Original subtitles

(mysterious music)

On December 22nd, 2000,

three of the world's greatest art treasures

were stolen from the National Museum in Stockholm.

Together, the Rembrandt and two Renoir paintings

were valued at $50 million.

The Stockholm heist was dramatic enough,

but so too was the police sting to get them back.

The search for the thieves and the missing masterpieces

triggered an international police operation.

The final recovery was the work of this FBI agent,

who went undercover to Europe

to bargain with the gang who had the paintings.

This is the story of the ruthless robbery

of three masterpieces and the cunning and daring plan

to trap the gang who had them.

(mysterious music)

(peaceful music) (birds chirping)

It is three days before Christmas in the Swedish capital.

The streets are busy with last-minute shoppers.

It all seems so normal.

Despite the festive season,

at the National Museum on the city's waterfront,

there is a steady stream of visitors.

They have come to see the priceless collection

of masterpieces from across the centuries,

one of the finest in all of Europe.

(phone ringing)

In another part of the city,

a gang of determined thieves is leaving

to commit one of the most audacious art thefts in history.

(boat motor rumbling)

As night begins to fall, the gang make their move.

It is barely 10 minutes

before the gallery closes for the day.

(tense serious music)

(water lapping)

(suspenseful music)

(water trickling)

(tense suspenseful music)

Happily for the thieves, as they step ashore,

traffic in the area around the National Museum is in chaos.

(tense suspenseful music)

(fire cackling)

The fire department has already been called

to a car that is on fire on one of the main roads.

At five minutes to five, just as the museum is closing,

three thieves armed with a submachine gun

and two pistols, burst into the gallery.

(tense suspenseful music)

They force the museum's security staff

and the remaining terrified visitors to the floor.

One keeps guard while the other two run upstairs.

(tense suspenseful music)

From the vast collection,

they select two Renoir and one Rembrandt.

They have been in the gallery less than one minute.

The thieves simply cut the frames

from the wires on which they are suspended.

(tense serious music)

(sirens wailing)

When the police are finally alerted to the robbery,

they find the traffic chaos in the city blocking their way.

(sirens blaring)

By now though, the thieves are already making their escape.

They've been in the museum just two and a half minutes.

The thieves run out of the building

and across the road to the waterfront.

(sirens blaring)

At the water's edge,

they make for the jetty and their waiting boat.

(tense suspenseful music)

(sirens blaring)

(boat ignition clicking)

It is now just five past five,

and the thieves are heading into the night

and into Stockholm's labyrinth of canals.

There's not a policeman in sight.

On board is their haul of paintings worth over $50 million.

Had they committed the perfect crime?

(gentle music)

Next morning, Stockholm woke to the news

that their National Museum had been robbed

of some of its most valuable paintings.

To many of the city's residents,

it wasn't only the robbery that came as a surprise.

At first people got very angry

because the traffic situation

in Stockholm became impossible.

It was Christmas shopping.

But then, when it was known, people got very, very angry.

I don't think the Swedish people knew

that we had these kind of paintings in our country.

At the museum,

staff had to reconcile themselves

to the tragic loss of the masterpieces.

It was a shock for us all,

and I remember we were stunned by this event and speechless,

just staring at each other.

So it was really a personal loss for me

and of course for the curators too.

I was at home, baking for Christmas,

and a journalist phoned me and said,

"What can you say about the Rembrandt that has been stolen?"

I didn't even know.

So I got a shock.

(sirens blaring)

As they started their investigations,

Swedish police had two problems.

Who had carried out the robbery,

and where were the precious paintings?

Police had to reconstruct painstakingly

how the gang had carried out their daring raid.

One thing soon became clear.

It seemed to police an extraordinary coincidence

that two car fires occurred near the museum

at the same time as the robbery.

(car horns honking)

We got a call around four o'clock that a car was on fire.

We went out, and when we came around the corner,

I saw that the car was in flames,

so I went on the wrong side of the road,

parked the truck, and we started to put out the fire.

