A true story as seen in the news

“Stolen art in France ended up in canal

Police hold woman whose son looted museums for years”

• In a case unprecedented even in the shadowy underworld of art theft, the French police have arrested a French woman who has admitted destroying or throwing into a canal an estimated $1.4 billion worth of painting and art objects that her son had stolen from dozens of museums in France and five neighboring countries over the past eight years.
• Stephane Breitwieser, 31, who is in jail in Switzerland made no effort to sell the 60 paintings and 112 art objects that he has admitted stealing.
• Breitwieser is considered “an eccentric kleptomaniac who loved 17th and 18th century art.”
• He kept his stolen art works in a bedroom at his mother’s house in Mulhouse, in eastern France.
• He was arrested last November (2001) while trying to steal a bugle from a museum in Lucerne, Switzerland; at which time his mother immediately decided to rid herself of the incriminating evidence.
• French police are quoted as saying that most works were stolen from museums in France and Switzerland; but that Breitwieser also took objects from museums in Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, and Germany.

• An art thief who stole 239 pieces worth millions of dollars from museums and galleries across Europe apparently acted out of love of beautiful things, not money, Swiss prosecutors said Wednesday.
• “I enjoy art, I love such works of art, I collected them and kept them at home.”

Here's a true story about a bibliokleptomaniac .

The clepto-, klepto- unit of words.