By Sarah White in Amsterdam

Arthur Brand carries out a very specific type of work – unearthing priceless pieces of art which have been hidden, lost or stolen for years, decades or even centuries.

Among his greatest finds are two bronze horse sculptures hidden by Hitler and always presumed destroyed, a 1,600 year old Cypriot mosaic worth £10m and countless Renoirs, Picassos or Van Goghs.

The private investigator's efforts have quite rightly earned him the soubriquet of Indiana Jones of the art world.

In 2014, he found the world's most valuable Nazi haul of art – which included £4 million bronze horses – in a two year chase across Europe

Last year, he uncovered a 1,600 year old stolen Cypriot St Mark mosaic - worth £10m – which was by then inadvertently owned by a British couple.

In an exclusive interview with MailOnline at his home in Amsterdam, he describes in detail his methods which have seen him succeed where the authorities have failed.

Earlier this year Mr Brand, who says he's more like Inspector Clouseau, uncovered a 1,600 year old stolen Cypriot St Mark mosaic, worth £10m, which was by then owned by a British couple

His techniques are unorthodox, low key and increasingly successful, making him constantly in demand around the world.

He is a patient man and spends years at a time searching for a single piece of art, criss-crossing the world in relentless pursuit of his target.

When a piece of art is stolen, it invariably changes hands on the black market and the police investigate.

After a period of about two years - once the police investigation has inevitably failed to infiltrate this criminal underworld - Arthur gets involved.

'I ask around and eventually I'll call someone and say that I hear they have a stolen Picasso or Van Gogh or a de Lempicka or whatever it is in their possession,' he says.

'They say that they have no idea what I'm talking about and put the phone down. Then I'm on to something. Three days later they always call back.

Among his greatest finds are two bronze horse sculptures hidden by Hitler and and countless Renoirs, Picassos or Van Goghs

'They say that they had nothing to do with the original theft, but now they're stuck with this often priceless artwork because they can't hand it in or give it back, for fear of the criminals they'd traded with or for fear of investigation themselves.

'So they trust me to return the artwork and protect everyone's privacy. I always stay within the law. And as long as no one gets hurt in the process, everyone's happy.'

Reflecting on his success, he tells MailOnline: 'Everyone thinks I'm like Indiana Jones. But I'm more like Inspector Clouseau!

'On the surface I'm a private detective who cracks the world's biggest art cases like uncovering Hitler's Horses, but really I'm the biggest idiot in the world who always follows the wrong lead and suspects the wrong person, before I finally crack it.

'I generally solve 80 per cent of my cases or I'm still working on them now.

'The art world is just people lying and cheating to make money. But I'm only interested in returning art to its natural home so that it can be enjoyed for future generations.

'I work with all kinds of art dealers, criminals, coppers, Nazis and Jews. I'll hassle people until they talk to me, but I'm always honest and I keep people's confidences so they know that they're better off dealing with me than anyone else.

'All the wealthy art elite laugh at me because I'm just a simple guy who travels everywhere by bus, sometimes carrying priceless art, and I have a basic old mobile phone.

'But I can't be corrupted by anyone so that's why everyone trusts me.'

Mr Brand hit the big time by discovering the two £3m Joseph Thorak horse sculptures which were on the steps of Berlin's Reich Chancellery and were thought to have been destroyed

Mr Brand learnt his trade from Michel Van Rijn, the man said to be responsible for at least 90 per cent of global art crime before switching sides and working for London's Scotland Yard to expose the murky world of art fraud.

He initially became London-based Van Rijn's gopher – opening suspected parcel bombs sent to him and ringing his enemy, a fake coin trader, to insult him as instructed.

But Mr Brand became hooked on his teacher's 'crazy' world.

His first profile case came in 2006 when he helped reveal pieces of a suspected 1,700 year old Gospel of Judas secretly being sold on the black market.

It enraged Christians because it offered the alternative theory that Jesus had asked his trusted friend Judas to be portrayed as betraying the Son of Christ, so that Jesus could be crucified as pre-ordained.

But Mr Brand really hit the big time with the discovery of the two £3 million Joseph Thorak horse sculptures which were thought to have been destroyed.

It was while watching a documentary about Hitler in 2014 that he realised Hitler's Horses had been moved from the steps of Berlin's Reich Chancellery in the last film ever recorded of Adolf Hitler before his suicide.

This meant that the horses - which had held pride of place under Hitler's office balcony - couldn't have been destroyed in the bombing of Berlin at the end of World War Two as previously thought.

That sent him on a worldwide, two-year hunt before he found the horses among a priceless art and military treasure trove in a Nazi's garage in Bad Duerkheim, south west Germany.

After false starts, false tip-offs and exhaustive research, he identified a compound of Nazi homes in the Rhineland where police found the horses and two Gustav Klimt statues alongside a cache of Nazi tanks, rockets and weaponry.

Mr Brand's techniques are unorthodox, low key and increasingly successful, making him constantly in demand around the world. He recovered this piece by Tamara de Lempicka (pictured) by criss-crossing the world in relentless pursuit of his target

It has been called the most significant Nazi art haul – altogether priceless – since the end of the Second World War.

'I had turned established history for over 70 years on its head,' he said. 'Next year they'll be showing my discovery in Germany for the first time since the war and I'll finally get to see it all.

'This really is the most remarkable thing that I will ever do in my life.'

Mr Brand hit another high this year alongside London antiquities trader William Veres when after a two-year search across Europe they uncovered the Cypriot, 1,600 year old St Mark mosaic - worth £10m and one of the last missing pieces of Byzantine art.

It had been stolen from the country's Kanakaria Church in Nicosia after the 1974 Turkish invasion which divided Cyprus before ultimately ending up in the hands of an unsupecting British couple.

They eventually handed it over to Mr Brand in the tax exile of Monaco so he could finally return it to the Cypriot embassy.

'This was another of the greatest moments of my life,' he says.

'This is truly one of the last outstanding pieces to be returned. It's incredible to think that this piece or art survived for so long. It's part of the Cypriot peoples' soul.

'All I got for that pretty much was some pieces of the mosaic, a medal and a certificate. People around me get rich, while I get certificates!

'But I don't care about making money, all I care about is having adventures, like Indiana Jones. That's what keeps me going.'