Historic masterpieces worth £100m allegedly destroyed by thieves

Five stolen paintings, which included a Matisse, a Modigliani and a Picasso worth a whopping £100 million, reached a street dustbin and were crushed by a rubbish truck, according to media reports.

Police, authorities and art lovers in Paris and across the world were left shocked when a lone, hooded burglar in May last year climbed into the capital city's Musée d'Art Moderne just opposite the Eiffel Tower, to the five celebrated oeuvres that he managed to cut from their frames and then rolled up.

A faulty alarm system helped him escape with ‘Pastoral’ by Henri Matisse (1906), ‘Dove with Green Peas’ by Pablo Picasso (1911), ‘Woman with Fan’ by Amedeo Modigliani (1919), ‘Still Life with Candlestick’ by Fernand Leger (1922) and ‘Olive Tree near l'Estaque’ by Georges Braque (1906).

London’s Art Loss Registry termed the Pink Panther-style robbery probably ‘one of the biggest ever art heists’, considering the prominence of the artists, the high profile of the museum and the estimated value of the paintings, roughly at 100 million euros and even worth twice that, according to some experts.

The Serious Crime Brigade officers took over a year before placing - the alleged thief and his two accomplices - under investigation. According to media reports, one of them is a watch repairer, who confessed that he destroyed the canvasses and threw them into a rubbish bin.

Detectives though, remain skeptical about his account. But if it’s true, the destruction of the landmark masterpieces would be a huge blow to the world’s art heritage. French art museums in particular, have faced criticism after a spate of robberies in recent years. Just months before the modern art raid, a scrupulous thief walked out of a Marseilles gallery with Degas' The Chorus right under his coat. The FBI estimates put the market for stolen artworks at £3 billion annually. Interpol has close to 30,000 stolen pieces’ record in its database.