Overview
- Carabinieri officers found the three works during prosecutor-ordered searches in an apartment in Parma and arrested five people while nine Moldovan nationals are under investigation.
- The recovered pieces are Paul Cézanne’s Still Life with Cherries, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Les Poissons, and Henri Matisse’s Odalisque on the Terrace with a combined police valuation of about €9 million.
- Video and CCTV released by police show the March 22-23 theft took under three minutes after thieves forced entry, removed the paintings from an upper-room display, and handed them to accomplices outside.
- Investigators said forensic clues and court-authorised wiretaps guided the months-long inquiry and that the group appeared organised but not specialised in art theft as members sought buyers for the recognisable works.
- The recovery renews scrutiny of museum security and insurance practices and offers limited resale options for such famous works because they were quickly listed on stolen-art databases, a factor that guided the investigation.