Case · Theft
The Nationalmuseum Sweden Robbery
A Rembrandt, two Renoirs, and a getaway by speedboat
Image: Unsplash
On New Year's Eve 2000, armed men seized a Rembrandt self-portrait and two Renoirs from Stockholm's Nationalmuseum and escaped by boat, using car fires as a diversion. All three were eventually recovered.
The raid was theatrical: staged automobile fires drew police across the city while the thieves fled the waterfront museum by motorboat. The stolen works — a small Rembrandt self-portrait and Renoir's 'Young Parisian' and 'Conversation' — vanished into the criminal underworld.
Through a series of international operations over the following five years, all three paintings were recovered, the Rembrandt finally surfacing during an FBI sting in Copenhagen in 2005.