[MSN] Police in Brazil were today hunting the mastermind behind the theft of two paintings, including one by Picasso, from South America's most prestigious art gallery after the pictures were found.

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Brazil police hunt £28m art theft mastermind

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Wednesday January 9, 2008

Guardian Unlimited
Police in Brazil were today hunting the mastermind behind the theft of two
paintings, including one by Picasso, from South America's most prestigious
art gallery after the pictures were found.

The paintings - the other of which is by the Brazilian artist Candido
Portinari - are worth a combined £28m and were recovered from a house in
Ferraz de Vasconcelos, Greater Sao Paulo, yesterday. They were stolen in
December.

Heavily-armed officers from Sao Paulo's organized crime squad made two
arrests.

Few details of the police operation have been released, although reports in
the Brazilian press suggested a third suspect had led them to the safe
house, where the paintings were found wrapped in plastic covers in a
bedroom.

Museum directors said the pictures had not been damaged.

Brazilian authorities, including the culture minister, Gilberto Gil, said
they believed the raid could have been commissioned by art thieves from
overseas.

"Thefts like this were probably not carried out by Brazilians," Gil said.
"They must be linked to international gangs."

At a press conference yesterday, at which the recovered paintings were
paraded before the cameras, police chief Mauricio Freire said: "Evidently
they [the two suspects] did not commit this crime for themselves, and the
next step is the find the person who ordered the paintings."

According to the Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper, the rescue followed several
attempts to extort money from Sao Paulo's Art Museum, known as Masp.

Today, the newspaper reported that the gallery's president, Julio Neves, had
received a letter demanding $10m in exchange for the paintings on January 3.

It was reported that a further three phone calls had been made to the
gallery, demanding smaller sums, although police are said to have considered
these to be hoaxes.

In December, Brazil's art world was stunned when a gang of masked men
launched a three-minute raid on Masp, making off with Picassso's 1904
Portrait of Suzanne Bloch and Portinari's 1939 painting The Coffee Worker.

When police arrived at the scene, they found a hydraulic jack, a crowbar and
an earpiece they believed could have been used to communicate with other
criminals waiting outside the museum.

The burglary was a major embarrassment to the museum, casting the spotlight
on a deficient security system and the fact that many of the paintings on
show were not insured.

The gallery has remained shut since the lightning raid on December 20. It is
now expected to reopen on Friday with the two paintings restored to their
positions. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/