(Rewrites throughout, adds details, quotes)
ZURICH, April 27 (Reuters) – One of four paintings stolen at
gunpoint from a Swiss museum four years ago in a stunning art
heist has been returned to Zurich, the city’s senior public
prosecutor said on Friday, meaning all the paintings have now
been recovered.
The painting by Edgar Degas, regarded as one of the founders
of Impressionism, was returned several months ago, but the
information was withheld to avoid compromising investigations
while Swiss and Serbian police were still hunting a painting by
Paul Cezanne, still missing at the time.
Serbian police recovered this last painting, Paul Cezanne’s
“Boy in a Red Waistcoat” earlier in April. Worth a reported $109
million, the Cezanne masterpiece was the best known painting in
the estimated $163 million robbery.
Two of the stolen paintings, a 1879 Monet and a 1890 Van
Gogh, had been found just a week after the theft when police
discovered the getaway car in the car park of a Zurich
psychiatric hospital.
“Due to a trace found in the getaway vehicle, investigations
led to a person in Serbia who had already committed offences in
Switzerland in the past,” the Zurich state prosecutor’s office
said at a press conference.
“The nature of the offences and the modus operandi, as well
as potential accomplices suggested that the perpetrators were
very dangerous criminals.”
The Swiss and Serbian authorities then launched a vast
operation codenamed “Waistcoat”, involving up to 30
investigators from six countries with a whole network of
undercover agents monitoring phones and tracking movements.
A total of 2.8 million euros ($3.7 million) were handed over
to lure the thieves in a “sting” operation.
Four men were arrested in Serbia in connection with the
theft, the Zurich state prosecutor’s office said. According to
Swiss tabloid Blick, one of the four had been a contestant on
Serbia’s version of “Who wants to be a Millionaire” where he had
pocketed 80,000 Serbian dinars ($940).
At a press conference in Belgrade, Miljko Radisavljevic, the
special prosecutor for organised crime, said the suspects wanted
to sell the painting, found in the door panel of a car, for as
little as 3.5 million euros.
DAMAGE LIMITATION
Degas’ 1871 work “Ludovic Lepic and his daughter”, worth
around 10 million Swiss francs ($11 million) was damaged around
the edges while in the hands of the robbers.
“The thieves tried to cut the canvas from the frame,” said
Lukas Gloor, director of the Collection E.G Buerhle, at a press
conference held in Zurich under close police surveillance,
adding that they stopped before doing irreparable damage.
Gloor said when he first saw the extent of the damage to the
Degas, an impressionist master best known for his depiction of
ballet dancers, he had been quite worried for Paul Cezanne’s as
yet unrecovered “Boy in a Red Waistcoat”.
But that painting was found in much better condition, he
said.
“In the lower left corner, a part of the pigments the size
of dime is gone. But that’s almost all that happened to that
canvas,” Gloor told Reuters.
Last October, Serbian police recovered two paintings by
Pablo Picasso – “Horse’s Head” and “Glass and Pitcher” – stolen
in 2008 from a gallery in the Swiss town of Pfaeffikon, near
Zurich.
($1 = 0.7559 euros)
($1 = 0.9082 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by Nathalie Olof-Ors, writing by Martin de Sa’Pinto
and Pascal Schmuck, editing by Paul Casciato)
