Art & Crime: The Fight Against Looters, Forgers, and Fraudsters in the High-Stakes Art World

The art world is one of the most secretive - and largely unregulated - of global businesses, and the list of its crimes runs long and deep - from "artnapping" to tax fraud, from forgery to money laundering and the sale of looted antiquities.

Here are stories of brazen art crimes from around the world with new insights on ongoing cases by two journalists counted among the hundred most influential people in the art business by the national German magazine Monopol. By turns thrilling and disturbing, the cases Timm and Koldehoff present depict a dark economy involving tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars.

Although rarely written about or criminally prosecuted, the crimes of the art world are some of the great untold stories of our time.