Stolen in 2002, two ‘priceless’ Van Gogh paintings recovered by Italian anti-mafia cops

Anti-Mafia police in Naples have recovered two Van Gogh paintings stolen from Amsterdam in 2002, the Van Gogh Museum and organised crime investigators said on Friday.

The museum in a statement on its website on Friday said the paintings, found without their frames, are in “relatively good condition”. It said the two paintings are the 1882 work View at the sea of Scheveningen and a later work, Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen.

Police in Naples said the paintings, of “priceless value,” were discovered during a raid as part of a crackdown against a Naples-based Camorra crime clan suspected of cocaine trafficking. Naples prosecutors said more details will be given later at a news conference in the southern Italian city.

The paintings were sequestered along with other property, worth “tens of millions of euros”, said the police. The Financial Guard, a branch of the Italian police, often sequesters financial assets of suspected criminals.

“After all these years, you no longer dare count on a possible return,” the museum quoted its director Alex Rueger as saying, and expressed gratitude to Italian investigators and police. It is unclear when they will return to Amsterdam. The museum director was planning to attend the news conference.