The two cars blocked the entrance to the peninsula.

(suspenseful music)

(fire crackling)

Well, if you look at this map,

you can see the places where the two cars were put on fire.

It's marked by the red dots.

Here's the museum.

From the museum to this point, it's about a hundred meters.

To that point, it's about 200 meters.

And these two places are very important,

because they are the only ways to this part of Stockholm.

(car horns honking)

No cars could get out to the National Museum.

Nobody could get out of there,

and nobody could get in there.

It created a chaos in the city.

Police became convinced

that the car fires were linked to the robbery.

They had been started deliberately.

This robbery was very well planned,

because they have these two cars put on fire

so they can delay the policemen.

Around the cars there were spikes on the streets

to make punctures on the car wheels.

They knew from the beginning

would take long time for the police cars to arrive.

(suspenseful music)

It took police 45 minutes

to get through to the museum.

When they came to the museum,

there were visitors that were crying,

personnel that worked there were upset.

Some paintings had been cut down from the walls.

Among the pictures there were this Rembrandt self-portrait,

valued in several hundred millions of crowns.

(deep suspenseful music)

Police then began

interviewing museum staff and eyewitnesses.

Here's the main entrance to the museum

where the robbers entered.

Police discover

that the first thief into the museum

actually bothered to buy an entrance ticket.

They went up to the stairs.

Maybe half a minute later,

the two other guys were arriving.

The second jumped over the rope

and ran up the main staircase.

The third arrived in the foyer immediately after.

And he has an automatic weapon.

It's just before closing time,

so it's full of people who are going to leave the museum,

so this man is standing here with this automatic gun.

Pointed at the guards,

telling them to be calm and nothing will happen.

A crying little girl, three, four years,

and teenagers and women.

And it's a scary time for them.

Once inside the museum,

the thieves knew precisely what they were after.

They ran directly up the main staircase

to the second floor and into the Dutch Room,

where the Rembrandt was hung.

(tense dramatic music)

You could say they made a good choice,

because they took some important paintings.

The paintings

were among the museum's most precious possessions.

The Rembrandt was a rare self-portrait,

painted using an unusual technique.

It's painted on copper, gilded copper,

and it's an early self-portrait by Rembrandt from 1630.

It was really here in this corner

this little Rembrandt portrait was hanging.

It was in a much larger frame.

It's a very small painting.

This is a life-size copy of the painting,

and it was framed in a very large frame,

so it was quite heavy.

They cut it down and took it very quickly from the wall.

At the same time, the other thief was in the French Room.

The two Renoir,

Conversation and La Jeune Parisienne,

epitomized his revolutionary style

that had so scandalized Paris

at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874.

These are the other two paintings by Renoir,

The Conversation to the right and The Parisian Lady.

It's a very small painting, that, also.

So of course they took the small paintings

because it was easiest for them.

They knew exactly what they were coming for.

They had planned it very carefully.

They must have made studies before, of the rooms,

to be able to just choose

the smallest paintings on the wall.

But as police soon discovered,

security protecting these masterpieces

was virtually nonexistent.

I was a bit disappointed

about the museum's security.

I thought that valuable paintings were alarmed.

They just hang on thin wires.

And we found out

they're not covered with video surveillance.

At the beginning we haven't got a clue who these guys were.

With the three small paintings under their arms

the thieves made their escape,

threatening passersby

with the automatic weapon as they went.

They met a man who was standing on the sidewalk

and looking at them,

and the man with the automatic weapon,

he pointed his weapon on this man

and was asking what are you looking at?

And of course he said nothing.

They turn left and run to the boat.

They had a boat moored to the quay.

As the thieves made their way

back to their waiting getaway boat,

they made their first crucial mistake,

a mistake that would set in line a sequence of events

that would prove essential in solving the crime.

It's about here.

There was a witness who was working in an office in a boat,

and he heard them.

They were yelling and shouting and were very happy.

