SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — A burglary at an art gallery in Scottsdale was stopped Sunday morning by the Scottsdale Police Department.
Scottsdale police officers responded to a report of an in-progress burglary at the American Fine Art Gallery, near the intersection of Main Street and Scottsdale Road, just before 6 a.m. on Sunday. An employee at the gallery reported hearing someone inside and "self-extracted" from inside, police said.
The gallery's director told 12News that an employee arrived at the gallery first after the alarm was tripped. In total, 7 pieces were taken from throughout the gallery.
"In this situation because of the distance apart that these pieces were, this individual had already cased the gallery," Robert Wittman, the former senior investigator of the FBI's National Art Crime Team said.
The responding officers set a perimeter and established an "over watch position." The officers later located a man on the roof, police said.
With the assistance of a patrol drone, the suspect, later identified as Harpreet Singh, was contained to the roof, and then taken into custody without incident by a patrol officer and a K9 unit, police said.
Court records show that the seven pieces of art removed from the gallery were collectively valued at $250,000. Some of the pieces were reportedly by famous artists like Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol.
"A lot of times people think that, you know, with fine art theft that there's no victim. Well, there is and the victim is all of us, because an insurance company would have to pay that of," Wittman said. "At which point, all of our insurance premiums have to reflect that."
There was property and evidence of the burglary staged on the roof, which was recovered, according to police. Police said Singh will be booked into Maricopa County Sheriff's Office jail on burglary-related charges.
Singh has previously been convicted of burglary and theft offenses, court records show.
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