Bührle Theft Musings: Law Professor's Rationale for Return of Half the Haul

Saul Levmore (above), dean of the University of Chicago's Law School, gets down and dirty into the criminal mind on his school's blog, offering his theory about why the Bührle collection thieves might have returned two of the four stolen paintings, but retained the two most valuable works.

Levmore, who experienced a "strange sense of intellectual delight" upon learning about recent developments in the Zurich case, writes:

The essential problem facing the kidnapper or extortionist, whether of persons or property, is how to take payment without being traced and apprehended.....I have long wondered whether the "solution" is in "double threats." The kidnapper might take A and B, and then contact the parent or owner and say "transfer $X to me in the following manner, and then (or before then) I will return A to you; if I am not followed and see that I am safe for Y days, I will then return B to you."

This kidnapper is no less credible than the conventional one, because B is otherwise useless to him, and there is the fact that his "reputation" and ability to repeat the crime depends on his freeing B as promised. And the taking, and serial returning, of A and B raises the chance that payment will be made on A.

I had previously speculated that the thieves might be leaving a "calling card for a ransom demand." Levmore, whose imagination is obviously more sordid than mine, has given us the details on how just how such a call might be answered.

"Intellectual delight," indeed.