Cultural sites 'vulnerable to criminals' during 2012 Olympics

Former Scotland Yard expert warns that security focus on London games will leave museums, galleries and cathedrals open to theft

The Ashmolean museum in Oxford was broken into in 1999. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian A former head of Scotland Yard's art and antiquities squad has warned that "virtually nothing" is being done to secure Britain's cultural and religious sites against criminal attacks which he claims could be sparked by the London 2012 Olympics.

Charles Hill said security around the games was focusing on Olympic sites, while many so-called "soft targets" – including museums, galleries, churches and cathedrals – are being overlooked.
Hill pointed to evidence of "high and holy day trophy art crime" being carried out when police resources are especially stretched.

During the 1994 winter Olympics in Norway, thieves stole Edvard Munch's painting The Scream from the Oslo National Art Museum and left a note that said: "Thanks for the poor security."

On New Year's Eve 1999 robbers broke into the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and took its only Cézanne, while Rembrandts and a Vermeer were stolen from a museum in Boston – still the art world's biggest unsolved theft – on St Patrick's Day 1990.

Hill has investigated some of the most high-profile art thefts and headed undercover operations to recover works. Today, he said soft targets inside and outside the capital would be vulnerable during the Olympics, which could also be a target for terrorist attacks.

His comments came after the sports minister, Hugh Robertson, announced last week that the security minister, Pauline Neville-Jones, is carrying out a review of security for the 2012 games.
However, it has not been confirmed whether the review will include soft targets, with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport saying security was a matter for the Home Office.

Hill's concerns were echoed by Peter Osborne, a former national security adviser for the nation's museums, who said: "It is imperative that the security of [cultural] sites is not overlooked." But the directors of the Museum of London and the National Portrait Gallery said today that their security was being reviewed through the National Museum Directors' Conference, which represents the UK's national collections.

Jack Lohman, the Museum of London director, said: "We're hot on security …liaising with police. All national museums have plans, co-ordinated by the NMDC." However, Dr Michael Dixon, the chairman of the NMDC, said: "There is no specific project that NMDC is working on to consolidate security issues for the Olympic year.

"It's up to individual museums, and there are good relations with the security services."
A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers said: "Museums, galleries and cultural sites typically put in place their own security measures where necessary."

Our opinion on what the current security sector risks are

These are generic and as we all know there isn't really a one size fits all!

TfL Press Release - Crime falls again on the Tube as investment in security continues

Transport for London (TfL) has announced that crime on the Underground and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) went down by 4% in 2009/10.

Some of the most notable statistics released by the British Transport Police (BTP) showed that:

• Violent crime has been cut by nearly eight per cent
• Public disorder offences are down by around 23 per cent
• Vandalism has reduced by 17%
• Drug-related offences have seen a reduction of nearly 22%
• Pick pocketing has seen an 11% rise

Following the increase in theft of passenger property TfL has worked with the BTP on dedicated operations to tackle these offences and pickpocket figures are already starting to see a significant reduction.

Continued improvements in safety and physical security on trains and stations, as well as TfL's ongoing collaborative work with the BTP, have helped with this overall reduction. But there is always more that can be done which is why significant resources are devoted to catching and prosecuting criminals and CCTV cameras across the network are being increased from 12,000 to more than 14,000 in years to come.

In addition London Underground (LU) is consulting on changes with trade unions on operational staffing at Tube stations, which would see staff from behind ticket offices move out onto station platforms and gate lines to provide a more visible presence for passengers. There are now more than 1500 Help points across the Tube network and our most recent market research shows people feel safer while travelling on the Tube.

In addition, crime on London Overground has remained low overall with significant reductions in robberies and drug-related offences. Some interesting figures released by the British Transport Police (BTP) show that for 2009/10:

Crime on the LU/DLR network was down by 4%
There are now just 13 crimes for every million passenger journeys
Violent crime has been cut by 7.5%
Sexual offences have been reduced by 3%
Criminal damage has gone down by 17.2%
Theft of passenger property or pick-pocketing has seen an increase of 10.8%
Theft of railway property, including cable theft, has seen an increase of 6.8%
Public disorder offences have gone down 22.7%
Fraud offences, including tampering with cash and ticket machines on LU property, have gone down by 10.4%
Drug-related offences have gone down by 21.7%
Robbery saw an increase of 0.7%
LU carried more than a billion passengers in 2009/10

Figures released by the BTP for London Overground also show that for 2009/10, Crimes on the London Overground network was down from 523 to 517:

Violent crime increased from 111 to 113
Sexual offences have been reduced by 38.5%
Criminal damage increased from 49 to 58
Theft of passenger property or pick-pocketing has seen an increase of from 73 to 85
Theft of railway property, including cable theft, was reduced by 27.8%
Public disorder offences went up from 87 to 91
Fraud offences, have gone down by 60%
Drug-related offences have gone down by 25%
Robbery saw a decrease of 26.7%

£430m loss, let's blame the Security Guards!

