Robberies and Thefts
As Russians Steal Ukraine’s Art, They Attack Its Identity, Too
KHERSON, Ukraine — One morning in late October, Russian forces blocked off a street in downtown Kherson and surrounded a graceful old building with dozens of soldiers. Five large trucks pulled up. So did a line of military vehicles, ferrying Russian agents who filed in through several doors. It was a carefully planned, highly organized, […]
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Brooklyn Clergyman Is Robbed While Delivering Sunday Sermon
A showy pastor who was in the middle of delivering his sermon and his wife were robbed at gunpoint of more than $1 million worth of jewelry at a Brooklyn church on Sunday, the police said. The heist was caught on a livestream video of the service. Lamor M. Whitehead, 44, a bishop at the […]
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In South Africa’s Farmgate Scandal, a Theft and Then a Silence
WINDHOEK, Namibia — Namibian investigators were hot on the trail of the suspected burglars. After receiving a tip about a sensational heist — the theft of cash from a farm belonging to President Cyril Ramaphosa of neighboring South Africa — they had traced large money transfers that the suspects made from South African to Namibian […]
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For South Africa’s Leader, Being a Burglary Victim Spells Trouble
CAPE TOWN — The burglars cut through a wire fence around the sprawling property, crept up to a stone farmhouse, climbed through a window and rifled through the furniture until they found their bounty: a fortune in U.S. dollars, in cash, said to be in the millions. The farm’s owner was Cyril Ramaphosa, president of […]
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Seeing de Kooning in a New Light, After a Violent Theft
LOS ANGELES — Ulrich Birkmaier’s job as senior paintings conservator at the Getty Museum involves painstakingly repairing aging canvases and removing botched varnishes or restorations so artworks can return in full health to public view. He is by profession pretty much the opposite of an art thief. But in early March he played the role […]
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Oakland Cannabis Sellers, Once Full of Hope, Face a Harsh Reality
OAKLAND, Calif. — Across from where the Athletics play baseball sits a two-story concrete building painted bright orange and white. It is home to a cannabis dispensary called Blunts and Moore. A pair of inflatable “tube guys” flap crazily on the roof, beckoning customers with their windblown gyrations. A food truck sells tacos in the […]
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Murderer Pardoned by Kentucky’s Former Governor Is Sentenced Again
Among them was Mr. Baker, whose family hosted a fund-raiser for Mr. Bevin that raised more than $21,000 in 2018, according to The Courier-Journal, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for its reporting on the pardons. Mr. Baker will receive credit for the two and a half years he previously served in state prison, […]
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Daniel Sturridge Ordered to Pay $30,000 to Man Who Returned His Dog
Daniel Sturridge, an English soccer star, has been ordered to pay $30,000 to a Los Angeles man who found the player’s missing dog in 2019 and who went to court to recoup a reward he said he had been denied for the Pomeranian’s return. After announcing that his Los Angeles home had been broken into, […]
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Money Found by Plumber at Joel Osteen’s Church Is Tied to 2014 Burglary, Police Say
Seven years ago, Lakewood Church, the Houston megachurch led by Joel Osteen, the prominent televangelist, reported that $200,000 in cash and $400,000 in checks had been stolen from a church safe. Last month, the money may have been discovered — not by detectives or church personnel, but rather by a plumber fixing a toilet inside […]
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