Displaying items by tag: investigators

Federal agents have recently recovered dozens of lost historic art pieces ordered and funded by the U.S. government during the Great Depression.

Investigators with the Inspector General’s office of the General Services Administration told the News4 I-Team they located a trove of Works Progress Administration artwork in the attic, basements and storage areas of some California libraries.

The 122 paintings were among an estimated 100,000 pieces of Works Progress Administration that have gone missing in the decades since their completion, according to an I-Team investigation.

The thieves allegedly behind one of the most brazen art thefts in American history, perpetrated 25 years ago on Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, have been revealed as two members of a local organized crime syndicate. The controversial right-wing website Breitbart News first reported their names Sunday as George Reissfelder, then 49, and Lenny DiMuzio, then 42, citing sources within the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Breitbart story appears to follow-up on a segment produced by WCVB TV of Boston, which states that the FBI has known the suspects’ names for some time, but has not released them publicly.

Both suspects died within a year of their purported March 18, 1990 break-in at the museum, frustrating investigators who have searched in vain for the 13 works since — including drawings and paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Degas, and others, worth some $500 million today.

Nine works of art that were stolen six years ago in one of the largest art heists in L.A. history have been recovered by investigators from the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI, according to court documents obtained by The Times.

After an undercover operation at a West Los Angeles hotel in October, federal authorities detained Raul Espinoza, 45, who tried to sell the paintings -- which are valued at $10 million -- for $700,000 cash.

The nine works recovered were among the dozen stolen from an Encino home on the morning of Aug. 24, 2008.

Yesterday it was reported that a bronze sculpture by Medardo Rosso had been stolen from Rome's Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna. In a bizarre turn of events, the sculpture has subsequently been found, in the museum, inside a storage locker for public use near the entrance.

The news was first reported by "Corriere della Sera," which informed that the artwork—a rare masterpiece by Rosso, entitled "Bambino Malato" (1893-95)—was located by the police yesterday afternoon.

Investigators claim that the lockers had been carefully inspected after the theft took place last Friday afternoon. So they are working with the hypothesis that the thief had a change of heart and returned the sculpture at a later time.

The Israel Antiquities Authority announced that police have arrested a group of suspects accused of stealing ancient Jewish burial caskets from a cave near Jerusalem. The thieves were caught with 11 decorative stone ossuaries, or ancient coffins, that the Jewish people used for burial in the Second Temple period, 2,000 years ago. Some of the ossuaries still contain the bones of the deceased.

The suspects, from the West Bank, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, were arrested on Friday, March 28, as they met prospective Jewish clients at the Hizma checkpoint north of Jerusalem. The ossuaries, which are covered in Hebrew inscriptions and traces of paint, were seized by investigators with the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery.

The Israel Antiquities Authority released a statement saying, “There is no doubt that the ossuaries were recently looted from a magnificent burial cave in Jerusalem.” Officials did not reveal how many suspects were arrested or what charges they may face. 

Experts investigating the catastrophic art heist that rattled the Netherlands in October 2013 have found the burned remains of at least three oil paintings in a home belonging to the mother of one of the chief suspects. Olga Dogaru, who had previously admitted to burning the works and then withdrew her claim, originally said that she incinerated the canvases – two Monets and one Picasso – in an attempt to protect her son.

Investigators found traces of three or four paintings in ashes taken from a wood-burning stove along with nails and tacks. Ernest Oberlaender-Tarnoveanu, head of Romania’s National History Museum, which analyzed the contents of the stove, said, “The number and the type of nails we found (in the ashes) indicate that we have at least three paintings there. There are also tacks that could belong to a fourth one.” While investigators did find the remains of burned oil paintings, it is yet to be determined whether or not they are the same works that were stolen from the Kunsthal Museum.

Dogaru, her son, Radu, and four other Romanians will go on trial on Tuesday, August 13, 2013 in Bucharest. The thieves made off with Pablo Picasso’s Tete d’Arlequin, Claude Monet’s Waterloo Bridge, London and Charing Cross Bridge, London, Henri Matisse’s La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune, Paul Gauguin’s Femme devant une fenetre ouverte, dite la Fiancee, Meyer de Haan’s Autoportrait, and Lucian Freud’s Woman with Eyes Closed. The works were on loan from the Triton Foundation to celebrate the Kunsthal Museum’s 20^th anniversary.

