John Tillmann (art thief)

John Mark Tillmann is a notorious Canadian art thief who for over two decades, stole over 10,000 art objects from museums, galleries, archives and antique shops from various countries across the world. Eluding authorities for years, Tillmann was eventually arrested in January 2013, after extensive investigations by Interpol, The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, the United States Department of Homeland Security, FBI and Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Seizing over 3,000 artifacts from his home in the first week, police finally closed the file nearly 3 years later when returning over 10,000 exhibits to their respective owners, which included a 250-year-old George Washington spy letter, valued at about a million dollars. A few weeks following the sensational bust, police simply ran out of room within their own storage facilities to house the enormous amount of artifacts which were being uncovered. A special climate controlled and secretly located warehouse, was then rented out by authorities to store Tillmann's looted artwork for the next three years.

Tillmann was sentenced to nine years in prison by a Canadian Court on September 25, 2013, and the court seized over two million dollars of his assets under the proceeds of crime legislation. Tillmann was released on parole, serving just slightly over two years of his sentence in November 2015.

Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia during the 1960s and university educated, he traveled to Russia in the late 1990s living in Moscow for several years and learned to speak the language.

Tillmann married a Slavic Russian woman named Katya Anastasia Zhestokova, they acted together in museum heists much like a Bonnie and Clyde type couple and later incorporated her brother Vladimir to the team, where they traveled extensively throughout Europe, the Middle East and North and South America. It is reported that he and his Russian wife would often take time out to have sex during some of their more risky heists, and his team were renowned for employing various disguises which included impersonating maintenance personnel, staff, and security. Known for possessing Machiavellian intelligence and ability to blend into his environment, Tillmann was reputed to be an expert at sleight of hand techniques, which he taught himself as a youth and which enabled him to be able to often steal artwork while disappearing without a trace, not being observed by either staff or security cameras. Said to be an abstract thinker with a high level IQ, Tillmann's sister in an interview with Canada's Macleans Magazine was quoted as saying; “The guy is a genius, that’s the way he’s always been ever since he was a child. In November of 2001, Tillmann incorporated a Canadian company known as Prussia Import & Export Inc, which authorities believed was utilized in laundering large amounts of money that he and his wife were earning from numerous transactions in black market stolen artwork.

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