How do you break into a museum?

Depends on the museum? There have been museum break-ins and thefts. Choosing a museum to base it on and looking into past thefts might be your best bet.

Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

I'd take a look at the story of the heist of a Rembrandt from the Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum in Boston. I believe the thieves dressed as police officers, but don't remember the rest of the details.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

Are they actually breaking in? There was a book (when I was a child) called From The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler. Two kids moved into the museum. If the hide out method until everyone is gone thought won't cut it then I am with cornflake. Just remember there are guards and cameras and motion sensors, as well as silent alarms now, also.

What kind of security is involved with this museum?

Many of the smaller museums don't have much security to speak of at all:

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/cleveland-museum-gem-thief-389171

Apparently, the thief just walked up to a museum in Cleveland and grabbed some gems:

[FONT=&quot]"a young man wearing casual clothes and sporting a beard and a “man-bun” is seen approaching the museum at a leisurely pace. In the next set of images, we can see the same man leaving the museum hurriedly through a back door, holding some small and suspicious-looking items in his left hand."

[/FONT]

Novels with museum break-ins:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316078786/?tag=absowrit-20

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AD6P44I/?tag=absowrit-20 (first in a series)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC1PJ8/?tag=absowrit-20 (first in a long series)



Movies:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102070/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0155267/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137494/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240772/ (first of three)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317740/



-cb

I worked in a small museum for a few years.

Assuming the museum is currently closed: There was a locked front door, then a vestibule, and then another locked door. If you entered the vestibule, you set off a motion detector and had 10 seconds to enter a security code before an alarm sounded and the police were notified.

The glass display cases were all locked and had motion detectors on them. Unless you called the security company ahead of time with a password and asked them to disconnect the alarm for a set period of time, opening the cases caused an alarm to go off and the police to be notified.

I think the police would call before coming. I don't remember if they called the museum and asked for a password, or if they called the manager.

Before closing the museum for the day, I had to make sure it was empty. I'd start at the back of the museum and check the bathrooms, then the offices, and then the exhibits. Usually there was at least one other staff member there who hung out at the front of the museum and shut down the gift shop area while I was checking for people.

The only things we ever had stolen were a book (we had a few books of photos sitting on top of a display case for visitors to page through) and a photo (we had historical photos in an album on top of a display case for visitors to page through, and someone slipped one out).

Depends on the museum, size and resources. And, perceived risk, I imagine. A small museum, with nothing well-publicised, or really valuable in it's collection, would have less sophisticated security than a major museum with famously 'priceless' artifacts.
The 'Frankweiler' method (walking in when the museum is open, hiding, then leaving when the museum is again open) would probably work in a simple local museum. Everyone else has security cameras, alarms, and people checking thoroughly.

Surely this depends upon the individual museum. What you'd do, I suspect, is spend some time casing the joint, finding out what the security arrangements are, where there might be weaknesses, what the schedule of opening and closing is, where the stuff you want to steal is, figuring out how you'd get it out once you got in, etc.

caw

At my local museum, you could just step over the rope when it's closed.

Breaking into a museum is the same as any break in. Being a museum doesn't change things. Jewelry store, bank, mini mart, the security is whatever locks and alarms they have, along with any guards or whatever. If this is a made up museum, design the security to fit your plot needs.

Jeff

WeaselFire said:

If this is a made up museum, design the security to fit your plot needs.

Click to expand...

This.

And I'll add, even if it's a real museum, design the security to fit your plot needs. You can give it a gloss of plausibility by looking around the next time you visit the museum in question and thinking in terms of how you would defend the museum if you were in charge of security. Ask yourself: Where are the cameras? How are display stands constructed? Does the value of the holdings justify the cost of onsite guards, and if so, how many and where are they located. And so on.

grandma2isaac said:

Are they actually breaking in? There was a book (when I was a child) called From The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler. Two kids moved into the museum. If the hide out method until everyone is gone thought won't cut it then I am with cornflake. Just remember there are guards and cameras and motion sensors, as well as silent alarms now, also.

Click to expand...

I remember that book: they ran away and hid out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. By day they'd tag along with school groups touring the museum and by night they hid in the bathroom, then went to sleep in historic beds and so on, things that ostensibly weren't wired because they aren't things a thief would likely break in to steal. The story was written in the 60s, I think, and I've no idea how much research the author did re the actual security in that museum at that time. I imagine there are more cameras and motion detectors in that kind of museum today.

As others have said, smaller museums probably have much more rudimentary security. Also, extremely valuable and smaller (easily stolen) items would likely be much more carefully monitored than larger or less precious items. Looking at the way various famous thieves pulled their heists off might be handy.

I agree that the question is too broad. How big a museum? How up to date is their security? Do they have something "priceless" or are they some local history museum with no rare works of art, etc? Is there an "inside man" or do the crooks not have or not need the help of anyone in the museum? How expensive/well known is the thing they want to steal? Does it have any special security on top of the general security? Another way to look at it: How important is the actual museum break in to the plot/story? I mean, is this a "heist caper" where the story is all about the gathering of the team, the recon of the target, and the exact methods of how they break in, or is all that not really significant because the story is about something else and the plot just happens to require something from the museum? If it's a heist story, then you'll want more detail on the security and how they bypass it because that will be a large part of the book. But, if the story is really about what they do with the thing that's stolen, and the details of how they got it don't matter, then just write it so the security is poor, they bribed or coercied someone to help them, or found an easy way in like a unsecured window. (Which has actually happened in real life, btw) Right now your basic question of "how to break into a museum" is as broad as "how bad is a car crash?" Define what you need story wise a bit and you'll get more insightful answers.

What kind of museum is this?

Because there's a museum of fly fishing. There was also a museum in Newburyport, MA where the staff just accidentally left the door opened. In either of these museums, I can't imagine a lot of things worth stealing, but the theft doesn't have to make sense to me, personally.

As a rule, security is going to depend on what's in there. If it's a museum of Rubix cubes, security will be out sourced to the homeless guy on the street who'd be glad to work for the air conditioning alone. If that museum is temporarily hosting The Scream, you're looking at slightly higher security.

Assuming it's not an art museum, where everything in it exists to be looked at, is your criminal after research? Dangerous materials like weapons? Are there working guns in a diorama of the 20th century in your post apocalyptic museum? Just bodily throw the first museum employee who asks what your boggle is through the glass.

I actually knew someone who broke into a famous museum and stole a painting. And did so, successfully. I'm no longer in touch with him otherwise I would ask him for details to post here.

A good friend of mine has a family member (of sorts) who was also involved in one of the most famous heists ever. But that tale is going into a someday-script so I can't divulge anything about that one either.

I didn't examine the list of IMDb links (above) but yes obviously there are museum heist movies going back a long way. All the way to Ealing Studios and Pinewood Studios, I imagine. Alec Guinness and Robert Morley, 'The Lavender Hill Mob'--wasn't that a museum heist? Can't recall.

Anyway there's also the famous 'The Hot Rock' with Bob Redford & George Segal--essentially a crash course in museum heisting.

For a heist where the perps hide inside: 'How to Steal a Million' with Peter O'Toole and Audrey Hepburn is my fave.

A bank heist (but one so fundamental to heisting that it must be mentioned) is Steve McQueen in the (original) 'Thomas Crowne Affair'.

Final comment: 'lock bypass' (formerly known as lock-picking) happens to be a minor hobby of mine, and I can tell you that in this field no lock and no alarm system are considered impregnable. Under the right circumstances--given the right opportunity--a skilled operator can defeat any lock no matter how well-touted it is.