Manhattan Art Heist

Dave Carlin
CBS News
Friday, December 24, 2010

On Thursday night, the NYPD was in Greenwich Village investigating a major art heist. They said works by Andy Warhol and other famous names, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, were stolen from an apartment near 9th Avenue, reports CBS 2’s Dave Carlin.

Police said creepy is the right way to describe the art thieves who ransacked a home in a swanky section of the West Village. Investigators said while the owners were out of town during the final week of November, the burglars carved their way into an apartment from an adjacent hallway.

They eventually came upon an art collection worth close to $1 million. Once the opening in the wall was large enough for crooks to gain entry, the crafty criminals looted luxury items. Clearly rare prints of several important works of art by modern masters including Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein were what they were looking for.

“Those kinds of thieves are going to go for that kind of merchandise,” West Village resident Mitch Ely said. “The people who are going to go for this are going to have a clientele that is going to buy it.” Police said the burglars must have known they’d be on film because they also stole a video recorder attached to surveillance cameras.

The stolen items include the following:
--Thinking Nude – print by Roy Lichtenstein, 42" x 61"
--Moonscape – print by Roy Lichtenstein, 19" x 23"
--Camouflage – set of eight prints by Andy Warhol, 38" x 38" each
--The Truck – print by Andy Warhol, 39" x 39"
--Superman – print by Andy Warhol, 38" x 38"
--Live Cat – oil painting by Carl Fudge, 48" x 60"

View Photos: Gallery of Stolen Artwork