Crime and art appear to be becoming ever-closer bedfellows in our contemporary world. You only have to look at sky-rocketing values to understand why. Prices soar as markets expand, as investors from Russia and India and the Far East all compete.

These are the sort of audacious heists that get lots of attention because, involving world-famous names, they acquire a patina of glamour. But there are thousands of robberies that go all but unreported.

The art world is a rarefied place. Discretion is prized. Dealers prefer not to discuss client lists. Collectors can be very secretive. On top of that, art works are usually whisked out of the country a few days after being stolen. Often they will not emerge again for years. When they do they may well be in the hands of a bona fide person. Investigators will have to pick their way backwards through an often impenetrable succession of contacts. Besides, criminals are quick to benefit from different jurisdictions. Each country has a different statute of limitations for theft. In the Netherlands the thief becomes the owner after 21 years. In Italy the art work is yours if you buy it at public auction.

Art theft is frequently connected with the crimes with which it competes for police attention. It is used as a surety for loans or as currency to be exchanged for a fraction of its legitimate value for drugs, guns or other contraband. Criminals in Dublin, for instance, pulling off a spectacular heist in a country estate, corralled Rubens, Vermeer and Goya into providing venture capital for a drug-dealing ring. In Buenos Aires at the time of the Falklands conflict, Cézanne helped a brutal dictatorship to pull off an illicit arms deal.

What’s the answer? “If everybody in the art trade searched or insisted that the seller had searched the Art Loss Register, it would become impossible to sell unique items of stolen art,” says Julian Radcliffe, the chairman of the register. “That is what happens with stolen vehicles database. That’s why 70 per cent of stolen vehicles are recovered. Only 1 per cent of stolen art works are found.”

Until this sort of checking becomes an international legal standard, some of our loveliest and most beautiful creations will continue to serve our ugliest schemes.

Excerpted form an article by Rachel Campbell-Johnston