A 45-year-old accountant was convicted today by a Vienna court of stealing works of art from a warehouse and had amassed booty worth 1.3 million euros.
The accused “confessed to some of his acts” and was sentenced to two years suspended imprisonment, said the vice-president of the court Christina Salzbourne.
The 45-year-old allegedly stole thirty works of art in the period 2012-13. Among them were Chinese brass sculptures, drawings and paintings by Gustaf Klimt and Egon Schiele, two of Austria’s most famous painters. He worked in an accounting firm that rented the space to store the works of art and had not aroused anyone’s suspicions. Authorities first discovered him last year when he turned to the London Service, the Lost Art Archive (ALR), to find out if an 11th-century Chinese vase was among the items declared stolen and wanted.
Although it is “extremely rare” for the thief to contact the Archive himself, the fact that the query came from an unknown customer using a “suspicious” e-mail address raised suspicions on the part of the ALR, which in turn contacted the Austrian police, as its director, Amelie Ebbinghaus, explained. The police officers who undertook the investigation found that many of the works of art adorned the accountant’s house while some others he had hidden in his parents’ attic.
Vienna police spokesman Marcus Dietrich said the 45-year-old was “say a collector of works of art but could not obtain them legally” and so he stole them.discreetlyFrom the warehouse where he had access. He even commented that many of the works had not been declared stolen since their owners thought they were still kept in the warehouse.
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