He saw those guys.

It was about three persons on board on this little boat.

The whole of Stockholm is surrounded with water.

It's a couple of islands that the whole city is built on.

The witness took a boat of his own

and followed this escape boat.

(tense music)

Here is the museum,

and here you can see the escape route

marked with a red line here.

The witness drove a bit slowly,

and suddenly he found the boat.

He took his hand on the outboard engine

and felt it was still warm.

And here is the place.

So he understand that this probably the escape boat,

and he phoned the police.

This is the escape boat.

It's a five-meter boat with an outboarder.

It's quite small.

A photograph of the getaway boat

appeared on the front page of Sweden's national papers.

The first clue that was a real clue for us

was that the boat were in the daily newspaper the day after.

Around lunchtime this day I had a phone call from a man.

He just sold this boat two days ago.

I had already bought a new boat,

and I was put the old one out for sale.

And this man called and was very eager to buy it.

One of the main questions for this buyer

was does this engine always start,

even when it's very cold?

I asked why,

and he said that this friend who will have the boat

was very happy to fishing in the winter.

But I then realized why they asked that.

(sirens blaring)

(deep tense music)

We have a test drive,

and he was satisfied, so he bought it.

This is the receipt,

and the price is 20,000 Swedish crowns.

He paid cash.

The man that bought this boat, he borrowed a trailer.

I said to him that I would have something from him,

because he would borrow it.

He don't have any driving license, and--

I want the receipt, he said.

He gave me his cell phone number.

(phone ringing)

The phone number was real.

(phone beeping)

This was a terrible blunder by the gang.

This cell phone number

was a very, very important clue for us.

(cell phone beeping)

That was probably the biggest mistake they did.

That phone number gave us a lot of leads to go for.

So that was the key.

(birds cawing)

(gentle somber music)

Meanwhile, back at the museum,

staff hoped that their treasured paintings

had not been damaged during the robbery.

We were afraid it was lost, then.

We had all kinds of thoughts.

Maybe they lost it in the water,

and we would never see it again.

It was very strange.

Or the other idea was that

perhaps it had gone abroad already,

that they were trying to sell it abroad,

'cause they knew the importance of the painting.

(gentle somber music)

48 hours after the robbery,

police began tracing the calls from the cell phone number

the thieves had left with the boat seller.

We could see that this phone number

had contacted several other phones,

so we checked them up.

Examination of the phone records

led police to a gang of crooks

based in a suburb to the south of Stockholm.

(men speaking foreign language over the phone)

We also got a tip from a local police that these guys,

they are not big criminals.

They have done petty crimes

like car thefts, drug problems, so on.

Not masterminds.

We had contact with one of them.

One of the telephone numbers

belonged to a known criminal

who specialized in stealing particular makes of cars.

He could steal cars just like the cars

that were put on fire outside the museum.

It was through this car thief

that police made a bizarre discovery.

(suspenseful music)

The car thief had links to two criminals

who were actually serving prison sentences at the time

in a jail 10 miles from Stockholm.

They were a Swedish national named Stefan Nordstroem

and a criminal of Russian origin, Alexander Petrov.

Had police stumbled on the real brains

behind the National Museum heist?

We knew that they were friends in prison.

This minimum-security prison outside Stockholm

allows low-risk prisoners out on weekend leave.

Nordstroem had absconded on just such a home visit

shortly before the robbery.

He was still missing.

When the prison authorities searched his cell,

they found newspaper clippings about previous art heists.

And here you can see theft in the Modern Museum

in Stockholm a couple of years before.

Here's articles about the robbery at the museum.

Well, you have in prison

this Russian criminal who loves money,

and then you have a Swedish man

who's got a lot of knowledge about art.

He's been visiting a lot of auctions in Stockholm

where they sell fine art.

And these two people together in a Swedish prison,

it's not a good combination.

It was Stefan Nordstroem and Alexander Petrov.

Those two were the brains of this robbery.

