Four suspects taken into custody in the North after the theft of a priceless Ming vase from a Belgian museum

“A priceless porcelain wine jar with aquatic decoration” was stolen in April from the Royal Museum of Mariemont in Belgium.

One month after the theft of a Ming vase from the Royal Museum of Mariemont (Belgium), four suspects were arrested on Tuesday May 28 by the French and Belgian police, Agence Radio France learned from a police source, confirming information from the Parisian.

On the night of April 20 to 21, “the porcelain wine jar with aquatic decoration – a masterpiece of the Chinese imperial workshops dating from the 16th century (Ming Dynasty), was stolen from the Royal Museum of Mariemont” in Belgium, writes the museum in a press release. “Three individuals broke in and stole this major piece from the collections”of a “invaluable value”writes Richard Veymiers, the director of the museum, on social networks.

The suspects were seen by the Belgian authorities heading towards France, the Lille judicial police are thus jointly seized of the case, according to this police source. About ten days ago, the suspects contacted the Mariemont Museum and offered to return the vase in exchange for a ransom of several million euros in cash.

Informed by the museum management, Belgian and French investigators then set up a police operation to recover the vase. A meeting is set in a car park in Roubaix (North).

An investigator goes to the meeting on Tuesday, armed with a suitcase filled with counterfeit bills. It was then that two suspects were arrested. They are of French nationality. The vase was recovered during the operation, confirms this police source, but slightly damaged. Two other suspects are arrested on the Belgian side, accused of having directed the operations by telephone. They too are French. The four suspects were taken into custody on Tuesday.