Breaking News : A Van Gogh Painting Stolen in Cairo On The Same day "Updated"

Vase with Viscaria

Van Gogh’s Poppy flower aka Vase with Viscaria has been stolen from Mahmoud Khalil’s museum in Giza earlier today and Farouk Hosni is extremely angry, this is what we have all known today.

 
Well from a few hours ago the Egyptian police managed to find the painting and arrest the thief in Cairo international airport in his attempt to smuggle the original painting which is worth more than $ 50 million outside the country.

 
There is not available further information about the thief or how he managed to steal the painting except that he is an Italian and he managed to replace the original Gogh’s painting with a fake one !!

 
For the record, this was not the first time or the first attempt to steal the Poppy flower from Cairo, back in the 1970s there was an attempt as I recall and the security found it before it would leave our country.

 
This is not the first time expensive historical paintings were stolen from our museums in the time of Farouk Hosni, we all remember the Mohamed Ali family’s painting theft from last year.

Mahmoud Khalil’s museum includes treasures from around the world and yet it has not enough security as it seems, where are Farouk Hosni and Zahi Hawas !!??

Updates #1: 

• Here is the official website of the museum 
• There was an accomplice to the Italian tourist, another Italian girl. 
• The police managed to catch the thief after checking the visitors' logs, already only 11 tourists visited the museum today, two of them were suspicious enough as they headed to the bathroom before leaving the museum so quickly just before the theft would be discovered.  The other 9 visitors left after the theft was searched for the canvas. As soon as the police as informed of that theft, there were strict orders from the MOI to all Egyptian ports to open their eyes to that treasure "What if it were smuggled through Al-Salloum  !!". 
• The question is how the Italian couple managed to replace the canvas when there are surveillance cameras in the museum as I know
• The painting original name is "Vase with Viscaria" still it is known in Egypt as the Poppy flowers.
• It seems that this is not the original painting after all because late writer Youssef Idris once said in 1988 that we had a fake one and the original was sold in an auction in London for $40 million !!  

 Updates #2: 

• Just a few moments ago Farouk Hosni, our minister of Culture said on TV on air that he does not know if the Police managed to restore the canvas or not, he has just heard from the media like us !!! 
• The surveillance cameras are broken 

Updates #3

• Hosni has called every on-air night talk show to insist that the painting was not recovered despite the news hit the wire services for hours now, he blamed the journalists at the airport for spreading false news !!! 
• Where is the canvas !!??
• The Cameras and the alarm systems in the museum have been broken for 3 months now !!!!