15 of the Most Expensive Items Ever Stolen

art

Expensive items are the ones that people tend to take the most care of. They’re the ones locked in safe deposit boxes, safes and in museums. However, it seems that no matter how heavily guarded or safe an item is thieves and criminals always manage to find a way to steal them. Some of the biggest thefts in the world center around some of the most expensive items in the world. It leaves the world wondering how thieves were able to obtain these items. Read on for a comprehensive list of some of the most expensive items ever stolen.

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closet

Beauty Queen’s Clost – $1 million

Theresa Roemer is a former beauty queen and business woman with a 3,000 square foot closet filled with luxury goods. She often rents out the space for parties and events, and it was only recently when a thief stole more than $1 million in shoes and handbags from the closet. How did it happen? Well, Roemer accidentally left the door unlocked and didn’t set the alarm. The burglar got right in. He was caught only because he called into a local radio station and despite using a machine to change his voice, forgot about Caller ID and was arrested when he claimed all her items were fakes.

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dino

Dinosaur Fossils – $1 million

Sometimes it’s amazing the things people can steal. Some things are small and unnoticeable, but it’s a bit questionable when a man can steal a half dozen sets of skeletons from dead dinosaurs from Mongolia and ship them to America. He was only caught because he attempted to sell one of his very rare and valuable dinosaur skeletons at an auction. Eric Prokopi, a Florida resident, is serving three months in jail for his $1 million robbery, which doesn’t seem like much time at all.

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garland

Dorothy’s Red Slippers – $2 million

The red slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz are one of the most expensive pair in the world (makes those Louboutins seem downright affordable at $1,900). When the pair Garland wore in the famous movie was on display at the Judy Garland Museum in Minnesota in 2005, thieves stole the shoes from the museum. To this day, there are no suspects and there is no word on what happened to the famous shoes. They could be anywhere as they have yet to be recovered by authorities, who are still investigating the missing shoes.

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stradivarius

Davidoff-Morini Stradivarius – $3.5 million

This gorgeous violin was created in 1727 by the famed violin maker Antonio Stradivari. It was October 1995 when the violin was stolen from famed violinist Eric Morini’s apartment in New York City. She was 91 at the time of the theft, and has since died without ever knowing who took her violin. The mystery surrounding the theft of the violin is one of the FBI’s top 10 on the art crimes list. There is no black market for high-end violins, so that makes it even more disturbing to the police investigating the crime. It’s been almost 20 years without any leads.

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gertrude vanderbilt

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Murals – $4 million

Gertrude Vanderbilt is the founder of the Whitney Museum. In 1912, she commissioned these murals by a man named Maxfield Parrish. Both of the paintings together are worth an estimated $4 million. During July 2002, someone broke into the art gallery in West Hollywood in which the paintings hung and stole both. They were cut from their frames and walked right out of the gallery. It is unknown who took the paintings or where they are at the moment, leaving it a big mystery.

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view

View of Auvers-sur-Oise – $5 million

The painting by Paul Cezanne is worth more than $5 million. It was taken on New Year’s Eve in 1999 by a thief that climbed right into the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to take it. The piece is technically not considered finished since the artist never signed it or dated it. He did not consider it a complete piece of art, but it was still one that was very valuable. It’s been almost 15 years since the painting was stolen and there is no word yet as to what happened to it. No one has been accused of the crime and the painting has never been recovered.

(Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

Van Gogh

View of the Sea at Scheveningen – $30 million

It’s another Vincent Van Gogh painting that’s been missing for a long time. It’s a painting of the sea off the Netherlands coast, and it was hanging in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam when it was stolen in 2002. The painting was even equipped with actual sand from the beach in the photo. Two people were convicted a year later of climbing through the window of the museum and taking the work of art, but the painting was never recovered. It’s still missing, though the museum hopes that it will be found at some point and returned to them in excellent condition.

