Swiss Art Thefts

I always said the perfect vehicle to own is an unmarked White Van. You can do anything at all if you own an unmarked White Van. You could be a plumber or an electrician or a Soccer Mom or the FBI or... you could use it to rob a Museum. You look official and yet you blend in. At any rate, that's the Getaway car of choice that was used in Sunday's robbery of 4 Impressionist masterworks.

I hope this isn't a foreshadow of Pluto in Capricorn in a negative sense. On one hand I can see how Capricorn's appreciation of Tradition will bring a heightened interest in Classical Artworks, but it also makes sense that it will show a heightened interest in organized crime, especially in combination with all the other outer planets in very social outer planet signs. This seems to be playing itself out in Switzerland last week where the two major Art Thefts took place.

Last Wednesday two Picassos were stolen from an exhibit in a town called Pfaffikon and on Sunday 4 masterworks were stolen from a museum in Zurich. To get this out of the way: Picasso was a Scorpio. Monet was a Scorpio, van Gogh was an Aries, Cezanne was a Capricorn and Degas was a Cancer. That right there shows an interest in Artists whose expressiveness (Sun Signs) represents either Pluto or Cardinal Signs.

The never-ending Mars-Pluto opposition is strongly represented in the event charts for these crimes and seem to have been set off by this month's eclispes. The charts for both robberies show most planets contained within Pluto at 1 Capricorn and Uranus in Pisces. Mars here is going through its long retrograde visit to the cusp between Gemini & Cancer. Mars is out-of-bounds and opposing Pluto and trining the Sun-Mercury-Neptune conjunction. Just a total invitation for people to stick guns in each others' faces I guess. In addition, Pluto is also on the Aries point and conjunct the Vertex in these charts which adds to the sinister feeling of this Pluto.

The Mars-Pluto opposition also hooks into Switzerland's chart where there is a stellium of NN-Sun-Mercury-Venus-Mars at the end of Virgo and beginning of Libra. This opposes the SN-Saturn conjunction in Pisces. The current Mars-Pluto opposition squares these aspects. Switzerland from Liz Greene at Astrodienst: Sept. 12, 1848, 11:12 am Bern.

The first robbery happened just before the Solar Eclipse on Feb. 6, Wednesday. This was an Aquarius New Moon with Mercury, Neptune, Chiron, and North Node also in Aquarius. Negative Aquarius motto: The Gang's all here.

The robbers are now thought to have locked themselves into the first Exhibit Building before closing and then as they left later on that evening set off the alarm. Sunday's heist was more brazen. It was committed during daylight around 4:30 pm before the gallery closed. 3 men walked in, one guy pulled the gun and told the employees and patrons to get down on the floor and his buddies pulled the 4 paintings off the wall in one room. At this point, the Sun, Mercury and Neptune were not only in conjunction in Aquarius but parallel to each other. And they were trining that Mars.

Leo was Rising around this time so the Sun rules the chart. That accounts for the dramatic daylight timing of the crime I suppose. It is placed in the 7th house of both event charts with the North Node right on the 8th House. The Moon was in Aries in the 9th House of International Affairs. Since one of the men spoke with a Slavic accent the authorities are assuming that the criminals are part of a Balkan organized Crime ring.

It will be interesting to see if these crooks will try another robbery before the Lunar Eclipse on Feb. 21. I suppose the Leo-Aquarius ASC-DESC axis might describe something about the criminals.

1st Robbery:
Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008, Pfaffikon, Switzerland, after closing

2d Robbery:
Sunday, Feb. 10, 2008, Zurich, Switzerland, around 4:30pm