Art Crime

For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than two hundred heists over nearly eight years—in museums and cathedrals all over Europe—Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than three hundred objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion.

In this award-winning Audible Studios production, Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical.

In weeks after the September 11 attacks, 18-year-old Mansoor Adayfi was kidnapped by Afghan militia and sold to US forces for bounty money. After months of interrogations, he was sent to the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as one of its first prisoners. Like the nearly 800 other men imprisoned at Guantanamo, Adayfi didn’t know why he was imprisoned or for how long. He had never seen a skyscraper and couldn’t imagine what the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center looked like, much less how they were destroyed.

Versace. The very name conjures up images of outrageous glamour and bold sexuality, opulence and daring. All of course true, but only half the story. Versace is also the legacy of a great creative genius from a poor, backward part of southern Italy who transformed the fashion world through his intuitive understanding of both women and how a changing culture influenced the way they wanted to dress. House of Versace shows how Gianni Versace, with his flamboyant sister Donatella at his side, combined his virtuosic talent and extraordinary ambition to help create celebrity culture.

Investigating a crime seemingly unconnected to the Royal Family, Holmes & Watson uncover a conspiracy to kidnap Queen Victoria and destabilise the British Empire. With a ticking clock to her next public engagement, Holmes and Watson must discover who is behind the plot and locate her majesty, while Mycroft tries to keep the monarch’s disappearance a secret from the British people. At first, Holmes believes Moriarty is responsible for the abduction, but when the Napoleon of Crime is proved innocent, Holmes must work with his arch-nemesis to rescue the Queen.

Once in a long while, a child is born possessing the rarest of gifts, the innate ability to feel impossible beauty, to recognize priceless works of art. When such a child is discovered, a 250-year-old secret organization called Our World trains them to acquire the greatest works of art through theft, bribery, forgery, and even murder. Once found, the masterpiece will disappear again without anyone ever knowing it surfaced and sold for billions of dollars of profit at a secret auction attended by only the wealthiest of the art world’s patrons.

On June 22, 1954, teenage friends Juliet Hulme - better known as best-selling mystery writer Anne Perry - and Pauline Parker went for a walk in a New Zealand park with Pauline’s mother, Honora. Half an hour later, the girls returned alone, claiming that Pauline’s mother had had an accident. But when Honora Parker was found in a pool of blood with the brick used to bludgeon her to death close at hand, Juliet and Pauline were quickly arrested, and later confessed to the killing.

A fabulous "lost masterpiece" becomes the ultimate prize - for an art historian whose ambition consumes everyone around her, an angry young painter with a plan for revenge on the art establishment, and a desperate gallery owner who may have double-crossed his own life away. Behind the elegance and glamour of the art world, anything goes - theft, forgery, betrayal, and maybe even murder....

The art world is a much dirtier, nastier business than you might expect. Tony Tetro, one of the most renowned art forgers in history, will make you question every masterpiece you’ve ever seen in a museum, gallery, or private collection. Tetro’s “Rembrandts,” “Caravaggios,” “Miros,” and hundreds of other works now hang on walls around the globe.

In an exchange of favors with an art dealer colleague, Jonathan Argyll unluckily offers to transport a painting from Paris back to Rome. It seems routine work, and Jonathan gets to meet his girlfriend, Flavia, who works for Rome's Art Theft Squad. But when a would-be thief tries to take the painting at the train station, and the art dealer seems less interested in his purchase once he sees it, Jonathan wonders why, as events unfold, someone is willing to kill for it.

Everything is not as it seems during those balmy summer days at one of Oxford’s most prestigious colleges. Lorcan Greene, wealthy gallery owner and expert forgery-spotter, is hired by Detective Braine of the Art Fraud Squad to investigate a tip-off in Oxford. But Lorcan gets more than he bargains for, falling in love with talented art student Frederica Delacroix. But what’s she hiding and could she even be involved in forgery herself?

Umiko Wada has had enough excitement in life. With an overbearing mother and her husband recently murdered, she just wants to keep her head down. As a secretary to a private detective, her life is pleasantly filled with coffee runs and paperwork. That is, until her boss takes on a new case. A case that is surrounded by shadows. A case that means Wada will have to leave Tokyo and travel to London.

When he retired as the chief security officer of New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, John Barelli had spent the better part of 40 years responsible not only for one of the richest treasure troves on the planet, but the museum's staff, the millions of visitors, as well as American presidents, royalty, and heads of state from around the world. For the first time, John Barelli shares his experiences of the crimes that occurred on his watch, the investigations that captured thieves and recovered artwork....

In To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence, James M. Olson, former chief of CIA counterintelligence, offers a wake-up call for the American public and also a guide for how our country can do a better job of protecting its national security and trade secrets. Olson takes the listener into the arcane world of counterintelligence as he lived it during his 30-year career in the CIA.

Ten-year-old Amy Mihaljevic disappeared from the comfortable Cleveland suburb of Bay Village in the fall of 1989. Her picture was everywhere - anyone who watched the local TV news remembers the girl with the sideways ponytail. Tragically, Amy was found dead a few months later. Her killer was never found. Now, 15 years later, journalist James Renner picks up the leads. Filled with mysterious riddles, incredible coincidences, and a cast of unusual but very real characters, his investigation quickly becomes a riveting journey in search of the truth.

The pitch went like this: Chris Butler, a retired cop, ran a private investigator firm in Concord, California. His business had a fascinating angle - his firm was staffed entirely by soccer moms. In fact, Butler employed PI Super Moms: attractive, organized, smart, and trained in investigative techniques, self-defense, and weaponry. This American Life host Ira Glass described them as "MILF: Charlie's Angels." When this story came across Pete Crooks's desk when he was working at Diablo magazine in 2010, he was instantly hooked.

It's 1924 and investigative reporter Poppy Denby is heading up to Northumberland to celebrate her father's 60th birthday. She stops off in Newcastle en route to visit her Aunt Dot, who has temporarily relocated from London to renovate a house she's inherited. One of Aunt Dot's guests is the world renowned artist Agnes Robson, who is staging an exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery. Reluctantly, Poppy is roped in to help when the artist's press liaison man falls ill....

Over the course of his 27 years with the DEA, Ed Follis bought eight-balls of cocaine in a red Corvette, negotiated multimillion-dollar deals onboard private King Airs, and developed covert relationships with men who were not only international drug traffickers but - in some cases - operatives for al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Shan United Army, or the Mexican federation of cartels. Follis was, in fact, one of the driving forces behind the agency's radical shift from a limited local focus to a global arena.

When 11-year-old James Renner fell in love with Amy Mihaljevic, the missing girl seen on posters all over his neighborhood, it was the beginning of a lifelong obsession with true crime. That obsession led James to a successful career as an investigative journalist. It also gave him PTSD. In 2011 James began researching the strange disappearance of Maura Murray, a UMass student who went missing after wrecking her car in rural New Hampshire in 2004.

When Jonathan Argyll is arrested for breaking into an obscure church in Rome, he claims that it contains a long-lost Raphael hidden under a painting by Mantini. The painting disappears - then reappears in the hands of the top British art dealer, Edward Byrnes. How has Byrnes found out about the hidden masterpiece, and whom is he acting for? There is also the curious matter of the safe deposit box full of sketches closely resembling features of the newly discovered painting.