[MSN] Austria-Canada. THE director of the Austrian museum from where a diamond brooch was stolen nearly a decade ago said he's relieved to know the heirloom is in safe hands -- even if he wasn't aware it had been recovered in Winnipeg.

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

Palace ecstatic queen's gem recovered


Sun Jun 3 2007

By Gabrielle Giroday

 
 
THE director of the Austrian museum from where a diamond brooch was stolen
nearly a decade ago said he's relieved to know the heirloom is in safe hands
-- even if he wasn't aware it had been recovered in Winnipeg. 
"We've had a few calls all these years where people claimed to have found
it, and it came to nothing," said Franz Sattlecker, the director of
Schonbrunn Palace, where the diamond-encrusted brooch belonging to a
legendary queen named Empress Elisabeth disappeared during a daylight
robbery in 1998. 

He said he had no clue the brooch had been found by Winnipeg police. 

"Every two or three years we got some offers from different people who
wanted to sell it to us," said Sattlecker. "We just accepted the fact the
star had been stolen." 

The brooch had been on loan to the museum from a private collector for an
exhibit and kept in a glass container with an alarm. 

"We are happy that it's back," he said. "It is an important piece, and it
was very unpleasant (when we lost it)... it was such a long time ago."    
Schonbrunn is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site where fans of 'Sisi' --
Elisabeth's nickname -- can visit. 

The brooch was one of about 30 hairpins the dramatic queen of Austria, who
reigned from 1854 to 1898, wore in her hair for portrait sittings, he said. 

The missing pin was recovered in Winnipeg last week in a modest St. James
home as part of a far-reaching investigation by police officers across
Canada. 

On Friday, investigators announced charges against an alleged criminal ring
that participated in "millions and millions" of dollars of global robbery
and fraud. 

Police released the names of eight people, aged 21 to 83, charged in
connection with an alleged string of bank robberies, credit card fraud, and
mortgage fraud. 

None of the charges has been proven in court. 

Gerald Daniel Blanchard, the 35-year-old Vancouver man who is alleged to be
the leader of the 'Blanchard gang', is facing 41 charges. 

He's been in custody at Headingley Correctional Centre since January. He was
charged last week with conspiracy to kidnap and murder his one-time
girlfriend, Lynette Tien of Vancouver, one of the eight people charged in
connection with the ring. Blanchard grew up in Omaha, Neb., and has a
grandmother who lives in Winnipeg, whom family members said he visited
periodically. Police searched her home in St. James earlier this year, the
Free Press reported Wednesday. 

Blanchard's lawyer Danny Gunn did not say whether the St. James house where
police say the brooch was seized is the same house where Blanchard's
grandmother lives. 

"The family's been pretty much ripped apart by all of this," said Gunn, who
called the charges against his client "ludicrous." 

"It's been very difficult for them." 

gabrielle.giroday at freepress.mb.ca 


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