Two stolen Van Goghs found 14 years later
JOSEPHINE MCKENNA
ROME • Two Van Gogh masterpieces stolen in a daring heist from an Amsterdam museum 14 years ago have been found in an Italian country home owned by an alleged drug boss with links to the Naples Camorra.
The paintings, estimated to be worth $147 million, were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in 2002 but were recently recovered by Naples police after a lengthy investigation dubbed “Vincent.”
The museum, the largest repository of Van Gogh’s work, said the paintings, which were removed from their frames, appeared undamaged and in “relatively good condition.”
Apart from the artworks, which Naples prosecutor Giovanni Colangelo said were probably purchased with drug proceeds, police seized a small airplane, boats, 49 properties and 88 bank accounts worth an estimated $29 million during the operation.
For years, arts investigators around the world were baffled by the paintings’ disappearance, and the FBI listed the thefts among its top 10 art crimes in the world. But police and prosecutors had a breakthrough in January when they arrested 11 members of an alleged drug ring with links to Raffaele Imperiale, a 42-year-old fugitive, who is reportedly living in luxury in Dubai.
Imperiale has been accused of running a major international cocaine trafficking ring together with high-ranking mobsters. Among those arrested earlier this year was Mario Cerrone, who decided to collaborate with police and led them to the paintings inside the home belonging to Imperiale.
“It is a great day for us today to see the works and to know that they are safe,” said Axel Ruger, director of the Van Gogh Museum, who was with Italian police when they showed the paintings to the media yesterday.
The works, Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuene, painted in 1884-85, and View of the Sea at Scheveningen (1882), are both from the early period of the artist’s short career.
Police found the unframed paintings wrapped in cotton cloth inside a safe in a house in the seaside town of Castellammare di Stabia, a mafia stronghold 32 kilometres south of Naples.
“For us it is a dream for them to have been found and that they can be brought home,” Ruger said. “We are immensely grateful to Italy.”
Dario Franceschini, the Italian culture minister, described the paintings’ recovery as “extraordinary” and a “confirmation of the strength of the Italian system in the fight against illegal art trafficking.”