Four of the stolen works were oil paintings and three – including Pablo Picasso’s Tete d’Arlequin and Claude Monet’s Waterloo Bridge – were either pastel or colored ink on paper and would be impossible to identify if burned.

Sometime after 1994, a former employee of Sweden’s National Library stole approximately 56 rare antique books once belonging to the country’s royal family. The thief, Anders Burius, eventually confessed to the theft, consigned the objects to the German auction house, Ketterer Kunst, and subsequently committed suicide.

In 1998, investigators were able to track 13 of the stolen volumes from Ketterer Kunst to the U.S. where Stephan Loewentheil, a Baltimore-based book dealer, bought two of the volumes, unaware that they were stolen. On Wednesday, July 24, 2013, the FBI were finally able to return the objects to the Swedish government, whereby officials honored Loewentheil for his assistance in recovering the books.

The recovered books include a 19^th century German volume about the Mississippi River by Henry Lewis and a 17^th century French book about the Louisiana territory by Louis Hennepin. The latter features the first published description of Niagara Falls and the first published landscape of the Louisiana Territory.

While Sweden and the National Library are thrilled to have the volumes back, a large portion of the works stolen by Burius are still missing.

Pedro Luis Enriquez who goes by the nickname “El Loco” or “the Madman” has pleaded guilty to stealing $15 million worth of jewelry and watches from Provident Jewelry in Jupiter, Florida.

Investigators believe that three people were involved in the heist that took place on January 22, 2011 although Enriquez, 41, was the only suspect who has been apprehended. The thieves used a jackhammer-style tool and a high-pressure cutting torch to open a vault surrounded by 10 inches of reinforced concrete. Inside the vault, police found an open bottle of wine and a small flashlight, which contained DNA matching Enriquez’s.

Miami-Dade County Police have recovered 170 of the 1,6000 pieces of jewelry, loose stones and watches that were stolen; four arrests have been made in connection to the trafficking of the stolen goods.

Investigators received their first break in the case three weeks after the robbery when one of the stolen loose stones turned up at the Gemological Institute of America in New York. Police tracked the stone to a pawnshop in Miami and were able to recover another 100 stones.

Enriquez, who will serve 15 years in prison, has not volunteered any information about the heist or his accomplices.

Olga Dogaru, a Romanian woman who told investigators that she burned seven modern art masterpieces to protect her son, denied her claim in court on Monday, July 22, 2013. Dogaru’s son, Radu, was one of six suspects involved in the Kunsthal Museum heist, the biggest art-related robbery to take place in the Netherlands in years.

During the hearing, Dogaru alleged that she “made up” the story about incinerating $130 million worth of art in a desperate attempt to guard her son, who had admitted to stealing the paintings last October. If she is found guilty of “destruction with very serious consequences” Dogaru could serve up to 30 to years in prison under Romanian law. Last week, news circulated that forensic investigators had found trace evidence in the ash in Dogaru’s stove.

The heist took place on October 16, 2013 and proceeded to shake the art world. The six suspects made off with Pablo Picasso’s Tete d’Arlequin, Claude Monet’s Waterloo Bridge, London and Charing Cross Bridge, London, Henri Matisse’s La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune, Paul Gauguin’s Femme devant une fenetre ouverte, dite la Fiancee, Meyer de Haan’s Autoportrait, and Lucian Freud’s Woman with Eyes Closed in less than 90 seconds. The works were on loan from the Triton Foundation to celebrate the Kunsthal Museum’s 20^th anniversary.

The suspects will stand trial next month.    

Six Romanians will stand trial over the heist that took place at Rotterdam’s Kunsthal Museum this past October. Seven major paintings by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, and Henri Matisse were stolen during the robbery – the largest in years for the Netherlands.

The lifted works include Picasso’s Tete d’Arlequin, Matisse’s La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune and Monet’s Waterloo Bridge, London and Charing Cross Bridge, London, which were on loan from the Triton Collection and on view as part of an exhibition celebrating the museum’s 20^th anniversary. The paintings, which have not been recovered, are valued at more than $130 million. In May, investigators were analyzing ashes found in the home of one of the suspect’s mothers, raising fears that the works may have been incinerated.

Radu Dogaru and Adrian Procop are accused of masterminding the theft. Dogaru and several other suspects have been in custody since January 2013, while Procop remains at large. A date for the trial has not been set.