Police arrest electrician with Picassos worth £55m

A retired electrician has been arrested after a "treasure trove" of Picassos worth up to £55 million was found in his modest seaside flat.

Pierre Le Guennec, 71, says the painter gave the 271 works to him after he installed an alarm in Picasso's villa near Cannes in the early Seventies.

But when Le Guennec enquired about selling some of the previously unknown paintings he was raided by police.

"We acted on a tip-off from surviving members of Pablo Picasso's family," a police source in Cannes said. "They said that the artist could not possibly have given so many treasures away to a single electrician."

Le Guennec was in his early thirties when he first visited Picasso's home in Mougins, where he was living with his second wife, Jacqueline. He said that Picasso was so impressed by the job that he handed over sketchbooks, drawings, paintings and lithographs.

Le Guennec wrote to Claude Picasso, the artist's son to get the works authenticated, and they met in September. Claude tipped off France's Central Office for the Fight against Traffic in Cultural Goods and the artist's heirs have filed a complaint alleging receipt of stolen goods. Picasso died in 1973 aged 91.