A documentary which aired on Monday night (January 10) appeared to show a link between the island and an infamous art theft.

BBC4 hosted a Vincent Van Gogh night earlier this week, airing a number of documentaries about the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter.

One of the films, ’Stealing Van Gogh’, saw art historian and presenter Andrew Graham-Dixon confront the worlds of high art and serious organised crime to uncover the true story behind the greatest art heist of the 21st century.

In December 2002, two priceless and historically important paintings (’Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen’ and ’View of the Sea at Scheveningen’) were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, ’in a brutal and audacious robbery by experienced, professional thieves’.

The two thieves broke into the museum by smashing a window, and managed to nab the paintings and get out in just three minutes.

Two Dutchmen were convicted for the theft to four-and-a-half-year sentences, but the paintings were not immediately recovered.

One of them said he had sold them to a drug dealer known only as ’Pinocchio’.

The museum offered a reward of â¬100,000 for information leading to the recovery of the paintings.

After years of investigations and searches ’Pinocchio’ was eventually identified in 2016 as an Italian by the name of Raffaele Imperiale.

Both paintings were discovered by the Guardia di Finanza in a villa belonging to the Camorra drug trafficker.

Imperiale’s sidekick was subsequently jailed but Imperiale himself managed to escape to Dubai which has no extradition treaty with Italy.

However, on August 4, 2021, Mr Imperiale was indeed arrested in Dubai.

The only known photograph of him shown in the programme was taken when he was on a visit to the Isle of Man.

When showing the blurry photograph, Mr Graham-Dixon suggested it was probably taken when he was on a money laundering expedition or was here for tax purposes.

The documentary is available on BBC iPlayer now.