five years in prison for a Ukrainian art dealer

A missing Renoir and a Boudin, a Signac found by chance in kyiv: justice sentenced this Tuesday to five years in prison a Ukrainian art dealer, prosecuted for a raid in museums and auction rooms in France. Vadym Huzhva, 64, was convicted of the theft of five paintings and a rare book, committed between 2017 and 2018, from one end of France to the other. It was the theft in broad daylight of the “Port de la Rochelle”, a painting by the French impressionist Paul Signac, at the Nancy Museum of Fine Arts in May 2018, which had made it possible to go back to him. And it was also in Nancy that he was tried.

The sentence pronounced is slightly below the requisitions requested before the Specialized Interregional Court (Jirs) by the public prosecutor, Vincent Legaut. He had demanded seven years in prison and a permanent ban on the territory for the defendant.

Against his two accomplices, tried in absentia since detained in Ukraine in another case and whose involvement is more vague, the court pronounced three years of imprisonment. A fourth suspect, a woman, has not been identified. The penalties requested took into account the fact that these thefts were “prepared by specialists” and that they concern “objects of very great value”, with a “repetition, danger index in terms of recidivism”, had underlined the prosecutor .

A painting valued at 1.5 million euros

The theft and the recovery of the “Port of La Rochelle” are incredible. “It’s almost a miracle that this case comes before you,” said Alain Behr, lawyer for the city of Nancy. “Without two external cases, his chances of elucidation would have been nil,” conceded the prosecutor. The first was the theft of a painting by Auguste Renoir from an auction house in Vienna in December 2018. Vadym Huzhva was arrested by the Austrian police. In his phone are found the coordinates of two accomplices.

The French police make the link with the thefts of paintings by Eugène Boudin and Galien-Laloue from the auction room of the Château de Versailles and of a book of gouaches by Russian painters at Drouot, committed in 2017. Also missing are a another painting by Renoir stolen from the Saint-Germain-en-Laye auction house and a Giorgio De Chirico stolen from the Fabrégat museum in Béziers. In April 2019, during a search of the Ukrainian home of one of the accomplices, targeted by a criminal investigation for assassination, the painting of Paul Signac was found, by chance.

The Nancy museum will recover this painting from 1915, valued at 1.5 million euros, in September 2021. During the theft, the canvas had been carefully cut with a cutter while the frame had been left behind by the thief, considered to be a true cutting professional. The other works have not been found.

“A coincidence, not proof”

“Slanders!”, Launched several times during the debates Vadym Huzhva, getting angry at the president, vociferating against the investigating judge and claiming to be the victim of a “conspiracy”. This is also the line of defense followed by his lawyer, Samira Boudiba, who pleaded for release, believing that there was not enough evidence. Anyone who presents himself as an independent antique dealer between Ukraine and Russia has the answer to everything, in particular to explain his presence on the premises and on the dates of the flights. “The fact that he is in France each time a theft takes place is a coincidence, not proof!”, Supported the lawyer.

Opposite, the prosecution unfolded the facts attributed to the suspects: a subscription to the Gazette Drouot; scouting a few weeks before the flights; return flights and hotel reservations on the outskirts of the targeted cities; photos of artwork found in Vadym Huzhva’s phone; CCTV images revealing the same modus operandi.