Three men have been charged in the case: the professional burglar, Véran Tjomic, nicknamed the Spider, the antiques dealer Jean-Michel Corvez and the watchmaking expert Yonathan Birn. 

The court was told that Corvez had a Saudi buyer that was keen to acquire a painting by Léger and possibly a work by Modigliani. Tjomic said he had chosen the museum by chance after seeing some Cubist paintings through a window. He then surveyed the museum before breaking in to find the Léger, and prepared his future entry by unscrewing a window frame. He completed the job at about 3:30am on 20 May by simply climbing in. He grabbed Léger’s Nature morte au chandelier and was ready to flee, but since he heard no alarm or any other security, he took the time to explore the museum’s other rooms, easily removing Modigliani’s Femme à l’éventail and three smaller works—Picasso’s Pigeon au petit pois, a view of l’Estaque by Braque and a Fauvist Pastorale by Matisse. Tjomic said he made several trips back and forth to carry the paintings to his car and handed them over to Corvez a few hours later. The five paintings were worth an estimated €180m.

However, the accused men had not anticipated the media storm the theft would spark and found themselves burdened with five paintings they could not dispose of, since the supposed Saudi client had vanished. Corvez, who declined to give the prospective buyer’s name for fear, he said, of reprisals, also mentioned talks with mysterious Israeli lawyers.