Quickest Raid Ever

A pony-tailed robber with a shotgun walked into a West-End art gallery yesterday and stole a $650,000 Picasso painting before escaping in a taxi he had ordered to wait outside.
The raid, which took only 35 seconds, was described by police as ‘most unusual’; the man-made no attempt to disguise himself from security cameras in the Lefevre Gallery, one of London’s leading dealers in Impressionist works. Detectives have offered up to $50,000 for information leading to the return of Tete la Femme, a 1939 oil portrait by Pablo Picasso of his lover, Dora Maar.
The man, described as white and in his 30s, entered the gallery mid-morning and approached an assistant, Jacquie Cartwright, to ask the price of the work which was hanging on a wall visible from the street. During their brief conversation, he opened his bag to show what appeared to be a shotgun. Mrs Cartwright, who has worked at the Bruton Street Gallery for 13 years, said, “He asked only for the price of that one picture. Then he told me he had a shotgun, and he wanted the painting. He said: “Get it off the wall for me.” I said, I couldn’t and told him to get it himself. So he did and then he ran out.”
A security guard and another member of staff, Camille Bois, 28, chased the robber but lost him in a nearby side street where the innocent taxi driver, who had originally picked him up, was waiting. Martin Summers, managing director of the gallery, said the man also threatened staff at a nearby restaurant.
He then pointed the gun at the taxi driver and forced him to drive to Park Lane and then Battersea, where, according to Mr Summers, he tried to use a telephone at a branch of Halfords. The cab went on to Wimbledon, where the robber fled after removing the painting from its plywood frame and leaving £10 for the driver.
Mr Summers refused to say whether the gallery owned the painting or was selling it for a client. Mark Dalrymple, an art expert, said, “No one is going to be able to sell it at a serious price.”