Operation Cobalt
In 1998, the Tate Gallery paid 8 million pounds to the insurance company Hiscox in return for ownership of the paintings, should they ever resurface. Tate had previously received 24 million pounds from the insurance company as compensation for the loss. Sir Nicholas Serota, director of Tate, after having received the green light from his supervisory board and justice officials, went ahead with a secret plan to buy back the paintings, known as "Operation Cobalt". An undercover agent from Scotland Yard contacted Edgar Liebrucks, and in late 1999 the lawyer began to negotiate with the Mafia on behalf of Tate. The two sides agreed on a purchase price of 5 million Deutsche Marks per painting. Stevo again increased the demanded advance payment from 1 million to 2 million Marks, and Liebrucks took out a personal loan to cover this payment. The deal for the first painting went through, Liebrucks received about 320,000 euros as compensation by Tate, and Shade and Darkness returned to London in July 2000. Further negotiations then halted; Stevo apparently had lost interest.
In Fall 2002 two men contacted Liebrucks; they indicated that they had possession of the two remaining paintings and were willing to sell. Apparently, Stevo had stored the paintings with them, and possibly they were now acting on their own behalf, trying to hoodwink Stevo. The Tate Gallery then bought the remaining Turner painting for 2 million euros; it returned to London around Christmas 2002. The two men took a six month vacation in Cuba.
Considering that the Tate Gallery received more from the insurers than it paid to the thieves, it profited to the tune of some 20 million euros. Responding to a BBC documentary on the case, officials of the Tate Gallery insisted that all payments were cleared ahead of times with German and British authorities, and the millions were not paid to criminals as ransom, but for "information that led to the recovery of the paintings". Sandy Nairne, as of 2012 the director of the National Portrait Gallery and former programme director at the Tate, negotiated secretly for 8 years on behalf of the Tate to get the two paintings back. His experience is chronicled in his 2011 book, Art Theft and the Case of the Stolen Turners.
Read more about this topic: Frankfurt Art Theft (1994)
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