The RCMP say they’ve found $2,000 worth of antique goods that were stolen in September, 2011 in Shelburne County.
The items include 9 antique dolls and 21 antique colognes and after-shaves. Police said they’re owned by an elderly woman who no longer lives in Canada.
Police said the items were taken during a break in. No one has been arrested, but police said they are “assessing intelligence” in connection to the case.




Unusual theft from Art Gallery of Ballarat


A RARE decorative object connected to Australia's second Prime Minister Alfred Deakin has been stolen from the Art Gallery of Ballarat.
Gallery director Gordon Morrison said the theft of the object, a small decorative circular wooden table lid, might have resembled something from the Da Vinci Code but it was actually worthless on its own.
The tragic thing was that its removal seriously compromised the integrity and value of the table it belonged to, he said.
"You look at (the lid) and think that could be the key to something - but its not," he said.
"It's got no monetary significance and we just want it back."
The table was owned by Alfred Deakin, one of the fathers of the Federation, and Federal Member for Ballarat who was Prime Minster of Australia for three terms.
It is an example of 'treen', highly detailed and intricate micro-mosaic work in wood.
The table's creator Frederick Edwin Strangward was known for his mathematically intricate designs and the mosaic work on it contains more than two million tiny pieces of wood, some of which are less than half a millimetres thick.
Mr Morrison said he believed the theft to be a result of impulse, rather than an organised heist.
"I think it's someone on impulse has twisted it, found that it's loose and has pocketed it," he said.
"I don't think it's a criminal that has come here thinking it's a valuable object and has stolen it."

An image of the missing lid.
The rare example of Australian woodwork was given to the gallery by a Deakin descendant in 1998 and has been on public display in the Crouch Gallery, the room dedicated to the art of the Heidelberg School and the Federation era.
The lid was removed sometime between 2pm on Thursday afternoon and 2pm on Saturday afternoon.
The room the table was in is covered by CCTV and tapes of the footage from those days are being examined by the Ballarat police.
"This is an object that has no great inherent value and it is certainly not something that would be easy to sell," Mr Morrison said.
"I would appeal to whoever has it to return this important piece of our cultural heritage."
If anyone knows anything about its removal, they should contact Leading Senior Constable Dana Mollison at the Ballarat police station or call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

Jewellery and watch theft (Glastonbury)

Image
One of the stolen watches
One of the stolen watches

A reward is being offered for information leading to the recovery of jewellery and watches worth £60,000 stolen in Glastonbury.

The items were taken overnight from a van parked at the Travelodge in Wirrall Park. The owners, from Cornwall, were staying there having been to an antiques fair at the Bath and West showground.

The stolen items include valuable watches by Rolex, Omega, Patek Philippe and Zenith. Rings, chains, bracelets and brooches were among the jewellery items taken.




Mobile developer convicted in stolen antiques

 case pleads guilty in hunting lodge theft









Walker-Smith-Ambrose.jpg 
  View full size From left to right, Matthew Boykin Walker, Timothy Smith and Kristopher Joseph Ambrose pleaded guilty to federal firearms charges on Thursday, April 18, 2013, in Mobile, Alabama. Walker, who was on probation for a 2010 receiving stolen property charge, also faces possible prison time in state court.  
MOBILE, Alabama – A developer who admitted to harboring more than $500,000 in stolen antiques and furniture pleaded guilty today to a federal gun charge involving a break-in at his uncle’s hunting camp.
According to court records, Matthew Boykin Walker and co-defendant Timothy Smith went to the hunting lodge in McIntosh and stole a safe. Smith, who claims he did not know what was in the safe until they already had removed it, also pleaded guilty today.
Smith admitted to receiving money that was in the safe, although the defendants disagree about how much. Smith’s attorney maintains it was $300; Walker’s lawyer said it was $4,000.
A third man who pleaded guilty today, Kristopher Joseph Ambrose, admitted that he ground off the serial numbers of the 17 firearms. He pleaded guilty to possession of firearms without serial numbers and faces up to five year in prison.
There are other disagreements. Walker, according to defense attorney John White, maintains that it was Smith who asked him for help removing the safe in February. Smith’s plea agreement suggests that it was Walker who set the theft in motion.
From a legal standpoint, it makes little difference. Smith is guilty of possession of stolen firearms and faces up to 10 years in prison. Walker, because of his previous conviction in the antiques case, is a felon barred by law from having guns. He faces the same maximum prison term.
U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose scheduled sentencing for all three men in July.
In an interview, White said his client brought the guns to his mother’s house and called his uncle, Bob Boykin, to return the firearms.
“His uncle didn’t show up at the condo,” White said. “The police did.”
Walker, 63, pleaded guilty in 2010 to four counts of receiving stolen property that included antique marble fireplace mantles, crystal bowls, sculptures, a flat screen TV, chandeliers, a Victorian sofa and family heirlooms passed down for generations. Investigators found the items stashed in a pair of homes.
In 2011, Mobile County Circuit Judge Joseph “Rusty” Johnston imposed a 10-year suspended sentence and ordered the defendant to spend three years on probation and perform 500 hours of community service. His attorney at the time described him as extremely remorseful for his actions.
Mobile County prosecutors have filed paperwork seeking to revoke Walker’s probation and send him to prison. A hearing is set for next month.
White said he hopes the judge in that case will let his client serve the prison sentence at the same time as his federal punishment, but the attorney said he anticipates push-back from local prosecutors.
Said Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich, “We will leave it to the judge whether it’s consecutive or concurrent time. But we will definitely seek revocation.”
Walker comes from the prominent Boykin family and was a fixture in elite social circles. His son was a knight in the 2008 Mardi Gras royal court of the Mobile Carnival Association.
Walker developed subdivisions in west Mobile and co-founded a Tunica, Mississippi, casino in 1992.
Law enforcement officials found the stolen antiques and furniture at Walker’s secluded house on Jeff Hamilton Road in west Mobile County and a house he was renovating on Rochester Road near the University of South Alabama.
More than 80 of the items had been stolen from a single house on Spring Hill Avenue.
The haul from the hunting lodge was extensive: 14 shotguns, a Colt .38-caliber revolver, a Savage .380-caliber semi-automatic pistol and a Forehand & Wadsworth revolver, according to court records.

