Editor's Note: (Scott Andrew Selby is the co-author of "Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. Read more opinion articles on CNN.)
(CNN) So you've stolen priceless treasures, now what do you do with them?
That's the question after thieves in Dresden, Germany, pulled off what may well be the smash and grab of the century.
In a matter of minutes, two cat burglars pried open iron bars and smashed the window behind them, according to Dresden police, then crawled through the opening into the Green Vault museum's Jewel Room. Amid the baroque beauty of the intricately decorated room, they used an ax to smash open glass display cases and grabbed the historic jewelry within them, authorities said.
Luckily, the star of the Green Vault's collection, the 41-carat "Dresden Green Diamond," was on the other side of the ocean as part of a temporary exhibit in New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The heist was otherwise well-planned. The robbers set a small fire to knock out the electricity for the nearby streetlights. And they presumably knew that even if the two security guards saw them over the still-functioning CCTV, the guards were both unarmed and standard museum procedure dictated they do nothing but call the police.
These 9 stolen artworks are still missing
Rembrandt's "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee" was one of 13 artworks stolen from Boston's
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, which still haven't been found. Check out the gallery for other valuable stolen artworks that authorities have yet to track down.
The Ghent Altarpiece is the most frequently stolen artwork in history, having been stolen (all or in part) six times over a period of more than 600 years. Of the twelve panels that comprise the enormous altarpiece, one is still missing. Referred to as the "Righteous Judges" panel, it was stolen from the cathedral of St. Bavo in Ghent, Belgium in 1934. The theft was designed by Arsene Goedetier, a middle-aged stockbroker active in the cathedral community. He was not the actual thief, but designed the theft based on the plot of one of his favorite books, "The Hollow Needle" by Maurice LeBlanc. After many false leads and a protracted, failed attempt to ransom the panel back to the bishopric, it remains missing.
Caravaggio's "Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence" was stolen in 1969 from a church in Palermo by members of Cosa Nostra. It has never been recovered. Its theft prompted the foundation of the world's first dedicated art recovery police unit, called Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, or the Division for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. A mafia informant claimed that the Caravaggio was damaged in an earthquake and fed to pigs, but one hopes this is not the case.
"Portrait of a Young Man" is one of an estimated 5 million cultural heritage objects thought to have changed hands illegally during the Second World War. The masterpiece was taken from the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow in 1939, and destined for Hitler's home in Berlin. There it hung until 1945, when a Nazi official, Hans Frank, moved all of the paintings from Hitler's home to Wawel Castle in Krakow. It has not been seen since.
Oxford University's Ashmolean Museum was burgled of its only Cezanne painting on Dec. 31, 1999. The sound of the break-in was masked because it was timed during a New Year's Eve fireworks display.
Among many works stolen from the Rotterdam Kunsthal in October 2012, one can find Monet's "Waterloo Bridge, London" and "Charing Cross Bridge, London." The mother of one of the thieves claimed to have burned the stolen paintings in an attempt to hide the evidence, but hope remains that this is not the case.
Hitler's favorite painting was "The Poor Poet" by Carl Spitzweg, a somewhat kitschy romantic painting that has one of art theft's most bizarre and serpentine stories. It was famously stolen in 1976 by the performance artist Ulay, who took it from the National Gallery in Berlin and hung it on the wall in the home of a poor, immigrant Turkish family as part of what he called a "political action." He immediately phoned the museum and turned himself in, explaining that he did this as a form of political protest. The painting was returned, but it was stolen again in 1989 (not by Ulay), and it has never been recovered.
Thousands of illegally excavated archaeological objects have emerged from conflict zones in the Middle East over the last few years, with ISIS most overtly financing their activities through illicit trade in antiquities. While it is difficult to trace the sales of individual objects excavated in ISIS-occupied territories, it is thought that millions have been made through this dark art trade.
A 1727 violin by famed luthier Antonio Stradviari was stolen in October 1995 from 91-year-old violinist Erica Morini's New York apartment. Stradivarius instruments have a habit of being stolen, and are each worth in the low millions, this one valued at $3 million.
The burglars were in and out well under law enforcement's response time. They drove off in a getaway car, then burned it.
But we don't know how well they have planned for the aftermath. The tragedy of the theft is that their decisions now will determine if the artifacts continue to exist in any recognizable form.
The treasures the burglars took are priceless: the state government of Saxony, of which Dresden is the capital, would never sell them at any figure. But if the jewels were legally sold at auction, the price fetched would be in the range of a billion euros, police said.
The burglars won't be able to get anything close to that, because the jewels are so recognizable in their current form as -- for example, a hat clasp, a diamond-adorned sword and scabbard, a star-shaped medal, and more --that there's almost no way to sell them as is.
