INTERPOL has begun an international investigation after one of four works of art stolen during an audacious, multimillion-dollar raid on a museum in Rio de Janeiro was put up for sale on a Russian website.

Federal police in Brazil said Henri Matisse’s Luxembourg Gardens had been placed on the auction site Mastak for about four hours and that they suspected collaboration between foreign buyers and drug traffickers. Reuters reported that the painting was being offered for $13 million ($17.4 million).

Brazilian press reports suggested that a Frenchman who used to live in a beachside flat in expensive Ipanema may have been the brains behind the robbery.

The paintings, with an estimated value of $US50 million, were snatched from the Chacara do Ceu museum in the Santa Teresa district on February 24. Armed thieves stormed the museum during a samba procession at the annual carnival before making their escape through the crowds. Also among the stolen paintings were Claude Monet’s Marine, Picasso’s The Dance and Salvador Dali’s Two Balconies.

As a reconstruction of the crime entered its second day, police said that burnt fragments of three of the frames had been found near a bar in the Morro dos Prazeres shanty town close to the museum.

Isabelle Vasconcellos, the police chief heading the investigation, said detectives suspected that drug traffickers were trying to sell the paintings, which she believed were still in Rio de Janeiro.

Full Story

Posted: 03|6|06 at 9:17 am. Filed under: Auction News.