Displaying items by tag: police

French police said on Saturday that a painting by the American neoexpressionist and street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat was stolen from the owner's Parisian apartment.

The painting by Basquiat, who was affiliated with the American avant-garde artist Andy Warhol, was estimated to be worth 10 million euros ($11.3 million).

According to French police, there were no signs of a break-in into the apartment where the painting was housed, suggesting that the thief's motive may stem from a family dispute.

The FBI and Portland police on Tuesday announced a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading to the recovery of two paintings by N.C. Wyeth stolen from Portland developer and art collector Joseph Soley in May 2013.

Police Chief Michael Sauschuck traveled to the Boston FBI office to join Vincent B. Lisi, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston division, to make the announcement. It comes a month after a New Hampshire man was convicted of illegally transporting four other N.C. Wyeth paintings stolen from Soley at the same time. Two other men have been convicted of possessing those stolen works.

Police have arrested two curators of a new Cairo museum for allegedly stealing ancient artifacts and replacing them with replicas, the antiquities ministry said on Wednesday.

Looting of the country's cultural heritage has increased since the popular uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and during the years of political turmoil that followed.

There's been an art heist at the Sam Simon Foundation in Malibu, California, and police are hunting for two paintings—one by American Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein—worth an estimated $200,000 each, reports the AP. The foundation, which rescues shelter dogs and trains them to become service dogs for the disabled, was founded by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, who died last month at 59, after a long battle with colon cancer.

The paintings were reported missing on April 10, and are thought to have been taken at some point during the previous day.

Italian police are trying to establish the true owner of a Picasso painting worth €15 m (£11m) after confiscating it from a pensioner who says he was given it for free.

The Rome resident, a former frame-maker, told detectives he received the work in 1978 as a thank-you gift for an act of kindness towards a recently bereaved customer.

A widower had come into his shop in a state of distress after breaking a photo frame in which he kept a picture of his late wife. Touched, the frame-maker replaced the glass for free.

In Spain, police have busted up a group that allegedly created and sold fake works of art to unsuspecting collectors.

According to The Associated Press, the brazen gang was trying to pass of works from such easily identifiable masters as pop artist Andy Warhol, the surrealist Joan Miro, and even the most famous painter of the 20th century Pablo Picasso.

The officers have arrested nine suspects in the eastern region of Valencia.

An Interior Ministry statement said the people arrested are both those who have allegedly created the fake art, as well as possible accomplices who helped the paintings be sold in galleries and online.

A Spanish court sentenced a man on Wednesday to 10 years in prison for crimes including the theft of a priceless medieval document considered the first guidebook to Spain's Saint James pilgrimage trail.

Police recovered the unique 12th-century manuscript in July 2012, a year after it was found to have gone missing from a safe in the famous cathedral of the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela.

Judges in a court in the nearby city of La Coruna said in a written ruling that they "consider it proven" that an electrician who worked for years at the cathedral, Manuel Fernandez Castineiras, stole the manuscript.

Police in the Dutch city of Groningen shot and killed a man on Sunday who had threatened and tried to stab pedestrians with two large meat cleavers outside an art museum, AFP reports. According to police spokesman Ernest Zinsmeyer, the shooting took place around 5:30 pm outside of the city's Groninger Museum.

Officers chased the perpetrator after he fled the scene upon their arrival. When the man failed to respond to instructions to stop and didn't react to a warning shot, police shot him as he jumped into a nearby canal. Police say he may also have injured himself in the fall with the knives he was carrying.

Three suspected members of an art forgery ring were arrested in the Spanish cities of Zaragoza and Tarragona, "El Pais" reported. Accused of peddling drawings falsely attributed to Miró, Picasso, and Matisse, they’ve been charged with crimes against intellectual property and fraud.

The police first caught whiff of their dealings in July 2014, during a routine check on the border of Spain and Andorra. Inside the car of an Andorran resident they found drawings signed by Miró. Though the man was carrying documents attesting to their authenticity, police decided to go ahead and have them inspected by several experts. All confirmed that the drawings were counterfeit.

Thieves have breached stringent security at Christie's London flagship headquarters to pull off a heist valued at up to a million pounds. The stolen items, thought to be mostly jewelery and small antiques, included works by the Russian jewelers Fabergé.

Police have been investigating the theft for two weeks and even though they have CCTV footage, have failed to identify any of the suspects, who may be of an Eastern European background.