When you and I think about super successful robberies and heists, we probably envision these large, super meticulously planned operations. They're usually going to be done at night under the cover of darkness when there's less people around. And come on, we all know there has to be at least eight team members, each with their own different, unique skill set. But sometimes life has a tendency of being a lot simpler, yet somehow even more interesting and bizarre than movies can make things out to be. This story is a great example of that. So without further ado, settle down. Make yourself comfortable. Let's dove into the strange life of the most prolific and successful thief you've never heard of. Welcome back, guys. My name is Andy Jiang, and this is hidden stories. In 1971, a boy named Stephan Bright Weezer was born into the Alsace region in France. Even from a really young age, he already felt different from the other kids. The things that they would often do for fun, such as playing sports and video games and later on drinking alcohol and drugs just completely confused him. And he couldn't understand at all how anyone could enjoy these things. At the same time, however, the things that he loved to do and could do for days on end without stop, such as gazing at beautiful portraits at museums and touring archeological sites. No one his age seemed interested in in the slightest, since he could never understand his peers or connect with them in their interests. Stephan grew up a loner without many friends, and as a result of his isolation from society, he would later drop out of university and take on a job as a waiter. Now, up until this point in his life, Stephan, despite his slightly unorthodox hobbies and interests, was still a relatively normal guy. A sweet, extremely introverted and slightly hotheaded guy at times, but still very normal. But as you soon see, all of that was very quickly about to change. Now, throughout Stefan's entire life so far, he's always resonated more with inanimate objects than actual people, which is why he spent so much time as a kid at museums in archeological sites. But the thing is, for him, it was more than just relating to and resonating with these special objects. For him, it really felt like these objects had the power to seduce him and win his hearts in his own words. I get smitten looking at something beautiful. I can't help but weep. There are people who do not understand this, but I can cry for objects. So in other words, every time Stefan came across something beautiful or breathtaking, he would literally feel this emotional blow to his heart. This desperate longing to have this object for himself. From a young age, he was able to calm this desire by collecting and buying old stamps, coins and postcards. And then when he was older, he began to collect medieval pottery fragments he'd find near archeological sites. Collecting these objects gave his life meaning. Just like sports jobs or video games give other people's life meaning. But soon, just collecting and owning these minor objects wasn't enough for him. As with everything in life, we want what we don't have. And for Stefan. Every time he had visited a museum in the past, there was always a small part of him. A tiny part deep down, that wanted the beautiful art. All these beautiful pieces he had seen in these beautiful objects. He wanted them. That's what deep down, he really wanted. But logically, he knew he just couldn't own them. These are often very famous, historic art pieces worth millions of dollars. So he had always repressed these urges and resisted the temptation to just steal them. But as time went on, it's defined, visited more and more museums. It became harder and harder to resist. These urges. And in 1995, at age 24, Stefan finally cracked. At the time, he was going through a very dark period in his life. His parents marriage just ended on very poor terms, and his dad had just taken all of his belongings and just left, leaving him and his mom no longer able to afford their home. As such, they were forced to move into a smaller place, but still struggled financially. Since Stefan was still working as a waiter and wasn't bringing in much income. But it was during this dark time that Stefan met the very first person who he felt he could really relate to and connect with, and could also really relate to and connect with him. Her name was and Catherine Clean Clothes. She was around the same age as Stefan. She was a fellow archeology buff, also introverted, and also had a similar sense of curiosity that Stefan had. The two shared an intense passion for museums and were thrilled to be constantly surrounded by such beauty. For Stefan, it was love at first sight, so they soon sort of dating and shortly after his dad left and Catherine moved in with him and his mom so she could help them out financially. And as it turns out, she was not only a perfect match for Stefan's interests and personality, but also in another way that neither of them could have ever anticipated. In 1995, Stefan and Catherine were visiting a museum in France when Stefan spotted a beautiful antique pistol. He immediately felt the familiar blow to his heart that broke off adrenaline and then the equally familiar desire to own the object for himself. As he looked around, the small museum, he saw that there was not only no one nearby, there was also no alarm system or even a security guard. There was just one single volunteer at the entrance, and when he looked back at the pistol, he saw that the display case that the pistol was placed in was already partially open. It would be so painfully easy for him to just take his backpack and then slide the pistol inside. No one would even notice it was gone until he was long gone. If he had been by himself, maybe he would have been able to just control his urges and move on like he had done so countless times in the past. But with his girlfriend and Catherine right next to him, he quietly asked her what her thoughts were on stealing the pistol. Go ahead, she said. Take it. So he did as he had expected it, and no one saw him. And by the time someone had reported that the pistol was missing, he was ready back home, having left no sign that he was ever at the museum in the first place. The first experience was an extremely eye opening and liberating moment for Stefan. He really realized that he could simply just steal the things that he wanted and there would be no punishment for it