In early May, 2004, Philippe Rouillé and I wrote about a burglary in
the Ghysels collection in Brussels.  I am glad to inform you that this
burglary was solved in May 2005, about a year later.

In May, 2005, a collector in Europe was contacted by a man who turned
out to be the receiver of most of the stolen instruments.  The collector
was alarmed, because he knew of the theft and because the asked price
was rather low.  He managed to retrieve the address of the stolen
property and alerted the Ghysels family.  Mr. Ghysels had to go through
much trouble to persuade the Belgian authorities for a raid, but in
this raid most of the stolen goods were found except two: a Bacigalupo
organ and an old Gavioli organ.

The police forced the receiver to mention the name of the thieves,
a family living in caravans near Brussels, who were arrested.  It
turned out that they had been tipped by their elderly father, who had
made a charity trip to the Ghysels collection!

The Ghysels family is happy to have most of the instruments back and
they thank the international community of MM friends for their help!

Hans van Oost, webmaster KDV
Netherlands