Anti-mafia police in southern Italy on Friday recovered two Vincent Van Gogh paintings stolen from a museum in Amsterdam in 2002 in a heist which the US Federal Bureau of Investigation ranked among the world's top ten art crimes.
Italian tax police retrieved the paintings wrapped in cloth at the home of Naples mafia or Camorra-linked drug trafficking suspect Raffaele Imperiale in Castellammare di Stabia, a pretty coastal town near Sorrento.
The two paintings, “Seascape at Scheveningen” and “Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church at Nuenen” are worth an estimated $100 million and were among the ‘most wanted’ stolen works of art in the world.
They were said to be in "relatively good condition".
.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fmt=webp&width=720)
Italian Premier Matteo Renzi praised Friday's operation in a tweet.
"Thanks to Italy's tax police for recovering these works by Van Gogh. I am proud of our security forces," Renzi said Police also seized assets worth 20 million euros from Imperiale and another Camorra-linked drug trafficking suspect Mario Cerrone in Friday's operation.
The impounded assets included a small plane, a boat and 49 apartments in the Campania region around Naples and the neighbouring Lazio region, bank accounts and a large company police said.
Imperiale, an alleged drug trafficking gang leader and Cerrone were arrested in January. They reportedly invested their proceeds in Dubai, Spain and the Isle of Man and are linked to the one of the biggest mafia clans in the Scampia area of northern Naples.
Cerrone is said to have tipped off investigators on the location of the two Van Gogh paintings.
The two paintings were stolen from The Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam in a daring raid when thieves used a ladder and sledgehammers to break into the museum through the roof during the night of 6-7 December 2002.
Experts were baffled by the theft because guards had been on patrol and infra-red security systems were in place.
Neither work was insured at the time, and both were on loan to the Van Gogh museum from the Dutch government.
Van Gogh (1853-1890) is widely considered the greatest Dutch artist after Rembrandt.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)