Thieves take $164 million art works in Swiss heist

By Katie Reid

ZURICH (Reuters) - Masked robbers brandishing handguns stole four paintings by 19th Century masters worth $164 million from a Zurich museum in Switzerland's biggest art theft, police said on Monday.

Oil paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet were stolen in broad daylight on Sunday from the private Buehrle Collection in the second dramatic art theft in the area within days.

"This is the biggest robbery in Switzerland in an art museum and one of the biggest art robberies in Europe," said Peter Rueegger, head of investigations for the Zurich police.

Three men in dark clothing and masks, one of whom spoke German with a Slavic accent, forced their way into the museum and made off with the paintings in a white car, police said.

A reward of 100,000 Swiss francs was on offer for information leading to their arrest, police added.

Rueegger said the Zurich robbery could be compared to the theft of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch's "The Scream" from the Munch Museum in Oslo nearly four years ago. That work was recovered in 2006.

The robbery in Switzerland's financial capital follows the theft of two Picasso paintings -- Tete de Cheval, from 1962, and Verre et Pichet, from 1944 -- from a nearby cultural centre last week.

They said it was possible a white vehicle had also played a role in this incident and that they would investigate whether the two thefts were connected.