Five master pieces valued at up to £430m have been stolen from the Museum of Art in Paris. Museum officials discovered the theft early on Thursday, when they found a smashed window and a broken padlock which had been cut to gain access to the five paintings.

A number of news headlines highlighted the that the guard/s (some reports state that 3 were on duty) were sleeping and the Evening Standards headline said 'Guards dozed as thief stole Paris paintings'! Why is it that the security guards sleeping hits the headlines and not the other catalogue of errors and issues that took place at the Museum :

• CCTV cameras pointing only at the roof
  
• Managements decision to switch off the alarm system because it kept going wrong (parts were on order).
  
• The paintings may not have been insured
  
• £15 million was spent upgrading security during a two-year refit which ended in 2006.
  
• Theft not discovered for up to 3 hours
  
• The intruder slipped into the Museum after simply removing a window.

• Insiders working for low pay in galleries are often suspected of helping criminals.
  

I think this really goes to prove a point that I made in this blog after my recent visit to IFSEC. You can spend an awful lot of money on technology (£15m in this case) but you still have the human element 'who leave cameras pointing at the ceiling' or the senior member of management that 'turns of the alarm systems due to false activations' or the member of staff who 'leaves the door unlocked in return for €50's'.
There is and always will be a requirement to have a robust security management regime (including Physical Security and Personnel Security) in place along with regular security audits to provide assurance that these measures are proportionate and effective. Although the night guard failing asleep is a serious issue (and one which is a common in the industry) it hardly deserves to be the headline for what is a heist of the century and a £430m loss of some of the rarest art pieces in the World.

One of the pieces stolen a £15m: Fernand Leger's 'Still Life with a Chandelier'

SOME OF THE BIGGEST ART THEFTS IN HISTORY

• May 2010: A lone thief stole five paintings possibly worth hundreds of millions of euros, including works by Picasso and Matisse, in a brazen overnight heist at a Paris modern art museum.
• February 2008: Armed robbers stole four paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet worth $163.2 million from the E.G. Buehrle Collection, a private museum in Zurich, Switzerland. The van Gogh and Monet paintings were recovered.
• December 2007: A painting by Pablo Picasso valued at about $50 million, along with one by Brazilian artist Candido Portinari valued at $5 million to $6 million, were stolen from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art in Brazil, by three burglars using a crowbar and a car jack. The paintings were later found.
• February 2007: Two Picasso paintings, worth nearly $66 million, and a drawing were stolen from the Paris, France home of the artist's granddaughter in an overnight robbery. Police later recovered the art when the thieves tried to sell it.
• February 2006: Around 300 museum-grade artifacts worth an estimated $142 million, including paintings, clocks and silver, were stolen from a 17th-century manor house at Ramsbury in southern England, the largest property theft in British history, according to reports.
• February 2006: Four works of art and other objects, including paintings by Matisse, Picasso, Monet and Salvador Dali, were stolen from the Museu Chacara do Ceu, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by four armed men during a Carnival parade. Local media estimated the paintings' worth at around $50 million.
• August 2004: Two paintings by Edvard Munch, The Scream and Madonna, insured for $141 million, were stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway by three men in a daylight raid. The paintings were recovered nearly two years later.
• August 2003: A $65 million Leonardo da Vinci painting was stolen from Drumlanrig Castle in southern Scotland after two men joined a public tour and overpowered a guide. It was recovered four years later.
• May 2003: A 16th-century gold-plated Saliera, or salt cellar, by Florentine master Benvenuto Cellini, valued at $69.3 million, was stolen from Vienna's Art History Museum by a single thief when guards discounted a burglar alarm. The figurine was later recovered.
• December 2002: Two thieves broke in through the roof of the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and stole two paintings by Van Gogh valued at $30 million. Dutch police convicted two men in December 2003, but did not recover the paintings.
• December 2000: Hooded thieves stole a self-portrait by Rembrandt and two Renoir paintings worth an estimated $36 million from Stockholm's waterfront National Museum, using a motorboat in their escape. All paintings were recovered.
• October 1994: Seven Picasso paintings worth an estimated $44 million were stolen from a gallery in Zurich, Switzerland. They were recovered in 2000.
• April 1991: Two masked armed men took 20 paintings - worth at least $10 million each at the time - from Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum. The paintings were found in the getaway car less than an hour later.
• March 1990: In the biggest art theft in U.S. history, $300 million in art, including works by Vermeer, Rembrandt and Manet, was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts, by two men in police uniforms.
• December 1988: Thieves stole three paintings by van Gogh, with an estimated value of $72 million to $90 million, from the Kroeller-Mueller Museum in a remote section of the Netherlands. Police later recovered all three paintings.
• May 1986: A Vermeer painting, Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid, is among 18 paintings worth $40 million stolen from Russborough House in Blessington, Ireland. Some of the paintings are later recovered.
• August 1911: Perhaps the most famous case of art theft occurred when the Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre by employee Vinczo Peruggia, who was caught two years later.