[CPProt.net] Stolen Picasso found at drug lord's house

[a.cremers3 at chello.nl]

Stolen Picasso found at drug lord's house

Items compiled from Tribune news services
Published April 10, 2005


PARIS, FRANCE -- Police found a Pablo Picasso painting hidden at a drug trafficker's home outside Paris nearly a year after it was stolen from one of the city's best-known museums, officials said Friday.

The Pompidou Center said an inventory check in May revealed that the oil-on-canvas "Nature Morte a la Charlotte," painted in 1924, was missing from a warehouse where it was awaiting restoration.

Investigators found the painting Tuesday hidden behind an armoire at the family home of a drug trafficker in Antony, south of Paris, said Catherine Driguet, a police spokeswoman.

The painting had been stolen by another drug trafficker who gave it for safe keeping to his friend, identified only as Robert, Driguet said. Robert is currently in prison for drug trafficking.

The suspected thief, also a drug trafficker who was not identified by name, was given access to the warehouse by a security guard who took drugs, according to the police official.

The painting, which police said was worth some $3.2 million, was returned to the Pompidou Center on Friday.