TWO disgruntled holidaymakers who felt they had been offered poor service by the best hotel in Rio de Janeiro took a small statue from the lobby “in compensation” as they left for the airport.
But the unnamed Britons had more reparation than they realised — the work was a national treasure worth £250,000. The theft prompted an international police hunt to recover the Art Nouveau sculpture of a woman with bird wings which was on loan from Brazil’s National Museum of Fine Art.
Benitius Dykstra, owner of the five-star Copacabana Palace Hotel, frantically rang the police when the empty plinth was discovered.
He told officers he believed that two British guests who had complained about the service had taken the statue, created by the French sculptor Alfred Boucher in 1884, was probably already on board a flight to London.
After a series of telephone calls between police in London and Rio, officers were sent to meet the British Airways flight. They found the statue wrapped in a towel in a suitcase.
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They put it in a cardboard box cushioned with lavatory paper and staff from Orient-Express Hotels in London, which owns the Copacabana Palace, collected it from a custody suite at Heathrow. It was flown back to Brazil and returned to its spot in the hotel lobby.
A source at Heathrow said: “When they were stopped at the airport, they were stunned. They just thought it was a cheap old statue. They could not believe it when they were told it was worth £250,000. They were very apologetic.”
The two men, who have not been named, were released on police bail pending further inquiries.