By Danny Fenster
ticklethewire.com
The perpetrators of a European art heist are accusing the FBI of encouraging them to carry out the plan to steal a Monet, a Sisley and two Breughels., according to the British Daily Mail.
Pierre-Noel Dumarais, the 64-year-old leader of the gang, insists the FBI persuaded them to steal the art, valued at 20 million pounds or more than $31 million in U.S. dollars.
Dumaris had a Colt 45 pistol and hand-grenades when going through with the plan.
FBI agent Robert K. Wittman of Miami, the defense is arguing, worked undercover as a corrupt art dealer and “ordered” the theft in an attempt to infiltrate French art crime gangs responsible for the theft of American-owned paintings.
“My client’s modus operandi did not start from the premise: let’s steal some paintings then find a buyer. They were a bunch of amateurish stooges some of whom only met on the day of the heist,” defense attorney Ludovic Depatureaux said, according to the paper. “These canvasses disappeared in order to recover two key paintings belonging to U.S. heritage. I’m not sure that the U.S. would appreciate it if French agents acted likewise.”
Wittman denies the charges. “I don’t think anything I did ‘encouraged’ anyone to obtain Chechen hand grenades and semi automatic pistols in order to commit armed robbery. It is a fanciful defence at best, at worst, it is a defense of desperation used only when criminals are caught,” he said, according to the paper.
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