Art World Meets Underworld: come il boss della droga “ha acquistato € 15 milioni di Frans Hals”

A stolen masterpiece by Frans Hals was bought in an underworld art auction by a Belgian drug boss to keep “his woman out of jail”, with the alleged cocaine kingpin hoping to use the painting as a bargaining chip with prosecutors.

Flor Bressers, 38, who prosecutors accuse of being one of the biggest cocaine smugglers in Belgium, is said to have paid €550,000 for the 1626 masterpiece by the Dutch painter, *Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer*, which was worth at least €15 million at the time. He is claimed to have bought the painting in September 2020, weeks after it was stolen from a Dutch museum.

At the time of the alleged purchase, prosecutors said, Bressers was on the run after being sentenced to four years for violent theft, extortion with weapons and unlawful deprivation of liberty, including “very violent acts” against a victim, a high-ranking drug criminal