The picture of the Mona Lisa would not have been famous had it not been stolen from a museum in France.

German police are investigating the alleged "most catastrophic burglary" after perpetrators broke through a window into the Grünes Gewölbe museum (Blue Tunnel) in the Royal Palace in Dresden on November 25. . They used an ax to smash the glass case and within a few minutes removed at least three sets of jewelry and then escaped by car.

Museum officials said it was impossible to determine the exact value of the stolen jewelry, including some diamond pins, a pearl string and a sharp knife with a diamond-encrusted hilt. Bild daily newspaper, based in Berlin, assess "stolen jewelry worth about one billion EUR (1.1 billion USD)".

Historian Vivienne Becker says the collection at the Blue Tunnel Museum contains unique jewelry from the 18th century, a time when European artisans were just beginning to use diamonds in art making. high class. "There is nothing in the world like that," she said. "They are the symbol of the highest human achievement at that time."

Mona Lisa painting by artist Leonardo da Vinci was also stolen on August 21, 1911 from the Louvre Museum in Paris. The thief Vincenzo Peruggia, from Italy, entered the museum in a staff-friendly way, removed the Mona Lisa from the frame when the museum was empty and hid it under a coat. He kept the painting in his apartment in Paris.

Initially few newspapers reported because the picture was not really popular at the time. In fact, when the Washington Post reported on the burglary and appraised the painting at $ 5 million, the newspaper also mistook Monna Vanna, the charcoal sketch some people believed Leonardo had prepared. to draw the Mona Lisa.

The painting went missing for two years and during that period, the charm of the mysterious woman increased significantly to the public. Investigators eventually captured Peruggia and retrieved the painting, returning it to the Louvre. In court, Peruggia claimed that he stole paintings for national reasons: He wanted to return the Mona Lisa to Italy, where the painting was born.

"If another Leonardo's work is stolen, it will be the most famous work in the world, not the Mona Lisa," said art history professor Noah Charney. "The burglary has made the appeal of the painting soar and become popular."

Christmas of 1985, thieves took away 140 ancient Mayan, Aztec artifacts from Mexico City National Museum of Anthropology. Only 8 guards on duty at the time and had no alarms. The guards were drunk or doze off when the burglary happened.

Shocking event for Mexicans. "They stole part of our history. How can you put a price on it?" Said Felipe Solis, curator of the museum.

Police identified the perpetrators as Carlos Perches Trevino and Ramon Sardina Garcia, two college dropouts obsessed with selling antiques. Two thieves have been to the museum more than 50 times, drafted plans and planned to break into. They jumped over the fence, crawled through the wind tunnel and stole items from seven display cabinets. The two men hid the artifacts for more than a year, then took them to Acapulco and tried to sell them to a drug dealer. Three years after the burglary, two perpetrators were arrested and most of the artifacts were found.

The painting "Scream" by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch has been stolen twice. In February 1994, two men climbed a ladder, broke a window and took a painting from the National Gallery in Oslo. The thieves left a note: "Thanks for the loose security".

The burglary took less than a minute, while half of the national police force was mobilized to ensure security for the opening of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, about 180 km from Oslo. Three months later, investigators found the masterpiece.

For the second time, the painting disappeared during the horrific screams of visitors to the Munch Museum in Oslo, where the painting was displayed in August 2004. Two gunmen stormed the museum in the middle of the day, threatening a guard, taking the picture and then escaping in a luxury car. The painting was found two years later.

Vjeran Tomic, nicknamed Spider-Man for his agility and dexterity, stumbled across the Museum of Modern Art in Paris in 2010 and noticed a window without a security camera. When visiting the museum, Tomic noticed that some of the motion detectors were broken. He broke into the museum, stealing five masterpieces, including the works of Picasso and Matisse in May 2010.

In February 2017, a court in Paris sentenced Tomic to 8 years in prison. Tomic's patron, antique dealer Jean Michel Corvez, was sentenced to 7 years in prison for complicity.

The huge gold coin, called "Big Maple Leaf", is 3 cm thick and 53 cm in diameter, featuring Queen Elizabeth II, and is a product of the Royal Canadian Mint, displayed at the Bode Museum in Berlin. Although the coin itself is priced at one million Canadian dollars, it was valued at $ 3.9 million in 2017.

In the early morning of March 27, 2017, with the help of the "inner leg" of a museum guard, the thieves climbed into the window and smashed the glass frame around the coin, placing the "booty" on the vehicle. wheelbarrow then to car park in nearby Monbijou park.

Police arrested 4 people in July 2017. The coin is likely to have been broken into pieces and sold.

The $ 6 million 18-carat gold toilet that has been used more than 100,000 times in recent years has been stolen from a museum at Blenheim Palace in September.

The toilet designed by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan was named "America". Critics say it reflects Americans' obsession with luxury or a description of the American Dream. Cattelan explained his work to satirize material passion. "Whatever you eat, a $ 200 lunch or a two-dollar hot dog sandwich, the results are the same, going to the toilet," he said.

It was once displayed in a public toilet on the 5th floor of the Guggenheim museum in New York, where visitors lined up for hours to have the opportunity to use the toilet and cleaning staff about every 15 minutes.

Before the theft, a yellow toilet was installed in a wooden toilet outside the bedroom where the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was born. A party was held at the palace to celebrate the Cattelan exhibition on September 14. The thieves broke in and removed the toilet from the toilet, flooding the room.

Most visitors find it interesting and funny to see the scene of a burglary sealed. Lacey Chandler, 9, visited the exhibition with her father, summarizing the feelings of many people: "Why would anyone go to steal a yellow toilet? How many people have put their butt on it".

See more:

The theft of the yellow toilet caused speculation

Four minutes of stealing 'stole' billion dollar treasure in Germany