More than 1,000 artifacts stolen in “brazen” heist at Oakland Museum of California

30 October 2025

Some of the items stolen from the museum in Oakland, California, included a necklace, left, and ivory carving, right. Composite: Courtesy of Oakland Museum of California

In the early hours of October 15, an audacious burglary struck an off-site storage facility of the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) in Northern California, where thieves made off with over a thousand items including Native American baskets, ivory carvings and daguerreotypes.

The museum’s executive director, Lori Fogarty, described the incident as “a brazen act that robs the public of our state’s cultural heritage.” The collection had been housed at a secure facility with no staff present at the time of the break-in, and the theft was discovered the following morning when employees arrived and found clear signs of entry.

The breadth of the loss has stunned the museum community. Among the missing were culturally priceless items donated by generous patrons over decades, now vanished in what the museum believes was a crime of opportunity rather than a finely targeted strike. In the aftermath, the museum has joined forces with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s art-crime team and the Oakland Police Department, launching an active investigation into the theft and seeking the safe return of the items.

The incident comes as a stark reminder of how vulnerable cultural repositories and by extension the memories and histories of Indigenous peoples can be when stored outside public display and subject to less visible security than front- of-house galleries. Protecting such artifacts is more than a logistical task; it is intimately tied to preserving traditions, honoring donors and ensuring community access to collective heritage.

For the public and for California’s diversity of histories the loss resonates considerably. The missing items are not only museum objects but embodiments of lived experience baskets woven for practical and ceremonial use, ivory carvings that hold artistic and spiritual value, and daguerreotypes that capture individuals and moments at the dawn of photography. Their disappearance creates an absence in the cultural record that cannot simply be replaced.

Even as the museum deals with the short-term aftermath inventory, audits, donor communications and reputational implications longer-term questions emerge. Will this event prompt other institutions to review offline storage practices and security resources? How will museums balance access, scholarship and preservation against cost pressures in less visible parts of their operations? And for communities whose artifacts were stolen, how will the trust between institution and donor be maintained or repaired?

In practical terms the museum now faces the task of cataloguing precisely which items were taken, determining provenance trails, alerting national databases of stolen art and artifacts, and matching the missing pieces to lists circulated by law-enforcement and the antiquities-trafficking world. Over the past several years, stolen cultural property has increasingly been pushed into global illicit markets that do not respect borders or museum ethics, complicating any path to recovery.

Though the investigation is early, the museum hopes that public awareness may yield leads. Fogarty has urged anyone with information to come forward, noting that even partial identification or location of items can bridge toward accountability and restitution. At the same time the museum emphasises it will press forward with its mission continuing exhibitions, community programs and outreach while grappling with what essentially amounts to an institutional trauma.

For Oakland, this moment is also a testing one in how the city and cultural sector respond. Partnerships between law-enforcement, museum professionals and Indigenous stakeholders will be essential in moving from loss to recovery. How such partnerships succeed may set precedent for how regional museums across the United States guard and restitute cultural heritage in an era of rising art theft and globalised black-markets.

In the midst of all this, the public is reminded that museums do not exist in isolation. Each object carries memory, identity and value beyond orientation labels. When those items vanish, the impact ripples across family lines, cultural networks and educational communities. The Oakland Museum heist is a clarion call: art crime is not victimless. What was stolen was far more than objects.