Armed Robbery Weighed with Costs and Benefits

by Scott Patrick

What is being called the largest art theft in European history by the Swiss authorities can be easily weighted out with the idea of benefits and costs. Around 4:30 pm three thieves walked into the Emile Bührle Foundation, one of the largest private art collections located outside of Zurich’s city center on the shore of Lake Zurich. The three thieves, wearing dark clothes and ski masks, ordered patrons and staff to lie on the floor. While one thieve held a pistol on the civilians, the other two started to remove the paintings from the wall.

The paintings included "Poppies near Vetheuil," by Claude Monet (1879), "Boy
In a Red Jacket" (1888), by Paul Cezanne, "Blossoming Chestnut Branches" (1890), by
Vincent van Gogh, and "Count Lepic and his Daughters" (1871), by Edgar Degas.


Images courtesy of the New York Times

The four paintings are said to be valued at an estimated $163 million. The thieves successfully got away in a white car with the paintings hanging out of the trunk.

The cost of this activity is apparent. Firstly the most straight forward cost is the chance of jail time. The three men would be looking at armed robbery on top of anything else officials can cook up. Does $163 million equal out to the possible chance of years in prison. Also we must look at the chances of succeeding. The thieves would not have attempted the robbery if they didn’t feel like they could pull it off. Another outside motivation is the example set by others. Further on in the article they speak of other art robberies within the past 2 weeks. This would make the cost seem minimal under the heading of achievable.

Next the benefits need to be taken into account. In this particular example, once the robbery was completed the benefits out weight the cost substantially. For the betterment of this example let’s hypothesize that the thieves do get later on. Now the costs seem to greatly out weight the benefits. On more twist to add to this seemingly perfect crime is how they plan to obtain the cash from the paintings. It’s not like they will be able to sell them on the open market. So to conclude this cost and benefits scenario, from my point of view the chances of succeeding (or benefits) does not outweigh the threat of failure (or cost).