(gentle somber music)

We think they planned this whole thing in the prison.

(boat ignition clicking)

(gentle somber music)

It could only happen in Sweden, I think.

So one could laugh.

It should be impossible to sit in a prison

to make up these kinds of thefts.

But they were sitting at a prison

where you can do almost what you want.

Six days after the robbery,

there was another extraordinary development

involving the other prisoner, Alexander Petrov.

His lawyer contacted the police,

offering himself as an intermediary

to retrieve the paintings at a cost

of one and a half million dollars each.

The chief said that first they had to show us

that they really have these paintings.

New Year's Eve our police chief has a call from this lawyer.

I now have two photos of these Renoir paintings,

and they decide to have a meeting.

The police met the lawyer

and satisfied themselves that the paintings

in the photograph were authentic.

These are the photos they showed to the police chief,

Renoir paintings, The Young Parisian and The Conversation.

And after the meeting,

the lawyer said that he wants to keep these photos

because they had to give it back to the sellers.

A little more than a week after the robbery,

police knew the identity of key members of the gang.

Back at Asptuna Prison,

Alexander Petrov left to visit his lawyer

on the afternoon of January 3rd.

He was under police surveillance.

(tense music)

Outside his lawyer's office,

he was seen in animated conversation

with his missing fellow inmate, Stefan Nordstroem.

They were having a meeting.

They were talking about the case,

discussing an article in the newspaper,

and it was about the robbery, actually.

(tense suspenseful music)

When the two men broke up,

Nordstroem made his way to the subway

carrying a large bag.

Police followed Nordstroem into the station.

(subway car brakes screeching)

(suspenseful music)

Stefan Nordstroem was arrested,

and in his bag we found Polaroid photos of the stolen art.

It was on the two August Renoir paintings.

We found fingerprints on the envelope

and also on the pictures.

It was Alexander Petrov's fingerprints

and also the lawyer's fingerprints.

We understand that we have the whole chain.

(sirens blaring)

Petrov returned

to Asptuna Prison later that evening.

He was questioned and charged.

(water lapping)

(gentle music)

Meanwhile, police obtained another vital piece of evidence.

They traced calls made to the boat seller to a second phone,

a public telephone booth located in the Stockholm subway.

This phone led to more numbers and more phone taps.

In one recorded call police overheard suspects

talking about something mysterious

hidden in the cellar of a house.

We heard a conversation about the thing.

When we were listening to this,

we understand that something was going on.

The state prosecutor decided

that we were going to get in in the cellar.

They were arrested.

We thought that it was going to be the paintings.

It was not the paintings.

It was drugs.

Amphetamine.

(suspenseful music)

When the house was searched,

they found a crucial piece of evidence,

a diary kept by one of the gang members.

In this diary we can see that day after day

he had worked so this robbery could succeed.

In August he had written getting a boat and 50 hedgehogs.

Obviously are spikes.

The diary even mentions

contact with Stefan Nordstroem, or Nora, in prison.

22nd of December, the day of the robbery,

he had written down, "Nora finally succeeded."

And after that he had written it over

so you couldn't see it,

but technicians can see it.

After we had read it,

we understand that this guy certainly was in this robbery.

Police finally had the evidence they needed.

By spring 2001, they began making arrests.

They never discovered exactly who carried out the robbery.

But Alexander Petrov was sentenced to eight years in prison

and Stefan Nordstroem to six.

But the gang behind the raid,

and which might still be holding the pantings,

was much more extensive.

It also included three brothers of Iraqi origin,

called Kadhum, all of whom were convicted

for their part in the plan to steal the paintings.

And a man of Bulgarian origin called Alexander Lindgren.

Well, of course it was very good

that they caught the thieves and put them in prison,

but the paintings were,

they didn't get the paintings.

But a few months later,

they got their first hint that the paintings

might still be in Sweden.

We got some tips about one of the Renoir paintings.

The Conversation, or Conversation,

it was out on the street that this painting was for sale.

