The Long Game: Why Organised Crime Holds, Not Sells, What It Steals "A blog about art crimes, illicit trafficking, forgery, art theft and cultural heritage protection."

Just caught up on some reading, this is a fun take! Similarly to the Gardner Heist, there's the "organized crime" angle art-crime.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-...

Looks like a tiny job to me. Seriously, of all of the paintings they could have gotten, they went for THOSE fish?!

… do we need a podcast or something where we talk shop about the art crimes?!

It’s possible that the pieces are being used as collateral to finance other OCG activities and were stolen without the intent to rip them part and resell, it does happen. In that case there would be more of a chance that the pieces remain intact and potentially together.

(If this were a movie we’d expect to see a montage of a chop shop with a seedy bench jeweler and lapidary tucked away in Antwerp)

If they need to move the pieces through the market, they would have to convert them into a usable form. That would mean full on destruction: recutting historic stones (pink diamonds, emeralds, sapphires), pulling small diamonds out of settings to sell in bulk, melting down mountings.

Personally, I would look into a screen replacement if it's an option, and hold off until the new phones with the new hardware and hw backed security features are available. Q4 shipping times without tariff uncertainty mean some phones arrive mid Oct/early Nov. Gives you more time if you need it.

United States Files Civil Forfeiture Complaint Against $225M in Funds Involved in Cryptocurrency Investment Fraud Money Laundering The Department of Justice filed a civil forfeiture complaint today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against more than $225.3 million in cryptocurrency.

The US government has seized more than $225.3 million in cryptocurrency stolen through crypto investment scams.

The sum represents the largest cryptocurrency seizure against crypto scam operations in US history.

www.justice.gov/opa/pr/unite...

the chaos, it is tiring.

Melissa Hortman and her husband were volunteers for Helping Paws, which trains potential service dogs. Please consider joining me to make a donation in their (and Gilbert’s) memory: helpingpaws.org

Here's the filing for California's case, which went up a few hours ago: oag.ca.gov/system/files...

It's the US District Court for the Northern District of California, which was entirely too hard to confirm. So now it's time to delve into who is on the bench and what politics and appointments got them there while flipping between the channels.

Okay, lots of news about California filing suit against the Trump Administration — but WHERE is the filing going to happen? In what court should we expect to see the issue given standing? This isn’t in any of the press releases from state offices at all and I’m on the edge of my seat here

What’s in retrograde and why is this Monday specifically hellbent on being awful?! It has been a day of too many people dealing with major setbacks, bad news, or difficult and heartbreaking situations.

In my powerlessness against it all, I need to know where to direct my fierce but quiet rage.

Tbh I’m just going to pretend we got a Chicago deep dish pizzaballa 🍕

Possibly! But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a joint task force of some sorts with the Swiss Guard in the implementation role

Shoutout to the folks who have to devise, maintain, and roll out the security and incident response plans for this one

Guys how long does it take to coordinate and give us a “Habemus Pizzaballa!”?!

We’re back to markets coverage, namely there’s a segment with ARM and lots of hardware headlines flashing on the screen

Bloomberg is reporting that the new pope is at the “trying on his vestments” stage of the process. For those also worried about what the new pope is gonna wear, they had the same outfit available in 3 sizes just to be ready for the new guy

If it’s Pizzaballa and they quickly embroidered 🍕 on it …

Hold up, there’s a papal marching band in blue uniforms — have they been on call for this the whole time?! And we get the Michelangelo Buonarroti (ninja turtle!) designed uniforms of the Swiss guard too?!

My best guess is that it might take an hour between smoke and the new pope showing his face — writing the press release and getting the review and approval done does take a second!

Side note, there are some SPICY 🌶️ headlines and numbers on Bloomberg but they’ve broken into long form commentary about papal elections and the papacy. If this goes on much longer we’re gonna get a thesis about the consensus mechanism for papal selection as if it’s a blockchain protocol

Okay, how long do we think it takes to do the ceremonies (the inspection 🙈), pass through the room of tears, swap outfits, put on new jewelry, and show up on the balcony?! Asking in case I need to make dough and give it sufficient time to proof so I can potentially invent pizzaballas this evening.

Okay, they’ve literally stopped reporting on the markets on Bloomberg and they’re giving long form commentary — unclear if this is going to go until we get a dude on a balcony or what

We’ve got white smoke!!! It could be our guy 🍕🎾

If you do this you haaaaaave to show us the results

Okay, I have some thoughts about this that include things like stretching pizza dough over stainless steel bowls but I’m not ambitious enough to try

It would be cool af though!

I will have feelings if he calls himself Papa John 😂

PIZZABALLA

(dammit now I’m hungry)

Look, there’s a lot of wild shit going on in the world and it’s pretty bonkers out there rn

But there’s a chance that a guy with the last name PIZZABALLA could be elected pope and oh my goodness can we just get a little bit of joy out of how fantastic the name Pizzaballa really is?!

🍕🎾