From Quartz:
You would think all everyone in England does is sit around the pub and plan ludicrous, elaborate heists.
Fourteen British men have been convicted of stealing artifacts
worth up to £57 million
($79 million) from museums and art houses across England in 2011-12.
The cultural objects they stole included a rhino horn and Chinese jade,
which are very lucrative when sold due to the huge demand for Chinese
artifacts at auction.
It comes soon after the largest burglary in English legal history—the
Hatton Gardens heist in London where burglars left no forensic evidence
after they cleaned out a vault, stealing some £14 million in jewels,
gold, and cash. They were dubbed as criminal masterminds—until their
capture.
“If you think the Hatton Gardens break-in was
big, this will blow that out of the water,” lead investigator Adrian
Green, of Durham Police, said, according to the BBC.
While the loot was far greater than the Hatton
Gardens heist, the museum gang’s level of criminal expertise was not
nearly as impressive.
- In the first attempted raid in January 2012, the gang hired a
man to steal a Ming dynasty sculpture at the Oriental Museum in Durham.
The hired accomplice didn’t get far—staff at the museum caught him after
he stuffed the sculpture in his rucksack.
- A month later, in what the court described
as a “fiasco,” four hired accomplices attempted to steal a rhino horn
from the Castle Museum in Norwich. The men didn’t apparently take into
account how heavy the rhino horn—valued at up to £500,000—would be and dropped it as a result. The men fled, but the police later caught one after the gang left behind a car number plate with an incriminating fingerprint.
- The gang’s luck doesn’t improve in March 2012. They hire another group of criminals to steal a rhino horn libation cup worth about £60,000
at an auction house but the public foiled them—again. Three were
arrested nearby, but a separate group of robbers did end up stealing a
bamboo cup worth £20,000.
- Things finally start to get better in April 2012; the gang has their
most successful robbery yet. Hired criminals are used to rob the
Oriental Museum in Durham again. After smashing through the wall, the
men steal a 1769 jade bowl and a porcelain figurine worth up to £2 million.
- But the good times don’t last long....
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