Gunmen grab $163m in art at Swiss museum

Three gunmen in ski masks and dark clothes burst into a museum just before closing time. After a quick run through the building, they hustled out the door and sped off with paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet valued at $163.2 million.

Authorities appealed Monday for any witnesses to help reconstruct the robbers' getaway from the E.G. Buehrle Collection, a private museum of Impressionist works whose founder had his own troubled history with stolen art.

"This is an entirely new dimension in criminal culture," police spokesman Marco Cortesi said, calling it the largest art robbery in Switzerland's history and one of the biggest ever in Europe.