Over 1,000 Artifacts Stolen from Oakland Museum of California
The thieves are still at large.
- Summary
- Oakland Museum of California was hit with a massive heist earlier this month
- Stolen items include jewelry, precious metals, Native American artworks and artifacts and daguerreotypes
- No arrests have been made in connection with the crime
While the recent Louvre break-in took Europe, and the world, by storm, the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) suffered a heist of its own, after thieves made off with over 1,000 artifacts from their collection earlier this month.
First reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, the burglary unfolded at around 3:30 a.m. on October 16, when a thief, or thieves, broke into the museum’s 100,000-square-foot, off-site storage facility, and left with a hoard of jewelry, precious metals and gems, daguerreotypes, Native American baskets and tools and political ephemera.
According to Lori Fogarty, the museum’s director, the robbers did not enter through a door. While the museum declined to explain the absence of on-duty security staff at the time of the crime, they also noted that none of the employees are being pursued as suspects.
OMCA is currently working with the Oakland Police Department and the FBI’s Art Crime Team in the case that any of the stolen artifacts show up at auction houses, antique dealers or pawnshops, though arrests linked to the theft have yet to be made.
“This is our shared cultural legacy,” Fogarty told the San Francisco Standard. “In almost every case, the vast majority of our collection comes to us by gift, and we take it on as our responsibility to preserve it in the interest of the public and in the interest of the community. That’s why we want to put the word out to the community that this has happened and we’re hoping for help.”
