A while ago, a headline caught her eye. One of the most unusual heists in America seems to be unfolding at Taco Bell. Artwork mysteriously gone. Grabbed a piece off the wall. They're now going for big bucks on the black market. A heist at Taco Bell. We love a good fast food scandal, so we had to find out more. It looks like paintings in Taco Bell stores mysteriously disappear, then reappear online with hefty price tags up to $30,000. Apparently, a thriving underground market is forming, shaking up the contemporary art world. How did this become a thing? Who is stealing them? And why would anyone pay thousands for a piece of corporate branding? We went undercover. We prowled the Taco Bell subreddits. We lurked in the Living Moss Discord channel. We haggled with eBay sellers. We talked to a taco restaurant artist. And things are not as they seem. This is a who done it story. Game stop of art heist. Some of them were stolen. My now going for big bucks on the black market. Westlake Taco Bell goes up into flames. Nobody's really like back. After crashing into a Taco Bell sign in Westlake, Ohio $75,000 each. [Music] We log into our deserted eBay account and start digging. It doesn't take much time to find the 10K listing the news is talking about. We decide to reach out. Hey, I'm super interested in the Taco Bell Prince. And this one is listed for $7,225. Hey, I'm super interested in the Taco Bell prints. And here's someone selling a full set for $30,000. Hey, super interested. While we wait for an answer, we go to check out the Taco Bell subreddits. Our/ living Moss seems to be the real deal. Here's where the truly devoted Taco Bell underground scene gets together. I eat Taco Bell at least 200 times a year. Impressive. After a while, we find out what we came for. Anyone know where I can buy copies of the Taco Bell wall art? A lead. Looking to acquire my favorite piece of Taco Bell art by Mark Smith. If anyone is looking to sell theirs, I'll pay premium. Other users seem to have successfully acquired the art and offer advice for hopeful buyers. Keep an eye on eBay and Mccari. They pop up every once in a blue moon for $300 to $500. Add to the mix that those of them that did get sold in the past 5 years went to hardcore T-bell fans that won't sell. $300 to $500 seems way more reasonable. Oh, the two eBay sellers replied for the 8.5K seller. We try to lowball him as much as possible. We tell him we found a cheaper offer and that we'd be paying $2,000 max. And then he sends us an offer from $8,500 down to $2,000 just like that. Meanwhile, the other seller is definitely playing another game. Hey, I'm super interested in the Taco Bell prints. Please feel free to make an offer. Thanks. $5,000. Of course. We're here for the intel, not the prints. I'm willing to pay more if you tell me where you got the prints from. As far as I know, Taco Bell never officially sold them. These prints were pulled directly out of a Taco Bell. I was featured on NBC News about them. He sends us the link to the NBC coverage. I have three of them. Are you offering 5,000 for all three or 5,000 each? Interesting. We were under the impression he only sold one for 10K, not suddenly three. But not so fast. The news clip suggests that those prints were stolen since they're talking about an art heist. $5,000 each. Some of them were stolen. Mine were not. That's why they chose me and mine to feature on the news. Would you consider $75,000 each? Interesting. Let me check in with my wife first. No problem. What is going on? Can they possibly be worth that much? We need an expert. preferably specialized in taco restaurant art and some structure. This project is getting out of hand. Too many tasks, even more notes. We're missing the full picture. Complex projects need clear structure. That's where Udu comes in. 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Currently, the only Taco Bells in this country are on US military bases. No chance for us to scarf a half-PB cheesy bean and rice burritos with potatoes while enjoying contemporary American art. There may not be a Taco Bell, but there are taco restaurants, of course. And one time we went to a place in Berlin that had custom made art on the walls. Time to track down the artist responsible. It takes a second, but eventually we find him. I'm Phil. I'm 38 years old and I'm a painter. And our taco restaurant art expert. A friend of mine started to run this taco place with three other friends and he asked me to do a mur in the taco restaurant. Let's take a look at the Taco Bell paintings together. First of all, I like them very much. It's like neo expressionism and you see a lot of like Basia in it, I would say. I think it's like very contemporary. Basia is like one of the most trending artists at the moment. So, I guess this kind of explains the popularity. In the late 80s, Jean Michichelle Bosia was one of the most popular contemporary artists. His paintings have fetched some of the highest prices ever for works of art. an extremely influential guy. And if you compare him to the Taco Bell paintings, you can clearly see the influence. This is Bosia and this is Taco Bell. For a long time now, Taco Bell has cultivated a brand that's different from other fast food companies. Taco Bell. They're bold, edgy, rebellious. Mark T. Smith was commissioned to capture this new image. He works for MTV. He rides a motorcycle. His art looks like graffiti. And of course, Bosia. He can get customers to understand what Taco Bell is really all about. And it looks like he did. But how much would such a painting actually be worth if the artist is not like world famous? Probably a reasonable price in the gallery with something in between 3,000 to €5,000. Okay. Well, but these are not original. They're just prints. Reportedly, the three original prints hang in Taco Bell headquarters, though a lot of sellers are trying to convince us otherwise. Then again, art dealers will argue that art is like any other market-based investment. The price is determined by what people will pay. but with one key difference. Art has the added bonus of distinction around cultural capital. Any super rich person can buy a yacht, but only one can own that multi-million dollar Rothco, and only a few can own these Taco Bell prints. There's something alluring about them. You can't just buy them at a Taco Bell merch store. They're special because someone had to steal them. But who started all of this? When clicking through pictures of a listing, we stumble across this little sticker here. It says Columbus, Ohio. And there's the same sticker here and here and here and here and here. We also see some listings shipping from Ohio here and here. Ohio. That's where the first heist happened in a uniquely troubled Taco Bell branch in Westlake. Driver upends car against Westlake Taco Bell sign. Please say Westlake Taco Bell goes up into flames. Man damages Westlake Taco Bell when he can't order grilled breakfast potato burrito, police say. What? The Taco Bell behind me off Columbia Road in Westlake is where some believe the great Taco Bell art heist begins. Here's the police report of said heist in 2015. At 4:13 on March 15th, 2015, a Taco Bell manager reported the theft of a painting the previous evening. The painting was estimated to be valued at approximately $800. The incident was not captured on CCTV. There were no witnesses or suspects identified. This is the corresponding 2015 article from a local newspaper. 