More than 1,000 items stolen from Oakland Museum of California storage facility in huge art heist

Museum's sprawling site (Nicholas Klein/Getty Images)

More than 1,000 objects have been stolen from the Oakland Museum of California in what appears to be one of the most significant art thefts in the institution’s history, and yet the public remains largely in the dark about what exactly has happened. 

The OMCA offers collections of art, history and natural science inside a 110,000-square-foot gallery on a seven-acre campus situated between downtown Oakland and Lake Merritt.

In the early hours of October 15, at around 3:30 a.m., burglars broke into an off-site storage facility belonging to the museum and removed hundreds of items from its collection. According to official statements, the stolen objects include Native American baskets, jewellery, and numerous historic artifacts, many of them donated by private benefactors and forming part of California’s shared cultural heritage.

Authorities have confirmed that the total number of missing objects exceeds one thousand, but beyond that, little information has been made public. The Oakland Police Department has not disclosed the precise location of the storage site, nor have they released an estimated value of the stolen items. No arrests have been made, and the museum’s management has offered few details about how such a large-scale theft could have taken place.

The investigation is being led jointly by the Oakland Police Department and the FBI’s elite Art Crime Team, a small, highly specialized unit of roughly twenty agents responsible for art-related cases nationwide, ranging from theft and forgery to antiquities and cultural property trafficking. Despite their involvement, officials have provided minimal updates, and key facts remain withheld from the public.

Museum director Lori Fogarty described the theft as “a brazen act that robs the public of our state’s cultural heritage”, emphasizing that the looted pieces represent not just financial loss but a deep blow to collective history. Yet even as investigators pursue leads, the silence surrounding the incident, the secrecy about what was taken, where it was kept, and how it was secured, has left the public with more questions than answers. 

Anna Bauman,'More than 1,000 items stolen from Oakland Museum of California storage facility in huge art heist', San Francisco Chronicle, Oct 29, 2025.