Police carrying out a crackdown on the Camorra mafia clan have recovered two Van Gogh painting stolen 14 years ago.
The masterpieces – Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuene and View of the Sea at Scheveningen – were painted by the Dutch artist early in his career.
“They’re safe,” said Van Gogh Museum director Axel Rueger.
“I no longer dared to hope that I could ever say that, after so many years.”
The Amsterdam museum said the canvasses had been removed from their frames, but appeared to have suffered only slight damage and be in “relatively good condition”.
The museum said a patch of paint in the lower left corner Scheveningen painting had been chipped off, while the other work appears undamaged.
However, further examination is needed, it said.
The “priceless” paintings were discovered in the safe of a suspected mobster who was arrested in the small town of Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples, Italian news reports said.
The art was reportedly recovered thanks to the information of a turncoat.
Italian police also seized “assets worth tens of millions of euros” (pounds) and said the clan is “involved in international cocaine trafficking”.
The Italian culture minister, Dario Franceschini, said the investigation confirms that criminal organisations “are interested in artworks as a form of both investment and financing”.
The paintings were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum on 7 December, 2002.
Thieves used a ladder to climb onto the museum’s roof and break into the building, before they escaped by sliding down a rope.
Two men were caught and convicted of the theft, thanks in part to DNA evidence linking them to the crime scene.
They were sentenced to four years and four years six months, respectively, but the paintings were not recovered.
It is not clear when the artworks will be returned to the museum, which is the largest repository of Van Gogh’s work.
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