Italian police on Friday (September 30) showed off two Vincent Van Gogh paintings worth millions of euros, which were stolen from an Amsterdam museum 14 years ago. <br /> <br />Police found the priceless works in a country house belonging to an alleged Italian drug smuggler during an anti-mafia operation in Naples. <br /> <br />Investigators said each artwork was worth an estimated 50 million euros ($55.85 million). <br /> <br />The Naples prosecutor said on Friday that the paintings were found "a few days ago", and that Italian and Dutch experts were called in to authenticate them. <br /> <br />The recovered works, "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen" (1884/5) and "View of the Sea at Scheveningen" (1882), are both from relatively early in Van Gogh's short, tempestuous career. <br /> <br />The paintings were found wrapped in cloth inside a safe in a country house south of Naples that belonged to Raffaele Imperiale, a 41-year-old businessman accused in January of running an international cocaine trafficking ring together with high-ranking mobsters. <br /> <br />Imperiale is a fugitive and Italian investigators suspect he is living and running a construction business in Dubai. The arrests of 11 others in January led investigators to the paintings.
