In a story involving slick gunmen, the Batmobile, drag racers and a Norwegian police force obsessed with a murdered police captain, The Guardian offers up a look at the theft of Edvard Munch's The Scream:

It was a relaxed Sunday morning in summer when a black Audi estate pulled up outside the Munch Museum in an Oslo park. Within seconds, armed robbers were waving a .357 Magnum pistol at visitors and guards. Then they faltered. They had to ask to be shown the two most famous paintings in the museum. No one put up an argument. They emerged with two framed pictures, got in their car, and were gone. It was 11.20am on August 22 2004.

Oslo's police headquarters, just five minutes' drive from the museum, is a modernist block on a wooded hill above the kebab shops of a district called Greenland. Normally it would have been packed with detectives, but this was a Sunday in late August. As news reached the station, urgent calls were made to senior detectives at home. But this wasn't just a weekend ruined; it was the beginning of an inquiry that would keep them in the world spotlight for months on end. It wouldn't let up until the most famous painting of modern times was found.

ZPO

Olympia, WA

July 2004

FEB 17, 2007 01:39 PM

I would think it was definitely a diversion. A professional crew targeting a (as set by the judge) 62M painting probably wouldn't need to ask for directions to it in the museum.

darkcharge

Portland, OR

June 2006

FEB 18, 2007 12:16 AM

Soooooooooo what was the real target?

skeptik

New Orleans, LA

February 2004

FEB 18, 2007 02:11 AM

velvetpixel said:
Soooooooooo what was the real target?

Not that kind of diversion.

From the linked article:

There was one very odd feature of the crime: its timing. When the raid at the Munch Museum happened, police resources were focused on what was, for Norway, a horrific crime. In April 2004, there was an armed robbery at the Norwegian Cash Service (Nokas) offices in the western port of Stavanger. A senior police officer, Arne Sigve Klungland, was machine-gunned and died on the spot. All the country's top detectives, including Stensrud's division, were working on the murder of one of their own.

It seemed more than a coincidence. Stensrud floated the theory that perhaps the Munch Museum robbery was actually an attempt to divert police resources from their armed-robbery-and-murder hunt in Stavanger. The Scream is, after all, more famous around the world than the late Arne Sigve Klungland. The pressure to find it might distract from his death...

(emphasis added)

Nero1970

Boca Raton, FL

July 2006

FEB 18, 2007 08:39 AM

Sean - Interesting. I would like to see more backstory on this. I have read about the robbery and subsequent partial or complete burning of one of the vesions.
The other things I have read have really painted the robbers as a bunch of incompitent fools. Very Interesting Mr. Bond..
I have some feeling that there will not be the kind of prison retribution that I would hope for the art thieves. Don't mess with the Munch!

Nero1970

Boca Raton, FL

July 2006

FEB 18, 2007 08:53 AM

After rereading the article its sad to find I was right ~ If these guys were "professionals" the Keystone cops were an elite crime fighting unit.
Great distraction guys lets murder someone (so now they have gone from just stupid thives to murderers. )
And they didnt even care about what they stole!!! A copy of the Madonna is above my bed, its a exqusite work. To think of these paintings treated as they were!!!! ARRGGGG!!!!!