4 years earlier, someone already tried to steal the very same prints in the very same branch. That's the police report. An 18-year-old former employee drove up to the store late at night with a handful of friends, ran in, grabbed a painting, and tried to get away. It was most likely not a highly calculated crime, but an impulsive taco and beerfueled crime of passion. One of the sellers we talked to also had the Ohio stickers on his prints. He said he didn't steal them, but that they were gifted to him because he was part of a team that tore down a close Taco Bell location. We had no way of verifying his story, but it is in line with a news report saying that Taco Bell employees took the art during renovations. And interestingly, we can't find any other reported heists after the one in Ohio in 2015. It looks like the prints for sale online were mostly produced in Ohio, stolen or retrieved in Ohio, and then sold from Ohio. This doesn't look like a high-profile nationwide art heist at all. Let's zoom out. In 2011, a presumably drunk teen in Westlake, Ohio, tried to run away with a piece of fast food decor, but his former boss stopped him in the parking lot. 4 years later, Westlake police got a phone call from the same place that another piece of fast food decor was now missing. That was local news. It was picked up by ArtNet, and they have ironically called it an art heist. Years after some Taco Bell prints appeared on eBay and Reddit for sale, allegedly posted by former employees who took them for free during renovations. So far so unspectacular. But then in May 2024, this article was published. It made a connection between the 2011 and 2015 Ohio incidents and the eBay listings. One of the most unusual heists in America seems to be unfolding at Taco Bell. There are two problems with that headline. First, it's not unfolding. The incident happened roughly 10 years ago. As far as we can tell, nothing happened since. We asked Taco Bell if they can report any other thefts, but they didn't come back to us. They also never commented when other media outlets asked. Second, it's not unfolding in America. This makes it sound like a multi-state operation. All the confirmed thefts happened at a singular, albeit very cursed, Taco Bell branch. The story is catchy, though, and other media outlets seemingly picked it up. They start calling it a nationwide art heist or Taco Bell's nationwide have fallen victim to art heists. NBC says the pieces are selling for thousands online, referring to this 10K listing, but until today it never actually sold. The listing in itself doesn't prove anything. I can list my shoe for 7 million doesn't mean it will sell. Then this sad excuse for a true crime story gets another twist. We stumble upon a podcast called Pop Crime. March 14th, 2015, Westlake, Ohio. An art piece that some would argue to be as valuable as the Mona Lisa, stolen in plain sight. With a tongue-in-cheek tone, they take over the exaggerated narrative. The first of the Taco Bell art heists, but certainly not the last. This night was just the start of almost a decade long art heist. Whatever. But wait, I am partnering with Taco Bell to tell you the story. This episode got sponsored by Taco Bell. What is their role in all of this? It's the year 1996. On April 1st, Taco Bell ran a full page ad in the New York Times claiming that they bought the Liberty Bell, an iconic American monument to freedom. They assured the public that it would still be accessible for all, but that it would now be called the Liberty Taco Bell. Many readers missed that the ad was run on April Fool's Day, and thousands called to complain that the Liberty Bell should not be something that can be bought and branded. Then Taco Bell revealed the joke and all the hype around the scandal resulted in a huge spike in revenue, generating more than a million extra dollars in 2 days. Taco Bell knows how to make people talk about its brand, often by going with organic viral stories or stunts rather than traditional ads. So they've profited from hoaxes before. What if the Art High story is similar? It got Taco Bell tons of free media coverage. Kind of like this video. Wait a minute. We have zero proof that Taco Bell caused any of the reporting. probably they didn't, but they did not bother to clarify that there is in fact no nationwide heist either, as far as we can tell. Then they sponsored a podcast pushing their heist narrative. We asked Taco Bell for comment. It looks to us like overblown price tags on eBay cause an overblown story, which caused more sellers to ask for overblown prices. Yeah. So, there's like a there's like a story behind it, you know, like it's not only a print, it's like a stolen print from a taco restaurant. feel like the story kind of uh creates the value. If this isn't the art market in a nutshell, we don't know what it is. Fidian understands this dynamic very well himself. When we checked his Instagram, some pictures stood out to us. Presumably, they show him with some famous gallerists and investors. Like here, Larry Merdens and Maxmillian Vickenstein. No, they're not Larry Mens and Maximian Vickenstein. Yeah, they're not real. They're two friends. Mike, here we can see him and his painting apparently in a big Barcelona gallery. Yeah, but it's uh I photoshopped it. Really easy to make. And here in on Yeah, that's also that's photoshopped. It's not a real uh painting of mine in the gallery. It's a photo style. It's a performance art. So, it's kind of like this uh well, not making fun of the artwork, but it's just like a part of the artwork with like famous gallerist and like famous collectors. He posted all kinds of madeup stories and photos. Interestingly enough, no one noticed. He gained more and more followers. No, I think it's just like uh similar to fake news. You're just like posting something and like nobody's really like facteing. Now he's being exhibited in big actual galleries and his paintings are auctioned at Sabes. Right now it seems no one is actually buying the Ohio Taco Bell art prints for thousands of dollars. But when will the first domino fall?