Theft and Failed Prosecution of "Stevo"
The theft took place on 28 July 1994 in the Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt. The thieves had themselves locked into the museum at night and then overpowered a security guard. The stolen paintings were Light and Colour and Shade and Darkness, a sequence by J. M. W. Turner and on loan from the Tate Gallery in London, and Nebelschwaden by Caspar David Friedrich, on loan from the Kunsthalle Hamburg. Two of the thieves and a dealer were apprehended quickly, but they refused to reveal the location of the paintings and the identity of the people who had ordered the theft. In 1999 they received sentences of up to 11 years. Police were unable to recover the paintings. Insurance companies paid about 40 million euros to the paintings' owners.
The central suspect, a major figure of the Yugoslavian Mafia in Frankfurt known as "Stevo", tried to sell the paintings to an underworld figure of Marbella. The two could not agree on a price, and undercover agents from the German police then joined the negotiations in 1995. A new deal for purchase of the paintings was set up, but it broke down in the last minute when Stevo's negotiator demanded a doubling of the advance payment. Stevo was arrested, but the evidence was deemed insufficient for prosecution; he was represented by the attorney Edgar Liebrucks who had defended several Mafia figures before. The German prosecutors then all but gave up on the case.
Read more about this topic: Frankfurt Art Theft (1994)
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