By Rochelle Steinhaus
Court TV

Petty thief Russell Grant-McVicar walked into England’s Lefevre Gallery and asked an employee if a certain painting he was looking at was a Picasso. After the employee confirmed that the “Tete de Femme” was indeed a work by the famous painter, Grant-McVicar pulled out a sawed-off shotgun, stole the $1 million painting and fled into a taxi he had waiting for him outside.

Perhaps the thief could have gotten away with the March 1997 robbery, had it not been for what he left in the taxi – the painting’s frame, covered with his fingerprints.

Though a French art thief who was wanted by authorities for museum robberies throughout Europe, his mother was the subject of even more scrutiny in an incident that led to the destruction of hundreds of works.

Stephane Breitwieser, a 31-year-old French native, had struck museums in France, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium without being caught.

But when he was in he process of stealing a bugle from a Swiss museum in Nov. 2001, Breitwieser was arrested. When his mother, Mireille Breitwieser, found out about her son’s arrest, she began destroying evidence --- priceless works he stored in her house in France.

She cut up valuable paintings, including works by Antoine Watteau and Peter Bruegel, put others through her garbage disposal and tossed the rest into the Rhine-Rhone canal. In all, at least 60 works were destroyed.

When taken into custody Mireille Breitwieser told police that she destroyed the works not to protect her son, but because she was angry at him.

In 1978, three Cezanne paintings worth $3 million were stolen from the Art Institute in Chicago. It didn’t take police long, however, to figure out who committed the crime. A museum employee who had barely been working there a month had just been asking the curator about the value of the three paintings, and that day had been seen leaving work carrying packages. When police searched Pace’s home, they found an essay Pace penned about the theft. Pace was nabbed in a sting operation trying to sell the paintings back for ransom. He was later sentenced to 10 years in prison.

A Berlin car thief stole a van, but his booty was a lot more than he bargained for – stored inside the van were valuable art works, including a Chagall, on their way to auction.

After unsuccessfully trying to sell the stash, he brought the works to a city dump and carefully disposed of them. Sketches were found in the paper bin and sculptures were placed in the metal bin. One of the missing paintings, however, he kept and stored it inside his apartment – catching the attention of police who were later looking for him on an unrelated car theft case.

A burglar broke into Budapest's Kiscelli Museum, looted $400,000 worth of art and made it out without getting caught. But he fumbled – literally – when he slipped on wet grass outside, attracting vagrants who were sleeping nearby. The robber was robbed of the artwork, his wallet and even his clothes. He lay there for 30 hours before being found by police.

When art smuggler Jonathan Tokeley-Parry bought an Egyptian sculpture for $7,000, he'd hoped to get $50,000 for it from a New York art dealer. He smuggled the work out of Egypt by dipping it in melted plastic and painting it black to make it appear like junk.

Tokeley-Parry must have felt lucky when he discovered the sculpture was worth a lot more when art dealer Frederick Schultz paid him $915,000. Though the risk he took for a $43,000 profit may have seemed worth it when he netted nearly a million dollars, his luck ran out when he was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison. He later testified against Schultz, helping American federal prosecutors win a conviction against him.