Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Monday February 26 2018, @02:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the do-you-have-anything-to-declare? dept.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/24/588537379/customs-agents-search-a-bus-near-paris-and-discover-a-stolen-degas-painting

In December 2009, a small painting by Edgar Degas was quietly stolen from the Cantini museum in Marseille, France. Museum staff discovered Les Choristes was missing when they arrived in the morning, and the prosecutor suggested it could be an inside job because the painting had been unscrewed from the wall and there was no evidence of a break-in. An investigation was launched, but nine years went by and the 1877 painting — worth an estimated $1 million — wasn't seen again.

That was until last Friday, when French customs agents happened to check a bus parked at a highway stop about 18 miles east of Paris. The officers opened a suitcase in the luggage compartment, and there it was: vibrant pastels in red, orange, and yellow, depicting a chorus from the opera Don Juan. In the lower left hand corner: Degas' signature. The agents asked the bus passengers who owned the suitcase. No one claimed it.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @03:00AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26 2018, @03:00AM (#643714)

    Why do agents board buses and then search the luggage to begin with? That sounds quite authoritarian.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Monday February 26 2018, @03:57AM (1 child)

    by frojack (1554) on Monday February 26 2018, @03:57AM (#643745) Journal

    No, it sounds like a tip off.

    Or a paid ransom resulting in a anonymous phone call.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday February 26 2018, @02:40PM

      by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday February 26 2018, @02:40PM (#643945) Journal

      Interesting. Because if no one spoke up to claim it, they didn't have the ability to dust the case for prints / take prints of everyone on board? (And the answer might be that the suitcase wasn't printable due to construction...) Makes much more sense that they were operating on a tip.

      --
      This sig for rent.