The Venetian police have started an investigation after the audacious robbery: two thieves got away with earrings and a brooch on the final day of a four-month exhibition. Several Qatari-owned jewels stolen on the last day of “Treasures of the Mughals and Maharajas” exhibition.
Venetian police chief Vito Gagliardi told journalists some details regarding the robbery. The months-long “Treasures of the Mughals and Maharajas” exhibition was curated by Amin Jaffer, a director of Asian art at Christie’s, he advised Qatari Sheikh Hamad to create his own collection, which was displayed in Venice for four recent months. Alas, the last day of this wonderful event was shadowed by the audacious robbery: two thieves stolen the most precious things from Qatari Sheikh Hamad’s collection.
The alarm was raised only several hours later at the palace, known as the Palazzo Ducale in Italy, in central Venice at one end of Saint Mark’s Square.
“We are clearly dealing here with two skilled professionals who managed to pull off their feat despite all the display rooms being fitted with technologically highly sophisticated [alarm] systems,”
chief police commissioner Vito Gagliardi said.
The hallmark of Wednesday’s Palazzo Ducale job is, rather, one of confident, quiet, almost elegant execution, followed by an equally confident escape on foot by simply blending into the crowd. The speed and efficiency of the job, especially the bypassing and/or delay of the alarm, implies meticulous research, if not actual inside accomplices. And, one has to assume, Chief Gagliardi will be looking rather closely at which guards were deployed where at what hours.
The investigation may or may not to find a swift or successful end, but in yesterday’s post-event tumult, the vice-commissioner of Venice, Marco Odoriso, took a wise and, for the thieves, ominously thorough tone. He warned that the investigation will be a classic puzzle and added:
“We must begin with the details and then expand and go back into the causes of the theft. It’s premature to speak of Italian or foreign authors.”
