2 passengers stole $12,800 worth of sculptures from a Carnival cruise they were on, the FBI says

Marielle Descalsota
Updated ·2 min read
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Crowds of people on different levels of a Carnival cruise ship.
The FBI said two passengers stole $12,800 worth of sculptures from a Carnival Legend cruise ship.Thos Robinson/Getty Images

  • Two passengers stole $12,800 worth of artwork from a Carnival Legend cruise, the FBI said.

  • The passengers were seen on surveillance footage taking items from an art gallery on board.

  • The FBI said it was considering pressing charges for theft and transportation of stolen goods.

Two passengers stole $12,800 worth of sculptures from a Carnival Legend cruise in September, the FBI said in a search warrant filed in the District Court of Maryland on Tuesday.

The cruise departed from Baltimore to Bermuda on September 24 and returned on September 30, FBI agent Grace Meyer wrote in the document.

After an art auctioneer with Carnival Legend found the sculptures missing from the art gallery on October 1, the FBI said, security on board checked the surveillance footage.

CCTV footage from September 29 showed the couple walking into the gallery empty-handed and walking out of the room holding objects that appeared to be the sculptures, the FBI said.

Carnival conducts an auction for artwork on every ship, which includes paintings, drawings, and sculptures.

The FBI said it investigated the pair and found the Facebook account for one of the suspects. It said it later found a photo of the suspect on Facebook wearing a white shirt, dark vest, and striped tie that matched what one of the passengers was wearing in the surveillance footage.

A spokesperson with the US Attorney's Office in Maryland told ABC News the FBI carried out a search warrant and found the sculptures at the couple's homes in Baltimore. The FBI said in the court documents it was deliberating pressing charges for theft and transportation of stolen goods.

The larger of the stolen sculptures is a piece of artwork by Robert Wyland called "Kiss the Sea," which the FBI estimates is worth $6,200. The other sculpture recovered is "Tappin' the Keys for the Love" by Marcus Glenn, worth some $6,600, the FBI says. Both pieces are small enough to fit in a regular-sized backpack.

It's not the first time the FBI has recovered stolen artwork. In October, the FBI recovered a 300-year-old painting that was stolen from a German museum in 1945 from a Chicago resident. In April 2018, the FBI recovered a painting that had been missing for 30 years from a man who had ties with a Bulgarian syndicate.

The two passengers were named in the FBI search warrant. Insider is not publishing their names as they have not been charged.

The FBI and the US Attorney's Office in Maryland did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider.

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