Russian police foil Chagall painting smugglers
Posted on: Tuesday, 12 July 2005, 06:38 CDT
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police have foiled plans to smuggle a Marc Chagall painting worth an estimated $1 million abroad, local media reported on Tuesday, citing art police in St. Petersburg.
The painting, known in Russian as "Khasid," was stolen in 2001 from a private collection in Russia along with six other paintings.
St. Petersburg police raided an expensive restaurant in the city where the work by the Russian master was about to be handed to a smuggler who intended to take the picture abroad, the Interfax news agency reported.
The smuggling of art treasures from Russia boomed after the fall of the Soviet Union, with criminal gangs raiding some of the world's top museums for lucrative export markets in Europe and the United States.
Source: REUTERS
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