[MSN] Police have detained the husband and son of a museum curator on suspicion of stealing hundreds of artworks from Russia's famed Hermitage Museum.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

Art theft: curator's husband, son held


ST PETERSBURG: Police have detained the husband and son of a museum curator
on suspicion of stealing hundreds of artworks from Russia's famed Hermitage
Museum.

They have confessed to stealing about $US5 million ($6.5 million) worth of
artefacts over six years with the help of a member of the museum staff who
is now dead, Interfax news agency reports.

"Two people suspected of stealing exhibits from the State Hermitage
Collections were detained overnight," the agency reported on Saturday.
Police could not confirm the report.

The Hermitage in St Petersburg is home to a massive collection of sculpture,
paintings and historic artefacts started by Catherine the Great in 1764.

Interfax said one of the suspects was married to Larisa Zavadskaya, a
curator who died suddenly at work during an audit of the Hermitage
collection that uncovered the thefts. It said the other was her son.

Russia's Channel One television station said detectives searching the
suspects' property had found pawnbrokers' receipts for items that matched
some of the stolen artefacts. Neither suspect has yet been charged.

The missing items are mainly silver and enamel pieces from the Middle Ages
and 19th century.

"We cannot comment on details of this investigation but we can say that
there has been significant progress," Boris Boyarskov, head of Russia's
state heritage watchdog, told Channel One.

Investigators last week recovered one of the missing items, the icon of the
Church of All Saints, in a rubbish bin near a police office in St Petersburg
after an anonymous phone tip-off.

The thefts came to light when curators carried out their first comprehensive
inventory of the museum in decades.

"Our inquiries show that the standard of [security] in this important museum
is not as high as one would like," Mr Boyarskov said.

Museum staff have asked dealers and collectors to help them recover the
stolen artworks. A Moscow antiques dealer handed in a gold and silver-plated
chalice on Friday that had come from the Hermitage.

Reuters