BBC News Online: World: Europe

Search widens for Stockholm art thieves

Police in Sweden have alerted their colleagues in Europe to the theft of paintings worth more than thirty million dollars from the national museum in Stockholm.

They say the works have probably already left Sweden, perhaps to be sold to a private collector in eastern Europe.

The paintings -- a self-portrait by Rembrandt and two works by the French impressionist, Renoir -- were taken from the Stockholm building by three men who held visitors and staff at gunpoint.

They then escaped from the waterside building in a speed-boat, while two nearby cars were blown up to act as a diversion.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service