They stole $10 million worth of artwork, but they may not make a dime.

Driving the news: Thieves smashed into a small museum in the Italian countryside late last month, stealing three paintings worth over $10 million — a Renoir, a Cézanne and a Matisse.

• The operation took three minutes, and authorities are still investigating.
• The theft follows a similar heist last year at Paris' Louvre Museum, where thieves stole $104 million worth of France's crown jewels. Police arrested several suspects, but the national treasures remain missing.

What they're saying: Geoffrey Kelly, an original member of the FBI's Art Crime Team, tells Axios that local criminals carry out most art thefts.

• He says they are "wowed by the big dollar signs," not highly trained specialists executing carefully planned heists like those depicted in Ocean's Eleven.
• "The trend is typically going to be smash-and-grabs," Kelly adds. "That's the easy part. Once you've stolen it, now you have to figure out how to monetize it. And it's really impossible."

Zoom in: Aging building infrastructure and the speed of smash-and-grab thefts make museum theft appear lucrative, Kelly says.

• Kelly recalls investigating Boston's infamous Gardner Museum heist in the 90s, when moving stolen Rembrandts was already difficult. Today, AI tools can identify stolen works in seconds, and even small auction houses and galleries won't purchase swiped goods.

Yes, but: Stolen art can also serve as leverage during trials.

• "We call that Get Out of Jail Free card," Christopher Marinello, CEO of Art Recovery International, tells Axios. He notes that thieves sometimes trade information about a stolen artwork's location for reduced sentences.

Cargo heists — including recent thefts of $400,000 worth of KitKat bars and, in a separate incident, lobsters — are often hit-or-miss operations, former FBI special agent Robert Wittman tells Axios.

• Thieves often don't know what they're stealing and struggle to resell perishable or traceable goods like food, as many of the items have identification labels.
• "[Whoever] decided to steal that [KitKat] truck, they were hoping for computers, cigarettes, alcohol, whiskey, something that they could move quickly and make a nice sting on," he says.

One major exception is jewelry theft, which remains lucrative because the items are harder to trace and easier to resell.

• Even though diamonds have identifiable "fingerprints" and luxury watches carry unique serial numbers, thieves can still profit, Scott Guginsky, executive vice president of the Jewelers' Security Alliance and a retired NYPD detective, tells Axios.
• Unlike with stolen paintings and sculptures, jewelry can be melted down for its metals or broken down for gemstones, Guginsky says. "You put it on your wrist... go through TSA, arrive in another country, ... and you sell it. It's gone."

Zoom out: Law enforcement uncovered more than 37,000 cultural objects, including artwork and archaeological artifacts, in 2024, per the United Nations.

• The body says these items are typically easier to snag during times of "political instability, war and social upheaval," and sometimes can land as currency on black markets.
• Kelly says that while rare black-market deals occur, raiders often abandon unsellable stolen artworks at police stations or museums. He joked that Hollywood likes to portray a "recluse billionaire who has all the illicit treasures of the world hidden in his underground lair."

The bottom line: In reality, there's not much evidence that secret bunker of stolen goods exists, Kelly says, and the risk of getting caught far outweighs a potential payday.

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