in prison in Switzerland before being extradited to France. However, it took Swiss authorities 19 days to acquire the international search warrant necessary to search Breitwieser's mother's house. They found nothing, and Breitwiser did not confess until a few months later, giving authorities a detailed account of the works he had stolen. Mireille Breitwieser's destruction of the art When she heard of her son's arrest from Kleinklauss, who had been able to evade authorities, Mireille Breitwieser proceeded to destroy many of the works by cutting or carving them up, leaving the remains of the frames in the trash over a period of several weeks and forcing the shredded paintings down her garbage disposal unit. Other artifacts, such as vases, jewelry, pottery, and statuettes, were simply thrown into the nearby Rhone-Rhine Canal, where some were later recovered through dredging. She claimed that she destroyed the paintings out of anger at her son, but police believe it was to destroy incriminating evidence against him. She apparently had no inkling of the large monetary value of the works she destroyed. Police found nothing besides the cord of the stolen antique bugle when they first searched her home, and she took seven months to admit to destroying the artwork, after some pieces had washed up on the shore of the Rhine. A Swiss police officer said, "[N]ever have so many old masters been destroyed at the same time." Sentence On January 7, 2005, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment by a court in Strasbourg but only served 26 months. The day before his sentencing he attempted to hang himself, but was stopped after another inmate alerted guards. His mother also received a three-year sentence for destroying the artwork, but only served 18 months, and his ex-girlfriend received 18 months with only six to serve for receiving stolen items. Breitwieser wrote an autobiography of his exploits, titled Confessions d'un Voleur d'art ("Confessions of an Art Thief"), published in French in 2006. A German-language translation, "Bekenntnisse eines Kunstdiebes", was published by Bertelsmann, Munich in 2007. In April 2011, the police discovered 30 more stolen works during a house search. This landed him another three-year prison sentence in 2013. In February 2019, he was arrested again. He was under surveillance since 2016, when he tried to sell a paperweight on eBay, which was stolen from a museum in St. Louis. At his home the police found