Stolen paintings

Thieves pull off a brazen heist of $163 million worth of art-work in Zurich.

ZURICH, Switzerland – Three armed men in ski masks stole four paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet worth $163.2 million from a Zurich museum in one of Europe’s largest ever art heists, police said Monday.

. . .

The three masked men wearing dark clothing entered the museum a half-hour before closing Sunday, police said. While one of the men used a pistol to force museum personnel to the floor, the two others went into the exhibition hall and collected the four paintings.

Now I always wonder WTF is going on when I hear about something like this.  As the full article explains briefly, selling this artwork is very difficult, what with the publicity and police investigations going on.  On the other hand, there are over 30,000 stolen art pieces sought by law enforcement internationally.  Some shady rich guy will end up buying this art, and likely little of it will ever been seen again by public eyes.

[tags]Art theft, Monet, Degas, van Gogh, Cezanne, $163 million, Zurich, Switzerland[/tags]