Stolen Property

Shortly before daybreak Thursday, teams of South Bay police officers dressed in riot gear fanned out across Los Angeles County to look for the last few dozen suspects targeted in a sting operation that identified nearly 100 people who allegedly sold stolen property to undercover officers.

An Italian woman was released without charge early Saturday over the alleged theft of letters written by Princess Diana to her lover James Hewitt. Anna Ferretti, who until recently was Hewitt's fiancee, was questioned for 16 hours by London police about how 62 love letters found their way to a British newspaper. The Mirror newspaper said it had handed the letters, written between 1989 and 1991, to officials at Kensington Palace, the late princess' home.

Representatives of 44 nations agreed Thursday on comprehensive guidelines intended to identify artworks looted by Nazis during World War II, locate the prewar owners and settle conflicting claims to property worth billions of dollars on today's market.

The Clinton administration Wednesday urged the countries of Eastern Europe to cut through bureaucratic obstacles and promptly return religious property seized by Nazi occupiers during World War II and by the communist governments that followed them. Undersecretary of State Stuart E. Eizenstat, chief of the U.S.

Jewish groups said they will use a conference on art and property looted by Nazi Germany to press for the release of what one delegate called the "last prisoners" of World War II. The conference, sponsored by the State Department and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, brings together more than 40 countries and more than a dozen art, history, insurance and Jewish groups hoping to set informal standards for the return of stolen assets.

More than $500,000 worth of stolen Eddie Bauer products was returned to the company Wednesday after Westminster police and FBI agents raided a Laguna Hills warehouse used to fence the goods in Orange County. Two men were ordered held without bail in federal court Wednesday on charges of receiving the stolen goods, which were taken from an Eddie Bauer facility in Denver last month.

Police burst into apartments in Rome and Turin before dawn and recovered two paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and one by Paul Cezanne, resolving an art robbery that had become a major embarrassment for Italy. They arrested eight Italians, including a security guard at Rome's National Gallery of Modern Art, where gunmen walked away with the masterpieces in May. Van Gogh's "The Gardener" and "L'Arlesienne," and Cezanne's "Le Cabanon de Jourdan," an unfinished painting, were recovered.

An armed robbery in which three bulldog puppies were taken over the weekend has affirmed what bulldog lovers have feared for a while now: The wrinkly, droopy breed has become the latest, er, hot dog of choice. The stolen pups, still unnamed but worth as much as $1,500 each, were nabbed Sunday from the home of a Westchester breeder whose brother and a roommate were held at gunpoint.

An armed robbery netting three bulldog puppies over the weekend has affirmed what bulldog lovers have feared for a while now: The wrinkly, droopy breed has become the latest, er, hot dog of choice. The stolen pups, still unnamed but worth as much as $1,500 each, were nabbed Sunday from the home of a Westchester breeder whose brother and a roommate were held at gunpoint. A fourth bulldog, an adult male named Max, was lifted from a Rancho Cucamonga backyard Friday while its owners were away.

City Council candidate Ben Goldberg said he and several of his neighbors had dozens of his campaign signs ripped from their lawns. After hearing vandals outside his home early Saturday morning, Goldberg said, he jumped into his car but was unable to find them. "This is petty stuff," said Goldberg, one of seven candidates in the April 14 election for the 3rd District seat, which encompasses Belmont Shore. "This is why good people don't run. They don't need the aggravation."