€ 300,000 under the arm, the most natural thing in the world. It is thus that a man took an african mask, Monday, at Christie’s, in the chic Eighth arrondissement of paris. The thief is then emerged quietly from the auction house, as he had come, on foot. The mask came from the Ivory Coast and had an estimated value of «more than 300,000 euros,» said a police source.
A flight similar to 425.000 euros
A flight that the auction house would have liked to keep secret. Contacted by Le Figaro , Christie’s, admits to not knowing «how the information got out». The mask was one of the batches headlights of a planned sale in October. The brigade for the repression of banditry (BRB) is seized of the investigation.
» READ ALSO – The shot of the gun to Van Gogh
In the same way, in November 2017, a man had entered a gallery in the centre of Paris and was away with a bronze sculptor Fernando Botero a value of 425.000 euros. He was arrested by the investigators of the BRB two weeks later. Already known for a similar offence, he was also suspected of having stolen a statue pre-columbian in a parisian gallery and a bronze by Alberto Giacometti at a salon on the avenue des Champs-Élysées in October 2017.
