Stolen Renoirs found behind wall as police foil second museum plot

Police in France found two stolen Renoir paintings sealed behind a concrete wall and arrested six people who investigators say were scouting their next target. The find ended a month-long hunt that began on 8 September, when two burglars broke into the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, near Nice, and fled with four works. Police say the same group was planning another burglary at the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.

The two recovered paintings are a 1910 portrait of actor Gabrielle Colonna-Romano and Jeune femme au puits (Young Woman at the Well) from 1886. The other two were dropped in the museum garden during the escape. DNA traces left on the protective covering of one of the dropped works led police to the main suspect, a 29-year-old man, according to Eric Antonetti, head of police in the southern region of the Maritime Alps The Art Newspaper.

Officers were already tracking the suspect's car over alleged drug offences when the museum was hit. Three of those later arrested had previous records for drug dealing, forged money and aggravated theft. Investigators then watched the main suspect meet two other men, including a known art criminal, and visit the Fondation Maeght.

Antonetti said investigators believed the group was clearly planning another criminal operation, so they moved to arrest everyone. On 7 October police detained five men and a woman. That second robbery was described as imminent Al Jazeera.

The missing pair turned up at a house in Clermont-L'Herault, near Marseille, hidden behind concrete blocks and plasterboard. The hiding place was described as "Completely undetectable" CBS News. Prosecutor Nicolas Bessone said the works, on loan from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, were valued at an estimated €4 million and were in rather good condition.

The principal suspect has been placed under formal investigation — the French legal step in which a judge formally names a person as a suspect — for organised gang theft and criminal association. The local newspaper Nice-Matin reported that judicial police tied the Cagnes burglary to the planned targeting of the Fondation Maeght in just under a month Nice-Matin.

What makes this stand out is the speed. A garden escape, a DNA trace, a car already under watch. Follow that chain and you get from empty frames to a hidden wall in weeks.