'It took him eight seconds to walk in, lift up the sculpture and walk right out,' says the gallery director
A man has been charged and has had two expensive sculptures recovered following a brazen robbery at a South Granville gallery.
Vancouver Art Gallery director Dror Darel said the man stole a sculpture worth nearly $40,000 on Friday and Saturday. Both sculptures are the work of artist Rudolf Sokolovski.
Darel said he didn't realize the first $30,000 sculpture had been stolen because he was busy helping a client. The next day, he saw the man steal a $7,000 sculpture on his security camera.
"It took him eight seconds to walk in, lift up the sculpture and walk right out," Darel said.
"I couldn't have left the gallery because we've got hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of artwork in here."
Darel said he called the police, who immediately identified the man in the video as 50-year-old Francis Boivin.
"He's a chronic offender. We know him well," said Vancouver Police Department Sgt. Steve Addison.
Officials waited at Boivin's home, and within an hour of leaving the gallery, Boivin showed up with the stolen sculpture. Police also found another sculpture after obtaining a search warrant for his home.
Boivin was charged with two counts of theft over $5,000.
Boivin has more than 115 criminal records, the VPD said in a statement.
"Anytime we're able to get somebody like this, catch them in the act, recover the property, obtain criminal charges on somebody, it's a good thing," Addison said.
Darel said he is considering installing an electromagnetic door at the gallery to buzz people into the store to prevent future crime and protect the gallery's valuable artwork, including some originals from the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo's work.
But he said he didn't want to keep people from coming in.
"It's not the freedom that we're used to," he said. "It's sad to see."
Source - Yasmine Ghania · CBC News
Comments