Cruise Ship Art Theft
I feel like I can hear you saying what kind of cruise ship has fine art on board and having never been on a cruise in my life I actually don’t know but this crime proves they do. The FBI even got involved to crack this one.
Let’s Get To It
On the Carnival Cruise Line website it says its “ships feature an ever-changing collection of fine art. Sip some champagne, browse the gallery, and bid on a piece to take home as a trip memento” (Levine, 2023). Their art gallery and auction program is actually run by Michigen-based Park-West Gallery which specializes in sales held at sea. So there’s the answer to our question, and you can even take these fine art pieces home if the stuff in the gift shop isn’t to your taste.
Anyways, in late 2023 a Carnival cruise was travelling from Baltimore to Bermuda and back again over the span of a week. When the ship returned to Baltimore and everyone disembarked and headed home one couple left with more than just a tan and fond memories.
On October 1, 2023, the day after the ship returned to Baltimore, the ship’s art auctioneer was going around the boat and noticed that two sculptures that were supposed to be in the gallery were missing. No one had bid on them or purchased them during the trip so he had no idea what happened to them.
The two missing pieces are Kiss at Sea by Robert Wyland, a lucite sculpture depicting two sea turtles facing each other. It’s the size of a backpack and is valued at $6,200. The other is Tappin’ the Keys for Love by Marcus Glenn, another lucite sculpture of a man playing the piano with a heart in the background. This one is slightly smaller than the first and is valued at $6,600.
This discovery by the auctioneer lead the security team onboard to get involved and when they reviewed the security tapes they saw footage of a man and a woman walking into the art gallery at 2:00am two days before the ship docked in Baltimore. They walked into the gallery empty handed and they left several minutes later carrying objects “consistent in appearance with the missing sculptures” (Levine, 2023). So pretty sure you got them.
These two people were later identified as ship passengers whose identities have not been publicly released. This is when the cruise line got the FBI, yes the FBI, involved. They started investigating the two people identified by the cruise line in the surveillance videos and what do you know, the man posted photos on his Facebook page wearing the exact same outfit as he wore to steal the sculptures.
After the FBI were issued a search warrant for the suspects’ home they recovered both stolen sculptures but it isn’t yet clear if they’re going to press charges. No legal action has been taken but the FBI said they were looking into charges of theft and transportation of stolen goods.
Now these sculptures are back with the cruise line where they may be purchased by someone else at sea.
Works Cited
Lawson-Tancred, Jo. “A Cruise Ship Claims a Vacationing Couple Stole Sculptures from its Gallery While at Sea”. ArtNet News. 2023. https://news.artnet.com/art-world-archives/cruise-couple-stole-sculptures-2394016
Levine, Mike. “FBI Accuses Duo of Swiping Nearly $13,000 in Sculptures from Carnival Cruise”. ABC News. 2023. https://abcnews.go.com/US/fbi-accuses-duo-swiping-sculptures-carnival-cruise-bermuda/story?id=104570589