We started with an undercover operation

with a special police agent.

He was the buyer for this painting

for a customer in London.

And the plan was he was going to check it up

if the painting was a phony one or a real one.

Police contacted the museum

to get advice on how an undercover officer

posing as an art dealer might behave.

One of the policemen came to my home.

It had to be very discreet.

And I even gave them a little magnifying glass

that I had to borrow.

And I said you should look for the signature, where it is,

and you should look at the backside also,

and how it is framed,

and if it's really the painting you are out for.

(somber music)

(people chattering)

The rendezvous was arranged

between the undercover agent and the people

claiming to be in possession of Renoir's Conversation.

The sting was that we are going to see

this painting in a cafe here in Stockholm.

The three criminals

arrived at the cafe carrying a bag.

Police hoped inside was the Renoir,

but at this stage they could not be sure.

The undercover agent asked them

if they had something for him to see.

They had the painting with them

in a special case for costumes.

So they went into the restroom here

and showed the painting.

The policeman was telling them

he was expert on art and so on,

so he was looking at that signature and so on,

and said it's okay, I have a buyer,

and he will buy this painting.

All of them went out of this coffee shop.

The agent gave a sign to the other police officers here.

Quite a few blocks away, they were arrested.

(somber music)

And we found the painting.

(light twinkling music)

That was the first painting we got back.

We delivered the painting to the museum,

so they were very happy at that time.

(gentle music)

Obviously they missed their other two paintings,

but that's a different story.

(gentle music)

But the next chapter in that story

was four years and 6,000 miles away in California.

(surf rock music)

Nine months after the 2000 robbery,

and unknown to the police in Stockholm,

the second Renoir, La Jeune Parisienne, had left Sweden.

Shortly before September 11th of 2001,

a separate member of the group

had smuggled the painting in through the United States

through Los Angeles International Airport.

The reason for this was because they felt

it was too hot to sell in Europe.

The individual, he was a large man, picked for his size,

they sewed a pocket in the back of his jacket,

slid the painting in the pocket,

and then he was just able to walk

right through security without being noticed.

(vocalized surf rock music)

In fact, it was not until August

that the FBI stumbled on the missing Renoir.

(vocalized surf rock music)

The Organized Crime Squad began a narcotics investigation

into a Bulgarian organized crime group.

Information was developed through the course

of that investigation that a member of that group

physically had possession of the stolen Renoir.

(slow somber music)

They were gonna sell it in the U.S.

They were looking to get 1 1/2 million dollars.

We learned through our investigation

that they were offered up to three, 400,000,

but they declined all offers.

So there we were, four years later,

with it still sittin' in the city.

(slow somber music)

The narcotics suspect

was put under surveillance by FBI agents.

We knew that a member of the group

was in possession of it.

We didn't know where.

(slow somber music)

Central to the secret operation was this man,

an undercover FBI agent who had worked for 15 years

on some of the biggest art crimes in history.

I'm the senior art crime team leader,

and the reason for that is because in the last seven years

I've been involved in the recovery

of about $150 million worth of art and artifacts

that were stolen worldwide.

So I got a call that they had information

about a person who might be involved

with one of the Renoirs that were stolen from the museum.

That particular investigation was basically

an organized crime drug investigation.

(upbeat music)

In March 2005,

the FBI learned that the Bulgarian gang

was planning to move the Renoir out of Los Angeles.

(upbeat music) (door clattering)

The agents moved in,

arrested the man holding the painting,

and retrieved the masterpiece.

It was in good condition,

considering that it had been sitting

against the wall of this business

for the last 4 1/2 years.

It was actually stored in an art folio case,

wrapped in a couple towels and some Ralph's grocery bags.

With the Bulgarian suspect now in custody,

the FBI gathered evidence

that would lead the trail back to Europe.

They were able to develop more information

about where the Rembrandt was.

As a result of that,

we were able to make inroads into Stockholm.

