universal database,” says surface. “Thieves hold on “Whoever would have
Dorit Straus, a vice president at Chubb to it until they either find heard of a baseball card
Insurance Group and one of the Art Loss a seller or die,” says fbi going for $500,000?”
Register’s subscribers. “It’s very difficult agent Wittman. “Anytime The Storm asks Wittman, shaking
to match things up with their rightful I’ve ever seen paintings on the Sea of his head. “It’s become
owners, even if you have a good de- come back, it’s through Galilee treasure, get-rich-quick
Rembrandt’s seascape.
scription, even if you think art is unique. people trying to sell stuff. [And] as the value
Value: Unknown.
How many reclining nudes did Picasso them.” And Wittman has goes up, so does the
paint? There’s just no way.” recovered a lot of cultur- fraud.” l

44 U.S.NEWS & WORLD REPORT • OCTOBER 10, 2005 CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, U.K. / BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY; NASJONALGALLERIET,
OSLO, NORWAY / BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY; ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM, BOSTON / BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

10ENERGY_HEIST5 (5) BP 2515, MONICA 44 1STPROOF