The New York Police Department has announced that they have arrested 29-year-old Greek man Phivos Istavrioglou for stealing Salvador Dali’s Cartel Des Don Juan Tenorio 1949 from New York gallery Venus Over Manhattan last year.
The circumstances of the art theft are especially intriguing. According to reports, Istavrioglou allegedly removed the painting from the wall and placed it inside a shopping bag before leaving the gallery unnoticed. He then returned to his home in Athens with the painting, which he mailed back to the gallery in a cylinder tube a week later. It was the fingerprints left on this package which led police to Istavrioglou, after it was found that they matched a man who had been previously apprehended for stealing groceries from a Whole Foods grocery store.
