Pair guilty over stolen Matisse

1 November 2012 Last updated at 09:11 GMT The Caracas museum realised the original was missing in 2003 Two people have pleaded guilty to trying to sell a $3m (£1.8m) Henri Matisse painting stolen from a museum in Venezuela nearly 10 years ago.

The pair were caught in an FBI undercover operation at a Miami hotel in July.

Pedro Antonio Marcuello Guzman, 46, faces 10 years in jail for conspiracy to transport and sell stolen property, while Maria Martha Elisa Ornelas Lazo, 50, faces five years.

The pair will be sentenced in January.

The 1925 painting Odalisque in Red Pants had been hanging in the Caracas Museum of Contemporary Art.

Replaced with forgery

The painting depicts a bare-chested woman sitting cross-legged on the floor wearing a pair of scarlet trousers.

In 2003 the museum discovered the original artwork had been replaced with a forgery after an art collector reported it was being offered for sale in New York.

A court heard Mr Guzman, from Miami, was negotiating the sale and transportation of the Matisse for approximately $740,000 (£458,000) from Mexico by Ms Ornelas Lazo.

The pair were arrested when the painting was handed over to undercover FBI agents posing as buyers in Miami.

The FBI's National Stolen Art File database lists five other missing Matisse works, including a collection of 62 sketches.

His works were also among those stolen from a museum in Rotterdam in October. Thieves also stole paintings by Monet and Picasso.

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Winehouse wedding dress stolen

By Steve Holden
Newsbeat entertainment reporter The dress Amy Winehouse wore when she married ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil has been stolen, a spokesman has confirmed.

It was taken while being kept in storage at the singer's former home in north London.

Another dress, worn by Amy Winehouse on an episode of Later... with Jools Holland, is also missing.

The Metropolitan Police say they have yet to receive a formal allegation about the thefts.

Catalogued

After the singer's death in July 2011, all her possessions were catalogued and placed in storage at her house in Camden.

Over the course of the last year, those possessions have been moved elsewhere.

Amy Winehouse's former home in Camden is now empty

The dresses are not thought to have been taken as a result of any break-in at the property.

The house is now empty and ready to be sold but still has round the clock security.

The dresses were among items earmarked for a fundraising event in New York early next year.

Other items are to be auctioned at a similar event in central London this month to raise money for the Amy Winehouse Foundation.

The charity was set up by Amy's father Mitch Winehouse.

A spokesman said: "People need to know they are not supposed to be out there on the market and they should not try to buy them.

"The dress Amy wore on the cover of Back To Black sold for £40,000 last year and the money went to the foundation, and another dress sold for £30,000 so the wedding dress could have raised as much as £100,000."

The star died in July 2011 of alcohol poisoning at the age of 27.

A verdict of misadventure was recorded after the inquest heard the singer had 416mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood.

Amy Winehouse married Blake Fielder-Civil in 2007 but they divorced in 2009

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