whatsoever. His entire worldview had been shifted, and from that moment on, every time he had the desire to own something, he followed through with it and stole it. Within Catherine as his partner in crime. But oh, little could he ever have imagined just how good they would be at it. You see, from his countless times visiting museums during his childhood, Stefan had noticed a pattern. There was a lot less security than you would imagine, even at those museums, with the higher end art pieces that were extremely famous and valuable and expensive as such. Armed with this insight, Stefan came up with a revolutionary technique to steal art, a method that just completely goes against what we perceive to be the right way to conduct a heist. As I mentioned at the beginning of this video, you see, unlike traditional wisdom that dictates you should steal during no time under the cover of darkness, Stefan stole everything during broad daylight. He never used any violence or force and never had to run off to a getaway car. He simply relied on the fact that most people, including security guards, were not going to be expecting someone to commit a robbery in broad daylight. From his own experience working as a security guard at a museum at age 19, he understood how security guards thought, how they moved before ever stealing anything. Stefan would always visit that museum several times to take note of the flow of visitors traffic, the number of guards, the number of security cameras, and the locations of the museum's exits. He learned to arrive around lunchtime when there aren't that many visitors and when security teams are temporarily shorthanded. So that workers can eat. He learned to only seal relatively small artworks or historical objects so that they could easily and naturally fit inside his jacket. That was tailor just a bit too large, and he also learned to always arm himself with a Swiss Army knife to quickly remove screws from display boxes and to remove artworks from the fritz. He even learned to use a telescoping antenna to note ceiling mounted security cameras in a different direction and to place an object or move for study card done in certain cabinets that he had stolen items from so that it would take longer for workers to notice something was missing. Since every job was completely different and had tons of moving parts that he just couldn't control, such as the number of visitors and how long they would be staying in different areas of the museum. He had to rely almost entirely on just improvising on the spot whenever the area surrounding the thing he wanted to steal was empty. He would quickly go to work on unscrewing the case or removing the frame. And whenever an Catherine who was on watch quietly coughed, indicating someone was coming, he would just casually go back to admiring a piece like he had been before. The more that Stefan and Catherine saw, the better they got it. They were extremely careful, and since they always made sure to choose different museums, churches, antique shops, art fairs, auction houses and other locations and always wore disguises that hid their faces after three entire years had gone by and over a hundred different robberies, they still had never been caught by then. They both truly felt unstoppable. They felt like they'd finally discovered the meaning of life with all of their beautiful pieces lining the walls of the hideout at Stefan's home, they both felt like royalty. Day after day, they were surrounded by such sheer beauty and talent. It was truly a dream come true for them. Stefan's and then Katherine's collection was now worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And despite just how many objects there were, he always made sure to learn everything he could about each one taking careful notes and making sure that they were meticulously cleaned. He despised nearly all other thieves who would often cut out paintings using brute force and roll up old canvases, which he felt would irreparably damage and ruin the art. He considered himself different from them. In his mind. He was rescuing his art pieces by bringing them home and giving them the love and attention they deserved. But of course, no matter what he thought in his mind, the police were still after him. They didn't know who they were after exactly. But from the numerous investigations into Stefan's and Catherine's many thefts and from the occasional eyewitness and a couple of sketches, they had to do that a few times a year at seemingly random places, a man and a woman steal or together no one could identify who this man and woman were, though, and investigators had only attributed just a handful of cases to them. This is because in art crime history, it is extremely rare to find a thief who has stolen from even ten different places. By the time the year 2000 came, Stefan and Mary Katherine had stolen from around 200 places, amounting to just around 300 different objects. The sheer scale of these deaths was just so far beyond that of almost any other case ever. Please, investigators physically just could not imagine that a single set of robberies could be responsible for all of it. Yet they were. But although it seemed like they both only kept getting better at stealing, the more times they did it. As time went on, their outlook on the act slowly began to differ. Although for Stefan, it almost seemed like the more he stole the hungry, he was for the next item. And Catherine soon decided she about had enough. They were both near throw by then, and she wanted to start a family. But although she'd been dating Stefan for almost a decade, she felt that he didn't want to settle down, like seeded every single day they could be arrested at any given minute, and they couldn't even have visitors at their house on the off chance that they came across the stolen art collection. Well, he was okay with that. She wasn't. She began to feel completely suffocated. And with tension skyrocketing, big fights started to break out. But despite these conflicts and Catherine still accompanied Stefan on his heists, that is until the inevitable finally happened. One day, the couple visited an art gallery in Lucerne, Switzerland. It was a pretty small gallery that didn't have much security, their ideal target. But that day, Stefan had just so happened to have forgotten to wear the oversize jacket that he used to store the items that he was stealing. They were also the gallery's only visitors at the time, and