(cellphone ringing)

In the beginning of 2005,

I was contacted by the American police,

and he wants to have a meeting with me.

And I said of course you are welcome.

(upbeat music)

So they arrived in the middle of April.

It was clear from the FBI

that the key to retrieving the Rembrandt

was the drug dealer picked up in Los Angeles.

He had a contact in Sweden

who knew precisely where the painting was.

It was his own son, Alexander Lindgren,

and he was prepared to betray his son

in return for a shorter sentence.

This son in Sweden has been contacted

by some Arabs who were threatening them

and tried to push them to sell this painting,

and also there was opportunity to sell another painting,

the Rembrandt self-portrait.

And when we heard that there were some Arabs,

that has to be the Kadhum brothers.

(men speaking foreign language)

Swedish police

put Alexander Lindgren and the Kadhum brothers,

all now free again, under surveillance.

They began tapping a public telephone used by Lindgren

to take calls from his father in America.

You have five hours,

36 minutes remaining for this call.

(telephone ringing)

Hello. Hello.

(speaking foreign language)

Yeah, yeah, I have them here.

They were speaking about the painting with the man,

the father, in the United States.

The FBI plan was to send Agent Bob Wittman,

posing as an art expert,

with the Bulgarian informer picked up in Los Angeles

to retrieve the Rembrandt.

We sat down and we started to hatch a plan

where we were going to go to Copenhagen

to try to do a recovery.

Hello. Hello.

(men speaking foreign language)

In the summer of 2005,

contact was made with the gang.

Negotiations began on a price.

They wanted 1 1/2 million,

we negotiated that down to 600,000.

The payment was supposed to take place in two payments,

250,000 when we take possession of the painting,

and 350,000 after we return to the U.S.

and actually sell it.

A meeting was set up to take place

in Denmark in July of 2005.

(slow somber music)

This first meeting

took place in the Danish capital, Copenhagen.

(slow somber music)

The money was flashed at that meeting, 50,000.

They refused it, insisting on the full 250.

(slow somber music)

It was two months

before it became clear that a deal was possible.

It was now Agent Bob Wittman's turn to go undercover.

(slow somber music)

In September, we flew to Copenhagen,

where we met with the Danish police.

They set up the operation,

and we started making our contacts

with the Kadhums in Stockholm.

(men speaking foreign language over phone)

Eventually, on September 14th,

we met with a representative of the Kadhums,

a fellow by the name of Lindgren,

and I was able to show him the money.

We had $250,000 in cash.

Basically it was 25 bundles of hundred-dollar bills.

He was able to look at the money,

become convinced that we had what we needed,

and he then left, went back to Stockholm.

And they decided that this was a good deal.

(phone ringing)

The next day,

the final sting operation swung into action.

(telephone ringing)

September the 15th, we contacted the Kadhums.

(telephone ringing)

(men speaking foreign language over the phone)

They said they would come down.

They came down to Copenhagen from Stockholm.

(gentle music)

In Stockholm,

as the gang made their way to the station,

they were kept under surveillance by Swedish police.

(gentle music)

With the Rembrandt in their luggage,

they caught a train to Copenhagen.

The whole time they were surveilled by the Swedish police.

It was the two Kadhum brothers,

I think it was Dieya and Baha,

and Mr. Lindgren, and they had a package with them.

They were carrying a bag with a square item in it

that we thought was the painting.

It was very difficult.

The Swedish police did a fantastic job

of allowing that painting to come to Copenhagen.

I mean, can you imagine?

This is one of their national treasures,

and they were looking at it,

they thought it might be that painting right there.

To allow that to leave their country was amazing.

That just shows their patience and their diligence.

They came to Denmark, they switched trains.

We probably had 35 to 40 officers on scene

who were actually doing surveillance.

Once in Denmark,

Danish police took over the surveillance operation.

(gentle music)

I was not sure if they'd brought the painting.

It was really careful.

And that's the reason I don't want to arrest them too early.

