“That the forgery ultimately bought the thief eight months is just one of the factors that made this case so hard to solve. Lacoursière suspects the portrait was stolen by someone with contacts inside the hotel who understood its value and knew it was unprotected. He doubts organized crime was even involved. “The mafia and the bikers and the people who used to be responsible for a lot of art theft in years past have moved on to Bitcoin and other things that can be stolen and traded online in a matter of minutes,” he says.
“Art theft in Canada is now so rare that there are no longer investigators whose jobs are dedicated to tracking these things down.”