SAO PAULO (AFP) — A Sao Paulo museum hit by the theft of two Picasso engravings and two Brazilian paintings worth more than 550,000 dollars defended its security system Friday as "adequate."
The director of the Pinacoteca museum, Marcelo Araujo, told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper that the daytime heist on Thursday by three armed men who rounded up the guards simply overwhelmed the measures in place, which he said were sufficient.
"In cases of armed robbery we can't run the risk of resisting, because there could be unforeseeable consequences for the employees and for the public," he said.
The robbery recalled a December 20 theft in the Sao Paulo Museum of Art in which another Picasso and a painting by a well-known Brazilian artist, Candido Portinari, were stolen during closing hours.
Those paintings, together valued at 56 million dollars, were recovered within weeks and two suspects were arrested.
The Pablo Picasso engravings stolen Thursday were "Minotaur, Drinker and Women" (1933), and "The Painter and the Model" (1963).
The two Brazilian works were "Women at the Window" (1926), by Emiliano Augusto Cavalcanti de Albuquerque Melo -- known better as Di Cavalcanti -- and "Couple" (1919), by the Lithuanian-born Brazilian artist Lasar Segall.
"Women at the Window" featured on the poster outside the museum advertising the exhibition, called "A Collector's Eye."
None of the works was insured, the museum said Friday, correcting information given by Sao Paulo state secretariat of culture the previous day.
The owner of the works, the Jose and Paulina Nemirovsky Foundation, put the value of the engravings and paintings at more than 550,000 dollars.
The director of the museums department for Brazil's Historic Heritage and National Architecture Institute, Jose do Nascimento, declined to confirm their worth.
"The value of these works is incalculable. I prefer not to give a figure," he told Folha de Sao Paulo's website version.
Reports said that, also contrary to initial information, the robbers did not use masks during the heist.
They simply entered the museum along with other visitors, paid their four-real (2.40-dollar) entrance fee and took a lift to the second floor, where the works were mounted.
There, they drew their weapons, rounded up the guards and demanded to know where the specific engravings and paintings were.
They put the works in two bags and walked calmly out of the building amid a group of schoolchildren, to a getaway car where an accomplice was waiting.
Five police officers manning a permanent post just 100 meters (yards) away did not see anything suspicious and did not react until it was too late.
"We suspect the crime was commissioned. There were more expensive works there" that were not taken, the state culture secretary, Joao Sayad, told the O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper.
An alert has gone out to Brazilian airports and seaports in case the thieves try to smuggle the works out of the country.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
