(UNICAMP - 2005 - 2a fase - Questo 21)On Wednesday

(UNICAMP - 2005 - 2a fase - Questão 21)

On Wednesday, the police in Oslo said that they were still frantically investigating the theft of the two Munch works, stolen from the Munch Museum on Sunday morning, but that they had no new leads to report. Their main evidence, they said, centers on an abandoned car found not far from the museum; the paintings’ discarded frames, found in a nearby field; interviews with guards and museumgoers who saw two men, one of them armed with a revolver, enter the museum and wrench the paintings from the walls; and closed-circuit television images of the incident.

The men were wearing ski masks that covered their faces, said Jorn-Kristian Jorgensen, an adviser in the information section of the Oslo Police Department. He also informed that no reward has yet been offered for the paintings’ recovery, though an offer is expected to emerge.

“The art world is a special world in itself, and probably it’s more psychiatry than crime,” he said of the hunt for the perpetrators. “Why are people stealing art that cannot be sold to anyone? What are these people searching for? Are they searching for money? Are they searching for honor within their own criminal world?”

Investigators specializing in stolen art – many of them based in London, the center of Europe’s art markets – say that art thieves in Europe, where most of the high-profile thefts take place, tend to fall into two categories. Some are low-level criminals who are more likely to improvise the operation and dispose quickly of the works, often for a fraction of their value; others are members of organized gangs who use the paintings as collateral or bartering chips in underworld deals involving drugs, forged documents and weapons. In such cases, recovering the paintings, if they are recovered at all, can take years, even decades.

Segundo o texto, as pessoas que cometeram o crime em questão tendem a se enquadrar em duas categorias: criminosos improvisados ou membros de gangues organizadas. Descreva o comportamento dos criminosos de cada categoria.