even worse, that specific gallery was right directly across the street from a police station. Stefan remembers his girlfriend warning him not to take anything. It was simply far too risky. But when Stefan had his eye on something, there was no going back like he had successfully done so hundreds of times in the past. He carefully placed a beautiful 17th century painting under his arm and even without his jacket covering him and hiding him. Sorry, casually walking towards the exit, he literally didn't even bother to hide the art. That's how confident he was by then when stealing things. But unfortunately for him, that was the day his luck ran out. As Stefan was walking out with the art, a gallery employee instantly spotted him and then Catherine and to the couple's horror, apprehended them and took them across the street to the police. They spent the night in custody, terrified that their use of stealing had finally caught up with them and would be uncovered. But the very next morning, Stefan explaining that it was a spur of the moment decision that he incredibly regretted and that it was his first time ever stealing from an art museum, actually managed to convince the cops that he was extremely sorry and remorseful, says the Swiss authorities saw that he had a completely clean record. They decided to be nice and let him off late this one time with only a suspended sentence. Little did they know they'd just let the greatest art thief in history slip through their fingers. When Stefan and and Catherine returned home, they were extremely rattled and shaken from the incident. Never had they been so close to losing everything and even potentially life in prison. And they really had to just take a step back and rethink everything. In the end, they both made a vow to never steal from Switzerland again and to also take a break from stealing entirely. This break with us. Just three weeks before, Stefan just couldn't resist and picked up a quick painting at auction in Paris. After that, he returned to stealing just as often as he had before. But from then on and Catherine didn't join him. The tensions between them just kept intensifying. And although he and Catherine begged Stefan to just stop stealing for good, he refused to. Or really, he just could. In the end, she settled with just forcing him to promise her that from then on he would always wear gloves when stealing, since his fingerprints had been taken by the Swiss authorities after he had agreed to that in. Catherine, just try to stop thinking about his heists anymore. After all, she had something more important to worry about. At that point, the couple's collection was estimated to be worth just around $1.4 billion. That put Stefan and then Catherine among the 250 richest people on the planet back then. So how in the world did they hide their extreme wealth from outsiders or even Stefan's mom? Well, they did it because they didn't need to. You see, despite having $1.4 billion in rare items, Stefan and Catherine were completely and entirely broke to the point where Stefan's mom actually had to help the couple out with money for food and gas. Apparently, they loved each and every item they had stolen so much that they had never sold a single thing. And this actually might have been the main reason police and investigators had such a hard time catching them, because the main way most authors are caught aren't while they're stealing the arts, but while they're trying to sell the art on the black market. Stefan and Catherine may have been some of the only art thieves ever to have stolen so many items, but kept all of them for themselves, meaning they were just completely untraceable and unable to be caught. But although they hadn't been caught, they were still broke in and Catherine had to work long hours as a nurse to ensure that they wouldn't just staff. But while she destroyed the focus on her work in other areas of her life, she couldn't help but worry about Stefan, who had again been becoming bolder and bolder with his heists. He had started bringing home awards or larger artworks that he had somehow been stealing artworks that not only couldn't fit in their hideout, but also were extremely difficult to steal and meant that it could have easily led to Stefan being caught. However, he seemed to be relatively unworried, telling her that he was invincible and would be fine. But still. And Catherine worried, relentless about both his and her own future. Her worry finally came to a tipping point one day when Stefan returned home with a little curled bugle when she asked about it. Stefan reluctantly admitted that he hadn't been wearing his gloves to take it. Not only that, but he had literally stolen it from the Richard Wagner Museum in Lucerne, Switzerland, right next to the place where they had been caught. The first time in, Catherine was furious. He had broken two promises to her. But she was also worried out of her mind. So she put that anger aside and said she would drive back to the museum to clear off his prints. Stefan agreed and insisted that he tag along. But then Catherine said no, claiming it was far too risky. But after some back and forth with Stefan refusing to give up ground, she finally gave in. When they got there and then Catherine went inside to get rid of the evidence against his girlfriend's advice to just stay in the car. Stefan decided to go for a walk outside the museum. There was only one other person around, an old man walking his dog who seemed to stare curiously at him before eventually leaving. A few minutes later, when Catherine came out of the museum. Stefan noticed that she seemed to be really quickly walking towards him, almost jogging, which was extremely unusual since he never wanted to appear as they were fleeing from the crime scene as he looked closer. Something about her posture gave him the impression that she was trying to tell him something, but by then it was far too late. A police officer screeched to a stop right behind him. They approached Stefan and handcuffed him before taking him away. Now, obviously, Stefan initially denied everything. He had nothing on him at the time of his arrest. So what reason did he have to be afraid? He was fine, he thought. He learned that the reason that the cops arrested him was because the dog walker who had seen him, had heard about the recent theft of the bugle and had reported him to the museum staff for acting suspicious. When the worker took a look at him through