On the morning of 13 March thieves entered the church of Santa Maria Maddalena in the village of Castelnuovo Magra, a small commune located about 90 kilometers southeast of Genoa. They smashed the glass window protecting a Crucifixion by Pieter Brueghel the Younger and took it. Little did they know that the local police had already been tipped of and substituted a copy a few weeks earlier. The police said that the thieves were likely working on commission.

According to the Italian daily La Repubblica, the painting was stolen by local criminals once before in 1979.

For more about this story see this news item on Artnet.com.