Jeffrey Wood, Guilty plea for stealing Winston Churchill portrait from Ottawa hotel

Winston Churchill, 1941 by Yousuf Karsh. This photograph of Britain's wartime prime minister came to define the resilience of the British people. (Yousuf Karsh)

Jeffrey Wood, the man responsible for stealing the renowned portrait of Winston Churchill from Ottawa's Château Laurier hotel during a COVID-19 lockdown in late 2022, pleaded guilty to three charges in court on March 14, 2025. These charges include theft over $5,000, forgery, and trafficking in property obtained by crime. Wood admitted to replacing the original portrait with a fake, despite the hotel’s frame being secured with special bolts that required specific tools to remove. The theft occurred sometime between Christmas and New Year's Day in 2022, but it wasn't noticed until August 2023 when a hotel employee realized the portrait had been swapped out.

The stolen portrait, given to the hotel in 1998 by famed photographer Yousuf Karsh, became the center of a complex, international investigation. After the portrait was sold through a London auction house, it was found in Genoa, Italy, where the buyer unknowingly purchased the stolen piece. Authorities were able to trace the sale back to Wood, who had received over $4,500 for the stolen artwork. Investigators also found a poster print of "The Roaring Lion" in a storage locker, with DNA evidence linking Wood to the crime scene.

Despite the theft's global nature, Wood’s motives were tied to personal struggles. During court proceedings, Wood explained that he committed the crime to support his brother, who was overseas at the time. However, his brother tragically passed away shortly after the theft. His lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, described the crime as one of “love,” not greed. Wood had also made plans to leave Canada around the time of the theft, which was part of his larger plan to sell the stolen portrait.

Jeffrey Wood arrives at the Ottawa Courthouse on March 14, 2025. He would go on to plead guilty to three charges, including theft and forgery, for stealing a portrait of Windston Churchill from the Château Laurier hotel. (Chris Tanouye/The Canadian Press)

Wood, a 44-year-old from Powassan, Ontario, had worked in various jobs, including as a bank teller and at the Rideau Canal Festival and the Ottawa Jail Hostel. He had also spent time living in Mexico, where he had moved shortly after the theft. Wood’s defense team argues that he should serve his sentence in the community, while prosecutors are pushing for a nearly two-year prison sentence. The final sentencing is set for April 14, 2025.

J.Larson

The Hunt: $200 Million Worth of Art Is Still Missing From a Paraguay Museum

Thieves dug a tunnel to steal European masterworks back in 2002.

A photograph of a majestic white art museum against blue skies, partially obscured by a palm frond National Museum of Fine Arts (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes), Asuncion, Paraguay. Photo: MJ Photography / Alamy Stock Photo Vittoria Benzine July 15, 2024

In July 2002, a heist at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Asunción in Paraguay rocked the world, not only due to the lost masterworks, which were valued at around $200 million, but the elaborate ploy the thieves used to pull off their robbery. They favored European paintings, with a haul that included a self-portrait by Tintoretto, Tête de Femme by Adolphe Piolt, a landscape by Gustave Courbet, a Madonna and Child by Bartolomé Estéban Murillo, and an unattributed 16th-century portrait of Saint Jerome.

The museum was founded in 1909, 67 years after Paraguay officially declared its independence from the Spanish Empire. It occupies the same building as the National Archives, and holds 650 artworks ranging from paintings to ceramics, alongside antique coins and more from the collection of the inaugural director-general Juan Silvano Godoi.

The museum’s founding was meant to mark a new chapter for the republic, but centuries of political volatility could partially explain why the institution hadn’t managed to install any security cameras to capture the thieves on film.

Instead, a shocking, subterranean discovery told the story. Authorities found that an 80-feet tunnel had been dug to connect the museum with a health food store across the street.

Further investigation revealed that the men who’d opened that store had used fake identities. They had even carved out another leg of the tunnel that led to the parking lot of a hotel nearby, which the bandits likely used to escape.

A scan of a portion of a portrait painting of a coy young woman lit dramatically against a black background Adolphe Piot, Tete de Femme (date unknown). Photo: The History Collection / Alamy Stock Photo

Legend of the haul lives on and international police forces have scoured the black market ever since. Only one opportunity has presented itself so far. In 2008, the National Centre for Cultural Heritage Protection at the INTERPOL-Argentina Department received a tip that the lost “San Gerónimo” by an anonymous artist and valued at $200,000 was up for illicit sale in Posadas, Argentina.

Soon enough, a police fact-finding mission accompanied by Argentinean Federal forces recovered the painting in mint condition. The work was back home by that July, as part of a larger push by Argentinian authorities to repatriate stolen artwork found on their soil.

Those forces are probably still monitoring the art world’s underbelly for the remaining lost artworks. Meanwhile, the museum has taken matters into their own hands. In February, the institution commissioned five contemporary painters to recreate the lost artworks while 700 fascinated attendees watched on.

The resulting canvases went on view in an exhibition that opened on March 22, and is slated to stay up for awhile. Although the decision doesn’t make it seem like the museum has much hope the works will ever turn up, at least they’re capitalizing on the unexpected notoriety of hosting Paraguay’s one-time robbery of the century.

The Hunt explores art and ancient relics that are—alas!—lost to time. From the Ark of the Covenant to Cleopatra’s tomb, these legendary treasures have long captured the imaginations of historians and archaeologists, even if they remain buried under layers of sand, stone, and history.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/the-hunt-paraguay-museum-heist-2463477