Havana, Cuba (CNN) -- Law enforcement officials in Cuba and the United States are investigating a theft of at least 70 works of art from the island nation with a value totaling more than $1 million, says the Miami art dealer who first reported the heist to U.S. authorities. 
 
 On Tuesday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) circulated a list of the missing artworks, which art dealer Ramon Cernuda examined and said would likely be valued at close to $1.5 million. 
 
 Cernuda first alerted law enforcement officials to the theft in February after buying a painting by a 20th-century Cuban artist for $15,000. 
 
 After researching the painting, Cernuda said he discovered the work was registered to Havana's National Museum of Fine Arts. He said he contacted officials there who, upon searching their archives, confirmed the painting and others were missing. 
 
 While no major works were stolen, Cernuda said the case was notable because art theft is relatively rare in Cuba. Museums are tightly guarded and artwork is usually inspected before it leaves the country. 
 
 "The theft is so much more complicated than the smuggling out of Cuba," Cernuda said. "To just get the art out of the museum is very complicated." 
 
 Cuban authorities have not said whether any arrests have been made, but a statement issued by the Cuban National Council of Cultural Heritage said an investigation showed the artworks were removed from their frames while in storage. 
 
 Cernuda said the same dealer in Miami who sold him the painting he purchased had another 10 Cuban artworks for sale that appeared to have been crudely cut from their frames. 
 
 "It's an obvious tell that something is going on," he said. 
 
 Cernuda said he has turned over the painting he purchased to the FBI, and he said the agency is investigating. 
 
 Despite chilly relations between the United States and Cuba, Cernuda said he expected any art that is recovered would be returned to the island. 
 
 "I am about certain it will go back," he said. "Stolen property is stolen property." ||||| HAVANA TIMES — The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published today a list of 70 artworks recently stolen from the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana. 
 
 The organization condemned the theft which it said “threatens the integrity of the seized property”, placing them at the mercy of illicit trafficking of cultural assets at the national and international level,” stated UNESCO in a press release. 
 
 Days after the story first broke in Café Fuerte, Cuban authorities confirmed the robbery, but without giving specific figures on the number of stolen pieces. 
 
 The theft of the works, mostly belonging to the artistic period known as the “Turn of the Century” on the Caribbean island (the time between 1897 and 1927), was discovered after several pieces were put on sale in Miami, home to the largest Cuban exile community . 
 
 The works on the list are mostly paintings on canvas by several artists with the most being by Cuban artist Leopoldo Romañach. 
 
 The Cuban authorities said storage facilities of the Museum of Fine Arts in Havana showed no signs of violence and that the frames were carefully repositioned. 
 
 “Access to the site was not violated, so it cannot be ascertained the exact date the theft took place,” said the National Council of Cultural Heritage in a statement in late February. 
 
 The authors of the theft cut the canvases and “neatly repositioned the frames, so that at first glance the heist would not be detected,” said the Council which asked for help to locate the stolen works. 
 
 In the days following the acknowledgement of the theft, the Cuban Minister of Culture, Rafael Bernal was summarily dismissed from his post, but no reason was given.
– They're not quite working together, but American and Cuban authorities are both looking into the theft of at least 70 artworks from a Havana museum. In the first such heist reported since the 1959 Cuban Revolution, paintings worth a total of around $1.5 million were apparently cut from their frames while in storage at the Cuban capital's National Museum of Fine Arts, reports CNN. The theft was uncovered after Miami art dealer Ramon Cernuda bought a suspicious painting and alerted both the museum and the FBI late last month; the museum then reviewed its archives and confirmed the theft. Cernuda says art theft in Cuba is extremely rare, and it is rarer still for stolen Cuban art to be found in the US. "The theft is so much more complicated than the smuggling out of Cuba," he says. "To just get the art out of the museum is very complicated." Soon after the museum acknowledged the theft, Cuba's minister of culture was fired without explanation, the Havana Times notes. Cernuda says he turned the stolen painting over to the FBI and he believes the agency will hand any recovered artworks back to Havana despite poor US-Cuban relations. "I am about certain it will go back," he says. "Stolen property is stolen property."