World

Four Nabbed In Museum Heist

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 4, 2001 / 3:53 PM EST / CBS

Police have arrested four men in the theft of three Renoir and Rembrandt paintings from Stockholm's waterfront National Museum, but the precious art works remain missing, authorities said Thursday.

"They were arrested during Wednesday night and early Thursday," police superintendent Leif Jennekvist said.

The paintings were taken from the museum on Dec. 22. A man walked into the state-run museum five minutes before closing time and pointed a submachine gun at an unarmed guard while two people already inside snatched the paintings off the walls.

Jennekvist said Thursday the four suspects — all Swedish citizens but not otherwise identified — were arrested in the Stockholm area. He said house searches were under way and he would not rule out further arrests.

Museum officials reacted to the arrests with cautious optimism.

"Naturally we are happy if this means that the case is about to be solved, but we don't know how the police investigation is being conducted," museum spokesman Torsten Gunnarson was quoted as saying by the Swedish news agency TT.

As they escaped, strewing spikes on the road to delay pursuers, two cars exploded nearby, creating a diversion.

The men then sped away in a boat moored near the museum. Police found the boat but not the paintings, which museum officials say are worth several million dollars.

Earlier this week, police said they had received several photos of the paintings along with a demand for an unspecified ransom for their safe return. Police said officials would not pay a ransom or negotiate with criminals.

The paintings are:

A self-portrait by Rembrandt, painted on golden-surfaced copper plate to give a special light to the face. It was painted in 1630.
Conversation, by Renoir, a close-up of a man and a woman with her back turned to the viewer.
Young Parisian, by Renoir, a painting of a young girl.

Like other government property in Sweden, the paintings were not insured. The National Museum's collections contain about 15,000 paintings and sculptures.

The biggest art theft in Sweden happened at Stockholm's Modern Museum in 1993, when works by Picasso and Georges Braque were stolen. In 1995, three Swedes were sentenced to prison in that theft, and all but one of the works were retrieved. Braque's painting Still Life remains missing.