Fourteen men convicted of plotting to steal £57m of Chinese artefacts

The Guardiabn ^ | 2/29/2016 | Peter Walker

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Fourteen men linked to an organised crime gang have been convicted of plotting to steal rhino horn and Chinese artefacts worth up to £57m in a series of museum and auction house raids.

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In the first robbery attempt, in January 2012, a paid accomplice tried to grab a Ming dynasty sculpture at the Oriental museum in Durham. He was stopped by staff after stuffing the sculpture into a rucksack and sprinting up a staircase.

Worse was to come the next month in an attempt to take a rhino head from Norwich’s Castle museum, a raid described in court as “a fiasco”. Four thieves hired in by the gang dropped the head, which was heavier than they expected, as they ran out of the museum pursued by members of the public. They also left behind a car number plate bearing an incriminating fingerprint.

Still more chaotic scenes followed about six weeks later after more rented gang members smashed a hole in a wall at Durham’s Oriental Museum late at night. They stole a figurine and a Ming dynasty jade bowl, the latter described by police as one of the best in the world and estimated to be worth between £2m and £16m.

The robbers left the items at a pre-agreed “deposition site” on wasteland near Durham’s Meadowfield industrial estate, the trial heard, but the organising gang were unable to find them, prompting a series of frantic phone calls. Police eventually recovered the items eight days later.

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This would make a great movie, of the sort not very flattering to the criminal class. "You ****ing idiot, look what you've done now!"

[cloudmountain]

ESPECIALLY not bright when all the art dealers on the planet would be on the look-out for those items. Who would buy them from him? He’d HAVE to go through black markets and disreputable dealers...more bad news.

[Moltke]

Uh, how about a commissioned theft by some rich Chinese party? UK is being bought up by corrupt oligarchs from Russia, Arabia, Africa, China...check out the real estate stories (especially prime London properties) on the Daily Mail website...a total sell-out is going on there. The English need not apply.