The tragic story of the Chagall theft is coming to a close.

In the wake of a thirty-year theft, a stolen Chagall painting has found its owners. A group of skilled thieves with ties to Bulgarian organized crime bypassed an alarm system thirty years ago and broke into a luxury 16th floor apartment in one of Manhattan's most prestigious neighborhoods. They were able to easily pick out the most valuable works of art, such as paintings by Chagall, Renoir, Picasso and Léger, as well as antiques from Peru and Costa Rica, jewelry and even carpets. The thieves, who left the apartment with more than a dozen paintings, disguised their entry and disappeared without a trace. The couple, who had amassed the collection over a lifetime, discovered the burglary upon returning from an annual vacation in Aspen.

The Robbery''once valued at $750,000, today worth millions.

The painting was discovered in the piece because the criminal, who was experiencing his imminent decline, now 72 years old, with ties to Bulgarian organized crime, decided to confess his crimes before he died. He hid the painting in the criminals' attic.

One of the important moments has to do with a man with a degree in fine arts, identified as Person 1, who used to work at the Heller house. After the theft, he was arrested and convicted of similar crimes - stealing artwork from other apartment buildings where he worked.

The fate of the painting turned into a true detective story. The mystery is masterful''s perfect heist has yet to be solved, particularly because the art team, which is based in Washington, D.C., is still investigating and looking for the stolen artwork, said its supervisor and the prosecutor handling the case.

The document also shows that one of the perpetrators, Person 1, had been trying for years to sell the paintings and abscond from the sale.

In 2011, they''tried to sell the painting at a gallery in Washington. However, the owner said he could not sell the painting without proof of ownership or affiliation with the Chagall school. At the time, the gallery owner recognized the painting, which was presented to him in 1989 by a man with no papers or affiliation, and from whom he also refused to buy.

Then in January last year, the 72-year-old man visited the gallery again to sell the painting to the owner. This time, however, the owner suggested he contact the police or the FBI. As it happened, the man called the FBI and in late January, he turned the painting over to agents.

The point of the complaint and the attorney for the Heller estate, Alan Scott is that the Heller heirs need to return the painting, which is related''with its sale at auction. The heirs have agreed to reimburse the insurance company for damages and related expenses, and the remainder of the proceeds from the sale are scheduled to go to the McDowell Colony, the artists' colony 80 percent, Columbia University and NYU Langone Medical Center 10 percent each.

Samuel Heller once traced the origins of this painting to oral provenance in a dissecting art description of the Lincoln World Center in 1990. He said he inherited the painting from his father, who purchased it directly from Chagall in Paris in 1913 for $50.