“The heist took about 3 minutes and 40 seconds,” Mr. Durham says in the documentary. “When I was done, the police were there, and I was passing by with my getaway car. Took my ski mask off, window down, and I was looking at them.” 
 
 He adds: “I could hear them on my police scanner. They didn’t know it was me.” 
 
 Mr. Durham, in details that he shares for the first time, after years of claiming innocence, brags of doing “bank jobs, safety deposit and more spectacular jobs than this.” He says he targeted the museum not because of any interest in art but simply because he could. “That’s the eye of a burglar,” he boasts. 
 
 The works are of inestimable value because they have never been to market: “View of the Sea at Scheveningen” (1882) is one of only two seascapes van Gogh painted during his years in the Netherlands, and “Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen” (1882-84), showing the church where the artist’s father was a pastor, was a gift to the artist’s mother. 
 
 (Prices for van Gogh landscape paintings at auction range from about $10 million to about $70 million.) 
 
 But Mr. Durham did not know the historical background of the paintings. He said the paintings were the smallest ones in the gallery he targeted, and closest to the hole through which he entered. He stuffed them into a bag, and escaped by sliding down a rope he and his accomplice had put in place. When he hit the ground, he came down so hard that he smashed the seascape, chipping the paint. He left behind a black baseball cap. A security guard called the police, but she was not permitted to use force to try to stop the burglars. ||||| One of two men convicted for stealing two paintings from the Van Gogh Museum in 2002, told his story to the Telegraaf over the weekend. Octave Durham told the newspaper that he and companion Henk B. actually wanted to steal the famous paintings Sunflowers and The Potato Eaters, but the first was too well guarded and the second was too large to fit through the window they broke to get into the museum. 
 
 Durham and B. eventually made off with two other paintings - Seafront at Scheveningen and Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen. These paintings were recovered from the Italian mafia last year. Durham would not tell the newspaper how much the Italian mafia paid for them. "I will not mention an amount. Otherwise I'll get a surcharge from the tax authorities", he said. 
 
 The paintings were only sold to the Italian mafia after failed attempts to sell them in the Netherlands. Durham and B. initially wanted to sell the paintings to criminal Sam Klepper, but he was assassinated shortly before the robbery. Afterwards they contacted Heineken-kidnapper Cor van Hout, but he too was assassinated before he could buy the paintings. 
 
 For years Durham denied having anything to do with the robbery in the museum in Amsterdam. He was still convicted in 2005 and sentenced to 3.5 years in prison. 
 
 After being recovered, the two paintings were initially considered evidence in the Italian authorities' case against the mafia. But in January a court ruled that they could be released and returned to the Netherlands. ||||| Play Facebook 
 
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 Two Vincent Van Gogh paintings have been recovered by police in Italy 14 years after being stolen, officials said Friday. 
 
 Police in Naples said the works — described as being of "priceless value" — were discovered during a crackdown targeting the Naples-based Camorra crime clan, The Associated Press reported. 
 
 "View of the Sea at Scheveningen," which was painted by Vincent van Gogh in 1882. 
 
 They were taken from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2002 and “appear to be in relatively good condition,” according to a news release announcing the discovery. 
 
 Thieves used a ladder to reach the roof of the attraction and broke into a building through a window. Dutch art thief Octave Durham, nicknamed "The Monkey," and an accomplice were jailed in 2004 for the crime but the paintings remained missing, The New York Times reported. 
 
 "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuene" and "View of the Sea at Scheveningen" are both from the 1880s — relatively early in Van Gogh's career. 
 
 They were found during an investigation by a specialized team within the Italian Public Prosecutions Department, the museum said. 
 
 "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen" was painted by Vincent Van Gogh in 1884 and 1885. 
 
 It was not immediately clear when they would be returned to the Netherlands. 
 
 “The criminal case, in which the paintings will be presented as burdens of proof, is still to be held because the investigation is not yet fully completed,” the release said. 
 
 Axel Rüger, director of the Van Gogh Museum, thanked Italian authorities. 
 
 “The paintings have been found! That I would be able to ever pronounce these words is something I had no longer dared to hope for,” he said in a statement. 
 
 Van Gogh was born in the Netherlands in 1853 and died in France in 1890.
– "I'm a born burglar," says Octave Durham, per the New York Times, which looks at a new documentary about Durham's notorious theft of two Vincent Van Gogh paintings. Set to be broadcast Tuesday on Dutch TV, the 45-minute special by filmmaker Vincent Verweij gets the inside scoop on the 2002 heist Durham says took less than four minutes and nabbed him two works the Times deems "of inestimable value": Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen and View of the Sea at Scheveningen. Durham, who was convicted for the burglary in 2004 and spent just over two years in prison, says he passed cops in his getaway car and brags that he'd pulled off "more spectacular jobs than this"—after years of denying he had any involvement in the theft, per Versopolis.com. In one reveal that may insult art lovers everywhere, Durham notes he didn't run off with the Van Goghs because of any particular love for the great master, or for art in general: He did it because it was an opportunity for a big get. "That's the eye of a burglar," he says. Per NLTimes.com, Durham told a Dutch paper over the weekend he'd wanted to steal two other Van Gogh paintings—Sunflowers and The Potato Eaters—but one was too big to slip out and the other was under heavy security, so he and partner Henk Bieslijn settled on the other two. The Times notes the Van Gogh Museum is still "furious" with Durham, who didn't get paid for the film, and refused to help Verweij. The filmmaker defends his choice of cinematic subject, noting, "You never see documentaries or articles about art theft from the perspective of the thief." (The Van Gogh Museum was pretty stoked when the paintings were recovered.)