Van Gogh paintings, stolen by mafia, found again

Translated from Dutch NOS TV:

Police find stolen Van Gogh paintings in Mafia house in Italy

Today, 09:55

After fourteen years, two stolen Van Gogh paintings have been found in Italy. They were found in fairly good condition during a police investigation near Naples. According to Italian media they were in the hands of the Mafia.

They are the works Sea at Scheveningen made in 1882, and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen from 1884/1885. They are estimated to be worth millions of euros.

The Italian newspaper La Repubblica reports that the paintings were found in a house in Castel Marie di Stabia, near Pompeii. There they were said to be in the hands of the big shots of the Neapolitan Mafia.

Theft

The paintings were stolen in 2002 from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The thieves climbed early in the morning with a ladder to the first floor of the museum. There they struck a window with a sledgehammer, and climbed through inside.

Now, let us hope that all of the ancient Dutch art, stolen by Ukrainian criminals with links to the Ukrainian political establishment, like the Italian mafia has to its political establishment, will return as well.

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