"Hit list of art's greatest" Stolen

Breaking News: Paris authorities scramble to figure out how someone got into the Museum of Modern Art and cut a half-billion dollars worth of paintings out of their frames and walked away with them.

Five paintings from Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani, Braque and Leger... taken out through a back, smashed window by a personseen on surveillance camera. Somehow, the security systems and guards were outsmarted by the thief or thieves.

Museam officials discovered the theft early Thursday, when they found the broken window and a broken padlock which had been cut to gain access to the five paintings.

Chatted with an Art Expert here in New York City, Nora Haime has a gallery in Manhattan. Nora told me the quote of the day, "This was like a hit list of artworks from anyone in the first two decades of the 20th Century, who matters."

Authorities have cordoned off the museum, which is across the Seine River from the Eiffel Towner... while they see if anything left behind can lead them to the criminals.

[gallery columns="5"]