I wanted to be 100% sure that it was the painting.

(slow somber music)

They got off the train and they walked to the hotel.

(slow somber music)

The three of them then circled the hotel a couple of times

to make sure there was no policemen there.

(somber music)

They came into the hotel, and they called us,

at which point I went downstairs into the lobby.

I sat down with them at a coffee table, and we discussed it.

It was Mr. Lindgren and it was Baha Kadhum.

So I said to Baha, I said how do you want to do this?

And he said well, how do you want to do it?

I said okay, you've got to go into my room.

I'll show you the money.

The money's not gonna be in the room.

I'm gonna go get the money.

Because I'm not gonna keep the money

in the same room that we'd had our discussions in.

So he said, "Okay."

So we went upstairs.

There's no money here, not yet.

I have to go get the money.

(men speaking muffled)

A secret camera

had already been set up in Wittman's hotel room.

The Danish SWAT team was nextdoor watching.

I'll go get the money. (men speaking muffled)

As part of the deal with the police,

when Wittman met Baha Kadhum,

Lindgren's father was there.

(men speaking muffled)

I left him in that room.

I went and got the money.

Now then. Where is it?

Baha. Huh?

Baha. Baha?

It was in a black valise.

Brought it back and I showed it to him.

(men speaking muffled)

How much is the other one, each one?

Each one's 10,000, except one's five.

See here, this one's five. Yeah, this one's five.

He looked at it, counted every bill,

counted every bundle to make sure

they were all hundred-dollar bills,

it was all there.

I could see his eyes got wide,

and that's what he was interested in,

was just seeing the money.

(men speaking muffled)

And he looked happy when he was counting it.

It was almost like that was the main interest in his life.

Many times, from my experience, when these guys,

they see this money, it becomes all-important to them.

And they'll start throwing caution to the wind

and doing whatever it takes to get it.

And in this particular case I saw it

in Kadhum's face that he would be that way.

And that's when I knew I had him too.

I knew I had him.

Okay, I counted it. Thank you.

Can we do our deal? Okay.

I said okay, now you need to go get the painting,

bring it back to me.

I'll look at it and authenticate it,

and if everything's right, then we'll do the deal.

And I said the money's not gonna be here.

I'm gonna take it away when you leave.

And when you come back, we'll go get it together.

Can we do our deal? Sure.

When you look at the painting,

you say it's okay, we go together.

To get the money. Yeah.

(dramatic music)

Yeah. After you will get there.

Okay.

At this point,

Agent Wittman was afraid something had gone horribly wrong.

The gang left the hotel in a hurry

with the bag containing the painting.

He thought his cover had been blown.

In fact, they went to collect the real painting

from another hotel in a different part of the city.

The bag was just a decoy.

Had the Swedes or the Danes arrested 'em on the way,

they would've had nothing.

There was one last drama.

I had checked the key card on my door,

and it didn't work.

What's more,

it was the same key card that the SWAT team would need

to get into the room in order to make the arrests.

I didn't have a key card to give to the SWAT team

so they could enter the room when I gave the signal,

which was it's a done deal.

So I ran downstairs very quickly, and I got two keys remade.

I came back upstairs,

and I gave one of them to the SWAT team.

And that's when I told them

what the takedown line's gonna be.

This is a done deal.

(tense music)

Eventually they came back up to my room.

I was sitting there waiting.

I heard a soft knock on the door, so I went to the door,

opened the door, and Baha was there, he came in.

(men speaking muffled)

He handed me a velvet bag,

and it was all tied very tightly with string.

So, the bags have this one and this one.

You want to take it out for me?

No, you can take it, take it.

I just don't want to touch it.

I didn't have anything to open the bag with,

'cause I had no guns or knives.

He had no guns or knives.

We had been very careful about that.

So it took me about 10 minutes just to get that string off.

It was very strong.

And I had to bend it around a corner of the bag.

You know each other a long time?

No, Los Angeles.

You don't know each other?

