What happens to looted art?

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In the world of Hollywood, the art thief has become something of a romantic legend.

But away from the big screen, art looting is big business.

From Vincenzo Peruggia, the man who stole the Mona Lisa in 1911 through to Adam Worth, the master criminal who is thought to be the inspiration behind "Moriarty" in Arthur Conan Doyle's tales of Sherlock Holmes, art thieves have been pursued across the world by police and detectives.

On Friday, two paintings by Vincent Van Gogh stolen in a 2002 heist in the Netherlands were found 14 years on after a "massive" investigation into a group linked to the Italian mafia.

The artworks were taken from Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum in December of 2002 by thieves who broke into the building using a ladder to access the roof.

Not all artworks are recovered. Caravaggio's Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence, which was taken from an oratory in Palermo in 1969, has yet to be found.

But it's not alone -- there are plenty of paintings which have disappeared -- and others which have made an unlikely return.

Madonna with the Yarnwinder

Back in 2003, the $45-50 million Leonard Da Vinci painting 'Madonna with the Yarnwinder' was stolen from the Duke of Buccleuch's home in Scotland. The painting was recovered in 2007 but the duke died a month before it was recovered.

Daring heist

In 2008, four masterpieces by Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet were stolen by masked raiders at the Buehrle Foundation museum in Switzerland.

The four paintings, "Poppies near Vetheuil" by Monet, "Count Lepic and his Daughters" by Degas, "Blossoming Chestnut Branch" by Van Gogh and "Boy in a Red Waistcoat" by Cezanne were estimated to be worth a combined $64 million.

Police recovered two of the four paintings a short time later -- the works by Monet and van Gogh. The Degas was retrieved with slight damage in 2012 and the Cezanne was found in Serbia in the same year.

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