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ARTIST: Cezanne. PAINTING: Auvers sur Oise. STOLEN: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, millennium night. VALUE: £30 million. The painting was stolen in a high-tech burglary worthy of a film plot. Thieves used the cover of millennium celebration to target this French Impressionist treasure.

ARTIST: Vermeer. PAINTING: The Concert. STOLEN: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, US, 18 March, 1990. VALUE: Around £50 million. One of 12 works, including a Goya and a Monet, taken in the biggest art heist of the century when two thieves, posing as police officers, gained access to the museum at the height of the city’s famous St Patrick’s Day celebrations.

AUCTIONEERS, PRICE FIXERS AND ART MIXERS, CROOKS AND GREEDY WITH CLASS FOR THE HIGH CLASS END UP IN JAIL!!

The former chairman of Sotheby's has been convicted of conspiring with rival auction house Christie's to fix the commissions paid by sellers of fine art. Alfred Taubman, 76, of Michigan, faces up to three years in prison for conspiring to fix prices. He will be sentenced on April 2 next year. The jury deliberated over two days before reaching the verdict at a US District Court in New York. Taubman had denied charges that he and former Christie's chairman Sir Anthony Tennant, 71, of Andover, Hampshire, stole as much as 400 million dollars in commissions from 1993 to 1999.Between them, the businesses control more than 90% of the world's art auctions. The prosecution's case centred on testimony by Diana "DeDe" Brooks, the former chief executive of Sotheby's, who pleaded guilty in October 2000 to price-fixing charges.

 She agreed to testify against Taubman in hopes of avoiding a three-year prison sentence. In his closing arguments, defense lawyer Robert Fiske attacked Brooks' credibility, calling her "a walking reasonable doubt". Sir Anthony has said he will not come to the United States to face charges, and the case is not covered by extradition treaties. Sotheby's pleaded guilty to conspiracy and were sentenced to pay 45 million dollars. Christie's was granted amnesty by the government for its co-operation.

Sotheby's ex-boss goes to jail a day early

Sotheby's disgraced former chairman has handed himself into jail a day early to avoid press attention. Alfred Taubman, 78, was sentenced to a year and a day by a New York judge last December for his part in a £290 million price-fixing scam. He was ordered to report to a Minnesota prison yesterday, but turned up on Wednesday in an apparent attempt to prevent a media circus. Taubman was also fined £4.7 million for his part in the scheme, in which sellers of art and antiques were charged inflated commissions for nearly a decade. The scam allegedly involved the former head of Christie's, Sir Anthony Tennant. Taubman is being held in the Federal Medical Centre, a secure facility that houses about 800 men. It includes a medical unit, a unit for low security inmates and a mental health unit. A prison spokesman said Taubman does not have any outstanding medical problems, but he will probably be held in the medical unit due to his age.

 

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