Courtesy of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

On August 4th Raffaele Imperiale, a criminal linked to the theft of two paintings from the Van Gogh Museum, was arrested in Dubai. Imperiale is a member of Camorra, an organized crime syndicate in Italy, and has been one of Italy’s most wanted fugitives for years. In addition to drug trafficking and organized crime, Imperiale is also known for his involvement with the theft of two paintings by Vincent van Gogh (a crime we covered in an earlier blog post). In 2002, the two works were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The two valuable works, View of the Sea at Scheveningen and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen, were taken by two art thieves who broke into the museum through the roof of the building. The heist took under 4 minutes, but had an effect on the art world, as Van Gogh is a perennial favorite.

In 2016, Imperiale’s connection to this theft was announced after Italian officials found the paintings in a farmhouse on his property in Castellamare di Stabia, a town near Naples. Imperiale denied his role in the heist, claiming that he purchased the two paintings from the thieves shortly after the works were stolen from the museum. Imperiale admitted that he had hidden the masterpieces on his property with the hopes of leveraging his knowledge about the whereabouts of the painting to negotiate a more lenient sentence. After a long search, Imperiale was arrested in Dubai and will be extradited to Italy where he will face charges related to drug trafficking and organized crime.