2 passengers stole $12,800 worth of sculptures from a Carnival cruise they were on, the FBI say
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- 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 is considering pressing charges against the couple 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 special 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, security on board checked the surveillance footage, the FBI said.
CCTV footage from September 29 shows 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. The FBI later found a photo of the suspect on Facebook wearing a white shirt, dark vest, and striped tie that matched what one of the suspects 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 that it is 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, per the FBI. 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 Insider's requests for comment.