Van Gogh thief confesses in documentary after 15 years

Octave Durham, who stole two Vincent van Gogh paintings from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2002, has confessed in a 45-minute documentary for Dutch television. The works—'The Beach at Scheveningen in Stormy Weather' (1882) and 'The Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen' (1884)—were recovered in 2016 in Castellammare di Stabia, Italy, during an anti-Camorra raid. They were briefly exhibited at the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte before returning to the Netherlands. Durham reveals he chose the paintings not for their value but for their small size, which made escape easier through a window. He accidentally damaged the seascape when he fell onto the sack containing the canvases while descending a rope, losing his black baseball cap, which later led to his arrest. After the theft, Durham and accomplice Henk Bieslijn sought a fence; their first contact, Cor van Hout, was murdered on the planned handover day. They eventually sold the paintings to Italian mafia figure Raffaele Imperiale in an Amsterdam coffee shop for about 350,000 euros. Durham used the money to buy a motorcycle, a Mercedes E320, clothes, jewelry for his girlfriend, and a trip to New York. The documentary, directed by Vincent Verweij, was motivated by Durham's desire to reconcile with the museum and the public.