Stolen Picasso Paintings Repossessed

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Stolen Picasso Paintings Repossessed

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SAO PAULO, Brazil –

Pablo Picasso’s ``Portrait
of Suzanne Bloch''(1904) and Candido Portinari’s  ``O Lavrador de Cafe,'' (1939), which portrays a coffee picker,
were returned to a low security Brazilian museum on Wednesday. The Brazilian
police are now in the process of trying to find the orchestrators of the
looting while the Sao Paulo Museum of Art is presently busy fortifying its
security. Both paintings were retrieved on Tuesday after police traced a
suspect to the house where they were being kept. It is thought the value of the
paintings runs into millions of dollars.

Police inspector Mauricio
Lemos Freire was part of a recovery operation involving a helicopter and over
twelve police vehicles that were to accompany the works back to the museum.
“Two suspects are in custody, one of them an escaped convict”, Freire said.

According to Officials it
is ill defined whether either suspects were educated on art while it is thought
that the suspects were set to gain $2.8 million for the heist stated The Estado
de S. Paulo newspaper. In addition the museum had received anonymous bribes by
mail requesting £10 million in return for the paintings.

President Julio Neves and
Freire refused to comment on The Estado de S. Paulo newspaper stories.

Staff at the museum and
lookers-on cheered when the paintings came. Neves said the paintings that were discovered
tipped against a wall within the house encased in plastic were not damaged in
any way. They will be on expo when the museum reopens on Friday with amended
security measures.  “Eventually, the
museum will install security and surveillance equipment equivalent to that at
Paris' Louvre museum”, Neves said.

Source Associated Press.