A fashion publicist was lured from Milan to New York by undercover police who then arrested and charged him with stealing a $150,000 (pounds 98,000) work by Salvador Dali from a Manhattan gallery.
Phivos Lampros Istavrioglou, 29, from Greece, is accused of taking the Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio, 1949, by simply removing it from the wall at the Venus Over Manhattan gallery last June and placing it inside a shopping bag before leaving.
Days later, it was mailed back to the gallery in a cardboard tube, anonymously, from Greece. Mr Istavrioglou was allegedly identified by police after his fingerprints were lifted from the packaging in which the painting was returned.
Police matched the fingerprints to ones already on file after a theft in New York last year.
All that was required was for police to get Mr Istavrioglou back to the US. An undercover officer reportedly posed as the manager of an art gallery claiming to be interested in hiring Mr Istavrioglou, who at the time was in charge of media relations at the Moncler clothing company. He flew to New York to speak to the "gallery manager" about the job but was arrested on landing.
Announcing the charges of grand larceny, the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr said, "It was almost surreal how this theft was committed - a thief is accused of putting a valuable Salvador Dali drawing into a shopping bag in the middle of the afternoon, in full view of surveillance cameras."
Mr Istavrioglou pleaded not guilty in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday.
He is due back in court next week.
