WATCH ABOVE: US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have formally repatriated a stolen painting by Pablo Picasso entitled “La Couiffeuse.” French and US officials at the French Embassy in Washington, DC on Thursday displayed the prized painting, which was discovered missing in 2001.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. government has formally returned a painting by Pablo Picasso valued at $15 million that had been stolen from a Paris museum more than a decade ago and seized by immigration officials late last year in New Jersey.
The director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Sarah Saldana, officially repatriated the artwork, titled “The Hairdresser,” during a ceremony Thursday at the French Embassy in Washington.
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The painting was on its way from Belgium to the New York borough of Queens when it was identified and seized in Newark, New Jersey, last December.
Officials say the package aroused suspicion because it was heading for a climate-controlled storage facility. That seemed to be a peculiar destination for a package carrying French words suggesting that it contained a $37 Christmas gift.
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