If you liked this heist story, these are two of my all-time favorite HN stories:<p>"Art of the Steal: On the Trail of World’s Most Ingenious Thief"<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1215138" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1215138</a><p>"The Silver Thief"<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1020547" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1020547</a>
This is actually an interesting entire family of crimes. Steal a unique, highly valuable item, sell fake copies for full-price now that it's plausible to be the real thing (especially if you set up a sale before the actual theft takes place), then return the original if you care enough. Nobody will turn you in because they'd be admitting to attempting to buy stolen goods.
If you're interested in learning more about the painting, I created an entire mini website about the Mona Lisa a few years ago:<p><a href="http://hepguru.com/monalisa/" rel="nofollow">http://hepguru.com/monalisa/</a><p>It was featured by USA Today, etc. You may like it.