Thieves steal 10 paintings in Brussels museum raid

Thieves stole 10 paintings worth a total of €1.5m in a swift nighttime burglary at a Brussels museum, writes Reuters’ Clément Rossignol. In the early hours of Tuesday, the thieves broke a window on the ground floor of the Van Buuren museum in Uccle and, even though the alarm was triggered, managed to escape before the police arrived. "The whole thing only lasted two minutes and three seconds," said Isabelle Anspach, the curator of the museum. The most expensive paintings were ‘The Thinker’ by Dutch artist Kees van Dongen (pictured) and ‘Shrimps and Shells’ by Belgian painter James Ensor, Anspach said. Prosecutors said two witnesses saw the thieves speeding off in a BMW.