How a thief swapped a famous Churchill portrait for a fake

The theft went unnoticed until August 2022, when a hotel worker noticed the frame looked different from the others on the wall and the picture was hanging crooked, according to The Associated Press.

Police found the portrait after it reappeared at a London auction house, where two unknown buyers from Italy purchased it, Ottawa police said in a news release. Police have charged Jeffrey Iain James Wood, 43, of Powassan, Ontario, with forgery, theft and trafficking in connection with the murder.

Nicola Cassinelli, a lawyer from Genoa, Italy, bought the portrait at auction for 5,292 pounds, according to the AP.

Cassinelli told the media that the auction house called him in October and advised him not to sell or transfer the portrait because of the investigation into the theft in Ottowa.

Ottawa police said in a statement that they worked closely with Italian police and the buyer of the portrait to bring it back to Canada.

Ottawa police Detective Akiva Gellar told reporters that police conducted “a very extensive investigation” that took more than two years to recover the portrait.

Gellar said much of the investigation is “still very sensitive because the matter is before the courts” and “a lot of the details of how we found it” will be made public at a ceremony in Rome on Thursday.