The theft of The Scream by Edvard Munch
Oslo, Norway, 1994
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
In the early hours of 12 February 1994, the opening day of the Lillehammer Winter Olympics, two men propped a ladder against the facade of the National Gallery in Oslo, broke a second-floor window and took the 1893 version of The Scream by Edvard Munch. The painting had been moved to that room because of the Olympic exhibition. The alarm sounded at around 6:30 a.m., but the job took less than a minute, and the thieves left a card reading "Thanks for the poor security".
In March, the gallery refused a ransom demand of one million dollars. The Norwegian police then set up an operation with Scotland Yard's art squad and the support of the J. Paul Getty Museum: a British detective posed as a representative of the American museum interested in buying the work. On 7 May 1994 the painting was recovered undamaged in Åsgårdstrand, on Norway's southern coast. Four men were convicted in 1996, among them the leader of the group, who had already stolen another Munch work in 1988, but convictions were overturned on appeal because the British agents had entered the country under false identities.
Sources
In the game
Ladder in the Snow
An art museum in central Oslo, a Saturday in February 1994, 7:15 a.m. The Winter Games open this afternoon, and the city is full of flags and tourists.
The game borrows the painting moved near a window because of the Games, the ladder on the facade, the alarm treated as false and the ironic note left in the room. Characters, the artwork, the details of the investigation and the outcome are fiction.
