The Art Of Policing

It has taken 14 years, but Italian police have recovered two Van Gogh masterpieces that were stolen from the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.  It was back in 2002, when the daring raid, which could have come straight out of a movie, took place.  Armed with a ladder and sledgehammers, thieves broke into the first floor window of the museum to steal the paintings.  At the time it was a mystery how the crime was pulled off, as not only were guards on patrol but infra-red security systems were also in place.   If that wasn’t enough of an embarrassment it turned out neither work was insured at the time.  What’s more the two paintings did not even belong to the Van Gogh museum, but had instead been loaned to it by the Dutch Government.  Fast forward to 2016 and the breakthrough came after one of the gang was arrested earlier in the year and later spilled the beans about the whereabouts of the paintings, Seascape at Scheveningen and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church at Nuenen.    Both pieces were found, according to the museum, in “relatively good condition” wrapped in cloth in a house in the seaside town of Castellammare di Stabia, near Pompeii along with other items worth millions of euros.  The museum must be relieved as just in case you were wondering how much they are worth, the two works of art have been valued by investigators at an impressive $100m (£77m; €89m).