Art Nouveau trove to go under hammer in Switzerland
A employee of the "Hotel des Ventes" auction house presents Art Nouveau style vases by Galle during a press preview on April 17, 2013 at the Castle of Gingins, Western Switzerland. Nine years after an amazing theft of 15 priceless works by glass maker Emile Galle, the rest of the Art Nouveau collection of the Neumann family will be auctioned.
A employee of the "Hotel des Ventes" auction house presents Art Nouveau style vases by Galle during a press preview on April 17, 2013 at the Castle of Gingins, Western Switzerland. Nine years after an amazing theft of 15 priceless works by glass maker Emile Galle, the rest of the Art Nouveau collection of the Neumann family will be auctioned.

GENEVA — A decade after thieves stole a haul of Art Nouveau glassworks in a lightning raid on an exhibition, legitimate collectors will have a chance to bid for the remaining trove of the Swiss-based Neumann family.
Due to go under the hammer on April 27 in the medieval castle of Gingins, a hillside village overlooking Lake Geneva, the 500 lots include other glassworks, furniture and paintings.
According to Geneva's Hotel des Ventes auctioneers, who are handling next week's sale, the estimated value is between a million and 1.5 million Swiss francs (800,000-1.25 million euros, $1.1-1.6 million).
The sale was organised by the heirs of Czech-born couple Lotar Neumann, who died in 1992, and his wife Vera, who passed away earlier this year. The castle was their home.
Born in 1918, Lotar was the son of a wealthy Jewish industrialist in Prague.
He escaped Nazi Germany's clutches during World War II thanks to a false identity, and in 1948 married Vera, who was eight years his junior.
The same year, a communist regime took over what was then Czechoslovakia, and the Neumanns emigrated to Venezuela.
Starting from scratch, they founded a paint and dye factory which was to make their fortune.
Nostalgic for their European past, they had begun collecting posters of the works of Czech Art Nouveau icon Alfons Mucha, and eventually their wealth enabled them gradually to buy original pieces.
In 1960, the Neumanns decided to move back to Europe, setting up home in Switzerland and buying the Gingins castle two years later.
They continued to collect art over the ensuing decades.
Two years after Lotar's death, Vera set up the Neumann Foundation which was dedicated to putting their prize works in display in regular exhibitions in the castle.
It was as such an event in October 2004 that the thieves struck, making off with 15 works by French master glassmaker Emile Galle worth an estimated four million Swiss francs at the time.
Among them were five of Galle's dragonfly-motif cups, made in 1904 and seen as a touchstone of the Art Nouveau movement.
The gang members -- who like the stolen artworks have never been tracked down -- took just five minutes to raid the exhibition.
The shocked Neumann Foundation decided to close its doors to the public after the robbery.
In addition to the art up for auction, the castle is also on sale, with unconfirmed information suggesting it has been valued at 35 million Swiss francs.




Cocaine smuggler loses appeal against 30-year sentence

Perry Wharrie imprisoned for part in €440m Dunlough Bay drug seizure in 2007

Perry Wharrie (53) was one of four men jailed in Ireland for their part in the bungled Dunlough Bay drug-smuggling operation off Mizen Head in West Cork in July 2007. Photograph: Julien Behal/PA Wire Perry Wharrie (53) was one of four men jailed in Ireland for their part in the bungled Dunlough Bay drug-smuggling operation off Mizen Head in West Cork in July 2007. Photograph: Julien Behal/PA Wire
A member of an international organised crime gang behind the largest seizure of cocaine ever found in the State has lost his appeal against the severity of his 30-year sentence.
Perry Wharrie (53) was one of four men jailed for their part in the bungled Dunlough Bay drug-smuggling operation off Mizen Head in West Cork in July 2007. Perrrie was jailed for 30 years.
The plan to smuggle €440 million worth of cocaine into Ireland for shipment on to the UK came unstuck when a gang member put diesel in the petrol engine of their boat.
The engine cut out and the boat was left to the mercy of the waves with 1.5 tonnes of cocaine being tossed into the choppy seas of Dunlough Bay.
Wharrie, from Pyrles Lane, Loughton, Essex, was arrested two days later near Schull and was later charged along with three others in connection with the huge drugs haul.
He was convicted of possessing €440 million worth of cocaine for sale or supply following a lengthy trial at Cork Circuit Criminal Court in 2008.
Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin sentenced Wharrie to 30 years in jail along with a co-accused, Martin Wanden, of no fixed abode, while Joe Daly from Bexley, Kent was jailed for 25 years.
A fourth accused, Gerard Hagan from Hollowcroft in Merseyside, pleaded guilty to his involvement in the operation and was later jailed for 10 years.
Wharrie appealed the record sentence last February at the Court of Criminal Appeal before Mr Justice MacMenamin, Mr Justice de Valera and Mr Justice McGovern.
The three-judge court set aside two days to hear Wharrie's appeal but reserved their judgment.