Royal Museums of Fine Arts

On September 23, 1971, a strange theft took place in the Palace of Fine Arts. Tijl van Limburg, the pseudonym used by Mario Roymans, stole the painting The Love Letter by Vermeer. Through the press, he demanded 200 million Belgian francs in ransom. That money was to be deposited for the benefit of the refugees from the civil war in East Pakistan. On October 6, 1971, Roymans called again from a gas station in Hasselt with his demands to the radio, but his conversation was overheard by the gas station operator who alerted the police. After a chase, Roymans was arrested in the cow shed of the Abbey of Herkenrode. Roymans was sentenced to two years in prison, of which he served six months in the Vorst prison. Mario Roymans died in 1979 at the age of 29 under dark circumstances. His body was found along a road near Liège. According to the examining physician, he had died as a result of internal bleeding.

Dromos