Zurich Museum
Armed Robbers Steal $163 Million Worth of Art From Zurich Museum
Original Post Date: 12th Feb, 2008 - 12:12pm
Just like in the movies, these thieves entered the Museum and stole several paintings worth millions of dollars.
ZURICH, Switzerland — It was one of the biggest art robberies in European history, police said Monday.
Armed and masked, three men entered a private Zurich museum just before closing Sunday and made off with paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet worth 180 million Swiss francs (US$163.2 million; euro112.4 million).
Calling it a "spectacular art robbery," police asked witnesses to help reconstruct the robbers' getaway from the E.G. Buehrle Collection, a private museum for Impressionism that has had its own troubled history with stolen art.
"This is an entirely new dimension in criminal culture," Zurich police spokesman Marco Cortesi said, calling it the largest art robbery in Switzerland's history and one of the biggest ever in Europe.
The three men, wearing ski masks and dark clothing, entered the Buehrle museum a half-hour before closing Sunday. While one used a pistol to force museum personnel to the floor, the two others went and collected the four paintings from the exhibition hall, police said.
One of the men spoke German with a Slavic accent, police said. They loaded the paintings into a white vehicle parked out front. Police, asking for witness to come forward, said the paintings may have been sticking out of the trunk as the robbers made their getaway...
Source 7m