Stolen works of art were found by the police in Rio on the morning of last Wednesday, the 10th, during a police operation against a group of crooks (including his own daughter) who had attacked an old woman, a widow, who had a collection of works collected by her and her ex husband.
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The case of the theft of works of art
The case involved four people who were arrested, including the victim's own daughter. Police accuse this group of stealing 16 paintings by the 82-year-old widow, all valued at an estimated R$725 million.
According to a police statement, the victim's daughter hired a fake clairvoyant who was tasked with approaching her mother as she was leaving a bank in Copacabana in January 2020.
Falsely claiming that the woman's daughter was about to die, the charlatan took the elderly woman to a fortune teller and a priestess, who confirmed the false prognosis. The trio would have offered to act spiritually and even received payments for their alleged efforts, according to police.
The widow ended up suspicious of the whole situation and refused to continue paying. So, as a result, she was confined to her home in the southern coastal region of Rio de Janeiro and threatened, beaten, and gradually having her art collection and jewelry stolen.
Valuable works stolen
One of the most priceless works was Sol Poente, by Tarsila de Amaral, a spectacular oil painting 1929 that was discovered hidden under a bed during a search of one of the houses of the suspect.
In a moving video posted on social media, officers from the civil police's superior services division were seen restoring work on an apartment near the beach in Ipanema.
Other works of art allegedly taken from the victim include Mascarada, by the modernist master Di Cavalcanti, and two other paintings by Amaral, the Pont-Neuf and O Sono. Both are worth tens of millions of reais.
Stolen paintings were sold to foreigners
Some of the stolen paintings were sold to foreign collectors, with two going to the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires. Three other works were exhibited at an art gallery in São Paulo.