FBI Top Ten Art Crimes

Did you know that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has a unit of eight Special Agents dedicated to tracking down stolen works of art? According to the FBI, art "theft, fraud, looting, and trafficking across state and international lines" has been allotted an estimated price tag of some $6 billion (US) per year. Though that's a rather startling, serious grand total, the Art Crimes Team also feels that the works gone missing are "considered priceless in terms of their cultural value." With this in mind, the FBI released its list of the top 10 art crimes today, no doubt hoping that additional publicity equates with additional tips and eventual recoveries. From - and with links to - the Art Crimes Team:

• 7,000-10,000 looted and stolen Iraqi artifacts, 2003
  
• 12 paintings from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft, 1990
  
• 2 Renoirs and 1 Rembrandt stolen from Sweden's National Museum, 2000 (Recovered)
  
• Munch's The Scream and The Madonna from the Munch Museum in Oslo, 2004
  
• Benevenuto Cellini Salt Cellar from Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum, 2003
  
• Caravaggio's Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francesco from Palermo, 1969
  
• Davidoff-Morini Stradivarius violin from a New York apartment, 1995
  
• Two Van Gogh paintings from Amsterdam's Vincent Van Gogh Museum, 2002
  
• Cezanne's View of Auvers-sur-Oise from Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, 1999
  
• Da Vinci's Madonna of the Yarnwinder from Scotland's Drumlanrig Castle, 2003

There is contact information on every single one of these pages, so please use it if you've seen or heard of these missing treasures.