Capitalism at its finest.
The Louvre thieves used Böcker equipment to get up to and down from the second-story window, so the company took the opportunity to promote their products.
The NY Times reported:
When thieves climbed to a second-floor window of the Louvre, grabbed jewels of staggering worth and descended to their getaway scooters via a furniture elevator, many in France were stunned and furious.
But the German company that made the elevator saw a once-in-a-lifetime marketing opportunity.
Alexander Böcker, the chief executive of the German machinery company Böcker, and his wife, Julia Scharwatz, recognized their Agilo truck-lift instantly, he said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday. A day after the heist last Sunday, they rolled out a new advertising campaign.
The managers of the German company took great pleasure in the fact that the crooks were unwilling to rely on French equipment to assure their success.
SIDEBAR:
When I lived in Norway, I was shocked by the fact that I could have removed valuable paintings from the wall of the National Museum, and handed them right through ground-floor windows. I didn’t, of course, not because I’m an honest guy, but because I wouldn’t know what to do if I somehow got away with it. The hardest part of a heist like that for a schmuck like me is not the stealing part, but the fact that schmucks have no idea how to convert stolen art to cash.
OK, let’s imagine that I had somehow succeeded, and had Munch’s The Scream in my apartment, next to my golf clubs. How would I have unloaded something like that? It’s not like I could find a high-dollar fence in the phone book, and I couldn’t just fly around the world to drop in on art-collecting billionaires. Some of them might have talked to me, but the honest ones would have ratted me out, and the corrupt ones would have just had me killed, taking the painting for free.
At least I guess that’s what the corrupt ones would do. It’s certainly what I would do if I were a ruthless, corrupt, art-collecting billionaire.
Come to think of it, that’s what I want to be when I grow up. Fuck my current job as a peripatetic philosopher-prince and soft-core pornographer. Where is the university where I can major in ruthless, corrupt, art-collecting studies?
It sounds like something they might teach at Heidelberg, along with “White Superiority 101” and “Choosing the monocle that’s right for you.”
You could have just improved your apartment decor.
I’m assuming that the historic French bling will make its way to Middle East oil sheiks to be handled and enjoyed amongst an elite masculine crowd. But do they ever parade their women amongst themselves? Would they enjoy seeing a beautiful woman WEAR the jewelry?
Perhaps an owner might adorn his woman temporarily just to spice up a one-on-one roll in the clover . . .