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Episodes and Stories 4
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Art Crime The Scream
Episode 1Edvard Munch's "The Scream" was stolen from Norway's National Gallery in 1994. The Norwegian police turned to Scotland Yard's specialist art and antiques squad for help, who set up a complex sting to retrieve the painting. Undercover detective Charley Hill posed as a representative of the Getty Museum, who arranged a series of meetings to buy back the picture. While it was finally retrieved and the thieves captured, they were later freed on a legal technicality : Hill had entered Norway with a false passport, and his evidence was inadmissible. -
Art Crime The Hairdresser's Tomb
Episode 3Insight into the looting of the 5,000-year-old tomb of Hetep-Ka, chief hairdresser to the pharaohs. Following the theft, a Scotland Yard investigation uncovered an international smuggling ring masterminded by antiquities restorer Jonathan Tokeley-Parry, who disguised ancient artefacts with gold leaf and paint to smuggle them through customs. The trail didn't end there, however, as detectives discovered Tokeley-Parry had connections across the Atlantic to the very heart of the American art establishment. -
Art Crime The Emperor's New Clothes
Episode 4Documentary exposing one of the most ingenious art cons of the 20th century, which saw researcher Dr John Drewe and painter John Myatt produce more than 200 forgeries using emulsion paint mixed with lubricating jelly. The key to their success lay in their ability to put together a bogus history of the fakes by doctoring records and catalogue entries, which deceived experts and collectors around the world. -
Art Crime Rubens Unwrapped
Episode 5US customs officers reveal the secrets behind the sting which eventually led to the recovery of Rubens' priceless painting 'Aurora'. Re-staging the moment they raided the Ocean Grande Hotel on Miami Beach, they discuss how they persuaded an art historian to go undercover and authenticate the picture as a gang - including an Israeli-Mexican businesswoman, a Nicaraguan father and son, and a Russian - attempted to sell it on the black market six years after it vanished from a Spanish museum.