(Photo by Getty Images)

van gogh

Poppy Flowers – $55 million

The famed piece of artwork by Vincent Van Gogh was stolen in 2010. It’s not a large painting, which is primarily why it was so easy to steal. It’s a painting of a vase filled with yellow poppies that was on display at the Mahmoud Khalil Musuem in Cairo, Egypt when it was taken in 2010. The thieves cut the painting from its frame and took it. In 1978, the same thing was done to the same painting by thieves, but it was recovered less than two years later in Kuwait. This time it is still missing.

(Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

museum

The Saliera – $57 million

It’s not nearly as large as some of the other missing items on this list, but this 10-inch sculpture is more valuable than most. Benvenuto Cellini created this piece in the 16th century out of solid gold. To give you an idea of how valuable and famous this piece is, it’s the sculpture equivalent of the Mona Lisa. The piece was in a museum in Vienna in 2003 when a thief simply climbed into the window, missed all motion detectors, smashed the display case glass and took the sculpture. The thief was caught several years later when he attempted to ransom the piece with the insurance company the museum uses.

(Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

scream

The Scream – $119 million

When The Scream was stolen, it wasn’t worth quite this much. It was auctioned a few years later at Sotheby’s, where it net this impressive amount. However, it was still an expensive items to steal, and it was a big deal. Edvard Munch’s famous painting was removed from the wall of the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway. Two men wearing black masks and armed with guns took the painting right off the wall after one robber threatened a security guard with his gun and the duo ran off. Two years and nine days later, the painting was mysteriously recovered.

(Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

art

The Empire State Building – $1.89 billion

It’s probably the largest item ever stolen, and probably one of the most insane thefts ever recorded. The New York Daily News set out to expose the New York City deed and mortgage recording process as ridiculous, and they did so by stealing the Empire State Building. They created a fake document, fake notary stamp and fake names and filed the papers. Within an hour and a half, the city stamped the documents approved and the ownership of the building was transferred to Nelots Properties LLC (Stolen, backwards). It was returned a day later after the point was proven.

(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

museum

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Artwork – $500 million – Priceless

This could be the most expensive theft in the history of the world. Dressed as police officers, two robbers went into this Boston museum in 1990 and stole 13 pieces of art fright off the walls. The police managed to convince security guards they were there to investigate an earlier report of a disturbance and were let right into the museum. The value of the art that was stolen that day values anywhere from half a billion dollars to priceless. There is a $5 million reward for the recovery of the artwork.

(Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

iraqi artifacts

Iraqi Artifacts – Priceless

There is no price on some things. Many things can be remade, re-purchased, insured and replaced. And then there are things that cannot ever be made up for in terms of value. The thousands of Iraqi artifacts that went missing in 2003 when criminals looted an archaeological dig in Iraq were completely priceless. They are from a historic time and were being studied when they went missing. Some of the items from the site have been recovered, but rumor has it that the FBI is looking for 10,000 more items.

(Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

dali

Museu Chacara Do Ceu Theft – Priceless

Works by some of the most revered and most famous artists in the world were stolen on February 24, 2006. These works were taken in Rio in broad daylight when robbers entered the museum and stolen several priceless artifacts. The worth of these pieces is so much that they haven’t even been discussed. Picasso, Matisse, Monet and Dali were stolen in the heist. Four men entered the museum with weapons and walked right back out with the four priceless works of art and the FBI has no idea who did it, where they are or where to begin looking.

(Photo by Mark Dadswell/Getty Images)

mona lisa

The Mona Lisa – Priceless

Leonardo da Vinci is the artist responsible for creating this masterpiece, and it was stolen right off the wall of the Louvre in Paris in 1911. The most fascinating aspect of the theft is the fact that no one had any idea that the painting was missing for a solid day. At the end of the day, it ended up being a handyman that hid out in a closet overnight and stole the painting by putting it under his cloak and just leaving the museum. He was questioned two times by authorities, and Pablo Picasso was actually accused of stealing the painting. The handyman was arrested two years later when he tried to sell the painting.

(Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Written by Tiffany Raiford

Tiffany Raiford is a lifelong Floridian, wife to my high school sweetheart and mother of four littles (two girls and boy/girl twins...no, they are not identical and yes, I'm sure). My kids love to whine, so I love to wine. My loves include nap time, bed time, date night, travel and evenings and weekends when my husband is home because he handles all diaper changes.