Inspector Meier slides a photo of a gold medallion to Stéphane Breitwieser, promising that a confession will lead to release. Isolated and desperate after months in high-security custody, Breitwieser admits taking it. Meier produces a second photo—a gold tobacco box favored by Anne‑Catherine—and secures another admission.

Meier then spills a stack of images: an ivory flute, bronze figurine, silver goblets, even the first flintlock pistol. Realizing he has been outmaneuvered, Breitwieser confesses piece by piece until he has acknowledged 107 thefts. Spotting an open report in the folder, he learns why the items look tarnished.

The report recounts how James Lance discovered silverware in the Rhône‑Rhine Canal, prompting a large police and diver operation that partially drained a half‑mile stretch. A total of 107 works emerged—silverware, weapons, a copper-based oil painting, ivories—assessed by antiques dealer Jacques Bastian as the cache of a “real connoisseur,” valued around fifty million dollars and sent to secure storage in Colmar. The OCBC confirmed the items were all stolen yet remained baffled by the thieves’ identities and motives.

Intrigued by the canal haul, Meier obtained the photographs and used them to extract Breitwieser’s confessions. On February 7, 2002, after seventy-nine days in Lucerne, Breitwieser is put on a prison train. Surrounded by hardened inmates, he feels gaunt and defeated, unsure where he is headed and afraid matters will worsen.