the museum window, she instantly recognized him as one of the few people who had been in the museum on the day the bugle was stolen. So she immediately called the cops on him. But the thing is, well, that all unfolded. No one had noticed that. And Catherine would overheard. The couple had been trying to warn Stefan right before his arrest. No one realized that they had traveled there together and were partners in crime, so she had been able to drive off in their car unnoticed. Stefan, realizing that his girlfriend had made it home safely, knew that he had to make sure the authorities would never find out his true identity or send someone to go search his home. Luckily, the officers hadn't even considered taking his prints yet, so he was able to lie about who he was and where he lived. But despite trying to play the same card that he had the first time he had been caught admitting to stealing the bugle and insisting that it was his first time that he regretted it a ton. This time he had no such luck. Stefan was forced to stay in custody for weeks while officers investigated, stricken with grief and anxiety, with no idea what was happening in the outside world or whether they had realized who he was. He was completely alone during all hours of the day, and when a month had gone by, he knew he was close to cracking and just admitting everything. And when officers finally came to interrogate him after a month and a half and they brought out an entire stack of photos of all the things Stefan had stolen in the past, he knew it was all over and immediately confessed to everything he knew for a fact that they had searched his house and found everything, and that there was nothing he could do to defend himself. Except the thing was, he was wrong. Little did Stefan know the officers actually had no idea whether he had stolen all of those objects or not, and that if he had denied it, they likely would have had nothing on him and he might have even been let out as a free man. But because of his immediate confession, he had just given the officers everything they needed to seal his fate for good. You see, what happened was the officers had realized that the man they had in custody had also stolen an item back in Switzerland. As such, they quickly began suspecting that Stefan could have actually maybe been something more than just a one time thief. And they immediately started trying to get a search warrant for his house. But since this warrant took over four weeks to complete it gave time for an Catherine to inform Stefan's mom about the entire situation, how she and Stefan it stolen all of his valuable items, but also the fact that they needed to get rid of the entire stash. Right. That moment before officers came searching. And Stefan's mom, like her son, had always been very hotheaded or was completely outraged by the fact that she had spent her entire life feeding and housing her unemployed son just for him to break the law in a way that would very likely ruin her life. Without time to even think. CNN Catherine immediately began cramming all the smaller items into their cart before dumping every last bit mercilessly into the local canal. The paintings, however, would be too easily seen in the water, so Stefan's mom simply brought them all to a secluded area, threw them all on the ground and put them on fire. In that moment, one by one, 66 paintings in total priceless, one of a kind paintings that had survived 300 years through wars and conflicts and bloodshed were reduced to ashes forever lost to the world. It was perhaps one of the most devastating losses to art and cultural heritage in history. As a Swiss police officer said, never had so many old masters been destroyed. At the same time. So when officers came to search Stefan's house, they found nothing. However, a few days later, someone reported seeing a strange shimmer in the canal water. Upon investigation, a stash of stolen items worth millions was soon discovered. Although most of the items that had been thrown into the canal were eventually recovered, a few had been irreparably damaged. However, the recovery of these items allowed police officers to take photos of them and use them in their interrogation with Stefan, who they believed must have been involved with at least a few of them. Little could they ever have expected that he would confess responsibility for all of them. When Stefan eventually found out what actually happened to his collection, he was so shattered that he had to be medicated and placed on suicide watch. Later, he would be charged with theft, but was only sentenced to four years in prison because no one had been physically injured by his actions. Stefan's mom would also later be found guilty of destroying all those works of art, but only spent just a few months in jail before being released. And Catherine would spend just a single night in jail. She remained adamant that she had no idea that her boyfriend had stolen so many items, and since Stefan tried to protect her, supported his claims, the court bought it while in jail, and Catherine was Stefan's last hope that something worthwhile would remain in his life. And he repeatedly wrote letters to her. However, she never replied to even one. Stefan would later learned that soon after his arrest, she had gotten into another relationship and became pregnant soon after. After being released from prison in 2005, life just felt dull for Stefan, and as hard as he tried, he simply couldn't control his desire for his previous life. At that point, it may have been the only thing that could bring him any happiness. In 2011, police found more than 30 more stolen works of art stashed in his house, and he was sentenced to another three years behind bars. After he was freed. From that, he was arrested again in 2019 for trying to sell stolen art online. Stefan is still in jail to this day. In total, Stefan has admitted to killing 239 different artworks from at least 172 different museums, averaging one theft every 15 days for six years. He's been described as the most prolific and successful thief in history by far, and now you know his story. With that being said, I hope he found today's story just as fascinating as I did. If you're new here, my name is Andy Jiang. I tell completely bizarre and unreal true stories. Once a week, I personally guarantee you that every single story I cover from here on out will be just as interesting as it is. So stick with me. I'll see you guys soon.