Turns out Mark Lugo, the San Francisco Picasso thief caught on tape when he passed a bar’s security camera has been on a major one-man art-crime spree. Police in New York saw the news about the Picasso theft and realized they had a lead on New York art theft from a few weeks earlier, according to The Bay Citizen’s excellent report:
A police raid on his Hoboken apartment in the early hours of Tuesday unearthed a trove of art worth up to half a million dollars. Eleven works — five from New York City galleries and six from hotels — were recovered from Lugo’s apartment.
Police in New Jersey and New York contacted the San Francisco Police Department after officers arrested Lugo on July 6th for stealing a Picasso sketch valued at $275,000 from the Weinstein Gallery. [….] Lugo’s tastes ranged from the modern to the contemporary. Among the works found in his home were a Picasso etching, a Jean-Michel Basquiat piece and a Fernand Leger, valued around $350,000, from New York’s tony Carlyle Hotel.
All of the works were reported stolen in a one-month period beginning June 6. Police found a Richard Pugliese painting from the Harris Gallery, five small Mie Yim drawings from the Chambers Hotel, a Nara Yoshitomo from the Opera Gallery, a Jean-Michel Basquiat photo from the Scot Foreman Gallery, the Leger sketch from the Carlyle Hotel, a Malick Sidibe photograph from the Jack Shainman Gallery and another Pablo Picasso sketch from the William Bennett Gallery.
Lugo’s Hoboken Apartment: ‘Like He was Putting On His Own Art Show’ (The Bay Citizen)
