Breaking down the numbers on art theft trends

Some estimate that roughly 70% of artifacts in museums are stolen

New York City assistant district attorney Matthew Bogdano targets the illicit art world. Bogdano claims that traders and traffickers of stolen art have often been able to get away with their crimes due to their connections with members of the elite. His efforts have led to the recovery of around 4,500 antiquities valued at around $300M.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Stolen art is often ransomed instead of resold

Thieves take advantage of museums, insurance companies, and private owners who are blackmailed into paying millions for the safe return of their belongings. The practice, called "artnapping," occurs because stolen art is too dangerous for collectors to purchase. The perpetrators often have no interest in holding onto pieces, but museums are desperate to retrieve these valuable historic and cultural treasures.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide

The market value of art is entirely subjective, allowing paintings to be worth millions while also being lightweight and easy to smuggle. However, most successful heists are the result of luck and don't include a plan for selling. The smartest option for robbers is typically the less famous painting, as it won't be as difficult to sell as the Mona Lisa.

The dark side of museum collections

Using the example of a sacred Nepali religious object that was stolen from a village in the 1980s and which later appeared in the Met’s collection, this article looks at the controversies that have swirled around some of the museum’s pieces. In addition to the Nepali statue, the piece outlines decades of questionable collection practices––some of which are clear-cut cases of theft.

Looting art is often a byproduct of war

During WWII, Hitler orchestrated the theft of many masterpieces to eventually create his own museum. While many of these were recovered, iconic works such as Raphael's "[Portrait of a Young Man](https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/the-story-of-the-lost-raphaels-portrait-of-a-young-man/)" and Vincent van Gogh's "Painter on His Way to Work" remain missing or were destroyed by the Nazis.

In 2025, thieves stole roughly $100M of jewels from the Louvre

The robbery of the world's most visited museum took less than ten minutes and resulted in worldwide shock. The thieves used a ladder to break into the building and steal eight pieces of French crown jewels, and then escaped on motorbikes.

The bestselling visual art mediums, visualized

Fine art is a particularly appealing alternative investment for many—but it's also a pretty broad term. This data visualization shows which fine art mediums sold the best in 2024. For instance, paintings accounted for about 59% of all fine art dealer sales that year, whereas sculptures accounted for roughly 15%. See the full picture here.

The number of active art NFT traders peaked above 529,000 in 2021

The market for art non-fungible tokens has collapsed since its 2021 peak. In 2024, it had just 76,000 active traders.

Seventeen strange historical heists

High-dollar chocolate and cheese robberies to art thefts and audacious train robberies. Explore history's most peculiar stories of stealing with this list of seventeen tales of burglaries.

5 works of art that were destroyed and repaired

Art preservation is a delicate skill; art reconstruction is even more challenging, especially when the damaged works are centuries old. This Artnet guide details five of the most famous cases of dismembered works (from Manet, Cézanne, and more) that were repaired by specialists, allowing audiences to see the pieces in the way they were intended.

Crunching the numbers on the cost of ransomware

This blog is a preview of the 2022 Crypto Crime Report, offering a summary of ransomware activity in 2021, the most active strains of ransomware, and more (w/ data, charts, and illustrations).

See the increase in financial crimes globally on a map

The Global Organized Crime Index tracks annual shifts in organized crime, ranging from drug and human trafficking to financial crimes. The map shows crime levels for each country, as well as a profile of the country's annual shifts.

Some argue that appropriation in pop art is simply plagiarism

Some of pop art’s most recognizable works rely on the art of appropriation, lifting advertisements, product images, and—in Roy Lichtenstein’s case—comic book panels drawn by other artists. Artnet dives into a 2023 documentary exploring the complicated legacy of appropriation and high versus low art through interviews with comic artists whose work Lichtenstein copied into million-dollar masterpieces.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

A statistical breakdown of the global film industry

Dive into this collection of stats and infographics explaining the current state of both Hollywood and the global film industry. The page covers a variety of topics, including independent film production, box office revenue, global film markets, movie-going demographics and more. It also addresses the relatively new phenomenon of home video streaming.