No, I don't know him too well.

(men speaking muffled) Eventually it did come off,

and I started to unfold the red velvet, and I looked down.

I saw about half.

When I unfolded it,

I saw half of Rembrandt's face smiling at me.

I'm going to go into a dark, I have to go into the bathroom

and look at it closely.

You can't see it in the light.

(slow gentle music)

(man speaking muffled)

Yeah, it could be, yeah.

If I could have a look,

the varnish is a little bit too thick.

So I took it into the bathroom.

I used an ultraviolet light to rake it.

I was looking to see if there had been any retouching.

If you see paint on top, it'll be very bright.

So I checked that.

I also looked at some of the craquelure,

which is a crackling in the painting on the front

to see if it matched crackling that I had looked at

in closeups of the painting in Stockholm, and it did.

So at that point I knew it was real,

because I knew it was on copper.

It's very hard to fake copper paintings like that.

And when I had gotten the pictures from Stockholm

of the painting,

I had looked at pictures from both front and back,

and the ones from the back were really

the ones that were more important to me,

because people who fake paintings fake the fronts.

They usually disregard the backs.

(Baha speaking muffled)

Baha went into the bathroom with me.

I was explaining what I was doing,

and after a few minutes he got bored and he left.

He walked back out and to the right,

which was what I was waiting for.

Because usually in a hotel room

there's really no place to hide.

There's no place that's safe, okay?

At least in a bathroom you have a tub.

That's the safest place in a bathroom to be when gunshots,

if there's gunshots.

So once he left,

I knew that I was in the bathroom alone with the painting.

(deep tense music)

The Danish SWAT team

was waiting for the code words before they moved in.

(door clicking shut)

Looks good.

I came out of the room,

and that's when I said, "This is a done deal."

(tense suspenseful music)

Think we got a done deal.

At that point I ducked into the bathroom,

holding the painting in my arms,

cradling it for protection.

(footsteps clicking)

I waited quietly.

Usually it feels like it's hours

before the SWAT team comes in.

That's been my experience,

just because time slows down at that point,

and things start happening in slow motion.

So I waited.

To their credit, it was only a few seconds.

I heard the door nextdoor close,

knowing that the sound was gonna happen.

I heard 'em come around.

They put the key card in the door,

and that was the moment I needed to wait for

to see if it worked, and it did.

(men speaking muffled)

(dramatic music)

I made a quick left out of the bathroom

and out into the hallway.

At that point the case was basically done.

(light ambient music)

Another man who had traveled to Denmark

was Rickard Becklen,

the head restorer at the Stockholm National Museum.

On a shelf, there it was, this painting,

just covered by a blanket.

And he handed it over to me,

and it was a very casual way

of handing over this priceless work of art.

So I had the opportunity to check it there

with my binoculars,

and this was the actual painting

that was stolen from the museum five years ago.

That was quite thrilling for me to be in this happy event.

(gentle orchestral music)

I always feel like a eureka moment.

It's not so much the thought of recovering

a great piece of artwork,

it's the fact that you're recovering something

that mankind has lost and that maybe will come back now

and will be part of future generations.

And to know that you're a part of that,

it's very, very exhilarating.

It's a really neat feeling.

(gentle orchestral music)

It wasn't long

before word got back to Stockholm.

The phone main said I wanted to let you know

before anyone else that it will be in the world news

in five minutes that we have recovered

the Rembrandt painting in Copenhagen.

I was, you know, my heart started to jump double.

And I felt nervous in a way.

I didn't know what to do.

The Rembrandt arrived

back at Stockholm's National Museum

just in time for a 400th anniversary exhibition

celebrating the great Dutch painter's birth.

The police brought it here to us

on the evening of the very opening of the exhibition.

It was very dramatic, because seven policemen marched in,

in the room, and carried the little painting,

and gave it back to us.

(gentle orchestral music)

We thought maybe we would never see this painting again.

It's magic, in a way.

(suspenseful music)