Scream was player’s snatch of the day

THAT SHOCKED THE WORLD

THE unforgettable painting The Scream by Edvard Munch was stolen in 2004 by Paal Enger, an ex-professional footballer and serial art thief.

He was a long-time fan of Munch and first stole one of his paintings, The Vampire, in 1988.

But Enger couldn’t help himself.

Unfortunately for him, two of his team-mates at the

Norwegian side

Valerenga were policemen.

They noticed that despite wages being low, Enger would not bother washing his dirty kit he would just throw it away and buy new stuff.

They followed

Enger for a while and watched in astonishment as he blew thousands on clothes, restaurants, exotic holidays and designer watches.

Their later investigation found he was a jewel thief. When his home was raided The Vampire was hanging in his living room.

On his release in 1994 he quickly returned to his favourite hobby. He hired three accomplices and while the rest of

Norway was busy watching the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, hosted in Lillehammer, they broke into the national gallery and stole The Scream, worth more than £30million, in less than a minute.

Enger even left a note saying: “A thousand thanks for the bad security!”

Later he continued taunting the authorities by placing a newspaper birth notice that his baby son had arrived “med et Skrik” “with a scream”.

He was arrested shortly afterwards and the painting was undamaged.

Enger was sentenced to six and a half years but escaped during a field trip.

He went on the run for 12 days using nothing more than a blond wig and a pair of sunglasses but was recaptured as he tried to buy a train ticket to Denmark.

A Norwegian police officer said: “He was disguised but it was actually a fiasco. The disguise wasn’t good enough. People recognised him.”