The paintings were allegedly stolen on the orders of a French citizen living in Florida, Bernard Jean Ternus, who pleaded guilty in a US court in 2008 to conspiring to sell the art works. -Reuters File Photo

AIX-EN-PROVENCE: Five art thieves arrested in an FBI sting operation went on trial on Monday for the brazen theft from a museum on the French Riviera of four paintings by Monet, Sisley and Brueghel.

The five were detained in 2008 following an operation involving a famed FBI art crimes investigator, Robert Wittman, but their lawyers claim they were enticed by the agency into committing the crime.

The works, valued at 20 million euros ($27 million), were stolen in August 2007 from the Musee des Beaux-Arts Jules Cheret in Nice in a heist that saw the thieves threaten staff, stuff the paintings into bags and escape in under five minutes.

Two of the men, Pierre-Noel Dumarais, 64, and Patrick Chelelekian, 59, are accused of having organised the heist with their alleged accomplices, Patrice Lhomme, 46, Gregory Moullec, 41, and Lionel Ritter, 39.

The five admitted at the trial in southern France on Monday to having carried out the robbery but denied accusations from museum staff that they were armed.

They face between 30 years and life in prison if convicted on the charges of organised armed robbery and criminal association. A verdict is expected on Friday.

The paintings, “Cliffs Near Dieppe” by Claude Monet; “The Lane of Poplars at Moret” by Alfred Sisley; and “Allegory of Water” and “Allegory of Earth” by Jan Brueghel the Elder, were recovered in a sting organised by the FBI and French police in June 2008.

The paintings were allegedly stolen on the orders of a French citizen living in Florida, Bernard Jean Ternus, who pleaded guilty in a US court in 2008 to conspiring to sell the art works. He was sentenced to five years and two months in prison.

Ternus allegedly told the thieves he had buyers lined up to pay three million euros for the paintings, which because of their fame would have been difficult to unload on the black market.

Ternus arranged for the thieves to meet the buyers in the southern French port city of Marseille but was unaware that he had been dealing with undercover French police and FBI agents reportedly working for Wittman, then the FBI's top art crimes investigator.

The five were arrested after finalising the deal and Ternus was detained in Florida.

The suspects' lawyers allege that Wittman, who last year published a book on his exploits entitled “Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures”, effectively ordered the heist to infiltrate European art crime gangs.

Wittman was working undercover at the time on the world's biggest unsolved art crime, the 1990 theft of works worth an estimated $500 million by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Degas, Manet and other artists from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

“It is a shame that (FBI) agents, in order to recover paintings stolen on their territory, are making orders that... lead to other thefts on French territory,” said Ludovic Depatureaux, a lawyer for Dumarais.

Both the Monet and Sisley paintings had previously been stolen from the same museum in 1998 when thieves were said to have broken into the curator's home and forced him to drive to and let them into the premises.

But they were recovered a week later and the curator subsequently pleaded guilty to having masterminded the theft.

Opinion

The Dar story continues

The Dar story continues

One wonders what the rationale was for the foreign minister — a highly demanding, full-time job — being assigned various other political responsibilities.

Editorial

Wheat protests
Updated 01 May, 2024

Wheat protests

The government should withdraw from the wheat trade gradually, replacing the existing market support mechanism with an effective new one over the next several years.
Polio drive
01 May, 2024

Polio drive

THE year’s fourth polio drive has kicked off across Pakistan, with the aim to immunise more than 24m children ...
Workers’ struggle
Updated 01 May, 2024

Workers’ struggle

Yet the struggle to secure a living wage — and decent working conditions — for the toiling masses must continue.
All this talk
Updated 30 Apr, 2024

All this talk

The other parties are equally legitimate stakeholders in the country’s political future, and it must give them due consideration.
Monetary policy
30 Apr, 2024

Monetary policy

ALIGNING its decision with the trend in developed economies, the State Bank has acted wisely by holding its key...
Meaningless appointment
30 Apr, 2024

Meaningless appointment

THE PML-N’s policy of ‘family first’ has once again triggered criticism. The party’s latest move in this...