In fact, it's likely the burglars will receive a pittance of what the Green Vault's treasures are actually worth. It's as if after the Mona Lisa was stolen in 1911, the thief hadn't kept it whole and decided to break it down to pigment scrapings and an old piece of canvas.
Notorious art heists
In 1911, Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" was stolen from the Louvre by an Italian who had been a handyman for the museum. The now-iconic painting was recovered two years later.
A statue called "Young Girl With Serpent" by Auguste Rodin was stolen from a home in Beverly Hills, California, in 1991. It was returned after someone offered it on consignment to Christie's auction house. Rodin, a French sculptor considered by some aficionados to have been the father of modern sculpture, lived from 1840 until 1917. His most famous work, "The Thinker," shows a seated man with his chin on his hand.
Picasso's "La Coiffeuse" ("The Hairdresser") was discovered missing in 2001 and was recovered when it was shipped from Belgium to the United States in December 2014. The shipper had listed the item as a $37 piece of art being sent to the United States as a Christmas present.
Italy's Culture Ministry unveils two paintings by the French artists Paul Gauguin and Pierre Bonnard on April 2, 2014. The paintings were stolen from a family house in London in 1970, abandoned on a train and then later sold at a lost-property auction, where a factory worker paid 45,000 Italian lira for them -- roughly equivalent to 22 euros ($30) at the time.
A 19th-century Renoir painting was stolen from a US museum in 1951 and then bought at a flea market in 2010. A judge later ruled that it to be returned to the museum. The 5½-by-9-inch painting, titled "Landscape on the Banks of the Seine," was bought for $7 at a flea market by a Virginia woman.
Seven famous paintings
were stolen from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 2012, including two Claude Monet works, "Charing Cross Bridge, London" and "Waterloo Bridge." The other paintings, in oil and watercolor, were Picasso's "Harlequin Head," Henri Matisse's "Reading Girl in White and Yellow," Lucian Freud's "Woman with Eyes Closed," Paul Gauguin's "Femme devant une fenêtre ouverte, dite la Fiancee" and Meyer de Haan's "Autoportrait."
A Salvador Dali painting stolen from a Manhattan art gallery by a man posing as a potential customer
in 2012. It was later intercepted by customs police after it was sent back to the United States from Greece.
In 1473, Hans Memling's "The Last Judgment" was stolen by pirates and became the first documented art theft.
Adam Worth, the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's diabolical character Moriarty, stole "Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire," painted by Thomas Gainsborough in 1876.
The Nazis plundered countless precious artworks during World War II, including "Adele Bloch-Bauer I," by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, which was confiscated from the owner as he fled Austria.
Many works of art that were taken by the Nazis were never recovered. Others were returned after years of legal battles. "Christ Carrying the Cross," by Italian artist Girolamo de' Romani, was returned to its owner's family in 2012.
A version of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" was one of two paintings by the artist to be stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, in 2004.
Indeed, unless authorities manage to recover the loot soon, it is likely the jewels will be lost forever as pieces of art, stripped down to their component parts, and transformed so that they can be sold without anyone suspecting their origin.
This is what happened in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1802, when a thief stole the two Golden Horns, 7-kilogram musical instruments forged in the 5th century, and melted them down, leaving Copenhagen's National Museum with no option but to display replicas based on old drawings.
It's unlikely the burglars are trying to stash the jewels. While there is precedent for thieves collecting stolen artifacts -- French waiter Stéphane Breitwieser stole art in the late '90s from 172 collections throughout Europe for a personal collection -- the fact the theft was done by a team indicates stashing isn't the end goal. There's no profit in doing that, and a professional crew would only take on a job for the potential payoff.
And even after the jewels are stripped down, it will still be difficult for the burglars to sell the parts. It's usually easy to sell smaller white diamonds, but even these will be tricky to pawn off as the cuts used to make them are likely different from the common cuts used today. The burglars may have to alter the stones to look modern, destroying the craft work of how the gems were cut, and polished.
It will be even harder for the thieves to conceal the identity of the bigger stones, and those with fancy colors. While the vast majority of diamond rings and necklaces feature fairly common diamonds, those with vibrant colors weighing a good number of carats are known within the industry.
The thieves may break these jewels into smaller stones but will incur a tremendous loss of value: a large blue diamond, for example, is worth much, much more than if it were turned into three smaller stones.
When a huge deep blue diamond known as the French Blue was stolen from the French government following King Louis XVI's attempt to flee the country during the French Revolution, it was recut from 67.125 carats to 45.52 carats, which in turn became known as the Hope Diamond.
Hopefully, its treasures can be recovered in time. And if not, there'll be only one silver lining: the theft can serve as a warning call to us all that the security surrounding historical collections needs to be reevaluated to see how it would stand up against today's highly motivated professional thieves.