Around 32% of American adults have at least one tattoo

Tattoos have waxed and waned in popularity over the centuries, depending upon the social standing of their wearers. Throughout US history, they were often considered taboo. However, growing acceptance of tattoos means they’re more visible in the public eye.

How massive cargo ships fight off modern pirates

Piracy on the high seas costs a reported $16 billion each year from either theft or damage incurred during an attempt to pirate massive cargo ships. This video breaks down several ways companies attempt to fend off would-be thieves. Pirate crews are...

Studies show immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans

Research examining incarceration records and crime data generally finds that immigrants—including undocumented individuals—have lower crime and incarceration rates than US-born citizens, though measurement is limited by gaps in national data on immigration status.

Pop culture sometimes changes the way people invest

After the "Barbie" movie premiered, the number of investors in Barbie parent company Mattel's stock grew more than six times larger on the investment platform Public, according to the platform's recent report. Other cultural trends have affected which stocks investors choose as well.

Many journalists are shying away from sharing mug shots when reporting crime

News outlets used to cover crime with mug shots of the accused. Some outlets even published mug shot photo galleries, collections of easily acquired content that drove clicks and, hopefully, advertising dollars. However, this practice has fallen out of favor as journalists question the lasting impact of immortalizing mug shots of accused perpetrators, at least some of whom are ultimately cleared of the alleged crime.

Trademarks are just one type of intellectual property

Intellectual property refers to any intangible "creation of the mind," which includes ideas, creative works, and even trade secrets. Trademarks, copyright, and patents are all protected by intellectual property laws—but each protection is separate and distinct.

Explore a database of more than 200,000 wrecks

Only a small fraction of shipwrecks occurring throughout human history have been discovered. This database is the largest compilation to date, and includes more than 80,000 images, with related news updated on a rolling basis.

What percentage of the world’s plastic waste actually gets recycled?

Despite growing awareness of the world’s plastic waste challenges, the numbers showing how much of the world’s plastic waste actually gets recycled are abysmal. Only 9% of the world’s plastic waste is properly recycled, and a significant portion remains landfilled, mismanaged, or incinerated. Read this article for further analysis of why this is and what can be done in the future to better manage plastic waste.

Fair use may shield AI companies from potential copyright violations

AI models are trained on enormous datasets built from content scraped from websites across the internet. Copyright law includes a four-factor test to determine whether copies of content fall under fair use, but the law's enforcement has been inconsistent.

Fireworks-related ER visits in 2024 increased by 52% as compared to the prior year

In 2023, there were 9,700 such injuries, but the number was 14,700 in 2024, according to analysis from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Personal use of fireworks grew significantly during the pandemic, in part due to cancellations of public display shows, and that use has apparently continued—and prompted more injuries. What's more, the Census Bureau indicates that firework imports increased by around 19% between 2023 and 2024.

Nearly a quarter of the US's 451 top-ranked podcasts belong to the true crime genre

Perhaps, Pew Research Center proposes, this popularity stems from the fame of "Serial," the 2014 hit series about a 1999 murder in Baltimore. Politics and government is the second top genre. Outside typical genre divides lie series such as fictional radio stories and Dungeons & Dragons podcasts, which account for 12% of top-ranked podcasts.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

Fireworks-related ER visits are on the rise—in 2024, they increased by 52% as compared to the prior year.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

Roughly 43 million US borrowers owe roughly $1.7T in student debt, the second-largest source of consumer debt behind mortgages.

About 2,000 US babies are born annually without some portion of their limbs, potentially leading to a lifetime of pricey prosthetics.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

The price of gas is a composite made up of several different factors, with the federal gas tax making up less than 20% of what drivers pay at the pump.

See the 25 of the best photos of auroras from around the world.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment