Art Hostage Services
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The Art Hostage team undertakes a wide range of services, including due diligence, collection conservation and management, risk assessment and security as well as legal issues, recovery and dispute resolution involving art and artifacts. Through partnerships with leading organizations, the Art Hostage team can provide a complete service for all aspects of collecting and protecting art.
Update: Four held over £1m antiques burglary at entrepreneur's home
Four men have been arrested in connection with a £1m robbery at the country home of an entrepreneur.
Burglars
scaled a 7ft (2m) high wall at Sir Christopher Evans' home in Bibury,
Gloucestershire, on 9 July and took jewellery and antiques.
Four
men aged 40, 41, 42 and 43, were arrested in the Cheltenham and Evesham
areas on suspicion of burglary, Gloucestershire Police said.
A force spokesman said the men remain in custody while inquiries continue,
Among
the jewellery stolen in the raid were an engagement ring belonging to
Sir Christopher's wife Lady Anne and a signet ring belonging to her late
father.
'Devastating effect'
Sir
Christopher, an internationally renowned life sciences entrepreneur and
originally from Port Talbot, South Wales, had offered a "substantial"
reward to catch those responsible.
Speaking in July, he said the couple had lived in Bibury for many years and had "never encountered anything like this before".
"The
burglary has had a particularly devastating effect on my wife Anne as
many of the pieces of jewellery, silver and ceramics have huge
sentimental value for us both," he said.
"There are many small value and large items that have been stolen but they all have the same emotional and sentimental impact."
Strange
how it keeps happening, how the greatest works of Chinese art keep
getting brazenly stolen from museums around the world. Is it a
conspiracy? Vengeance for treasures plundered years ago? We sent Alex W.
Palmer to investigate the trail of theft and the stunning rumor: Is the
Chinese government behind one of the boldest art-crime waves in
history?
The patterns of the
heists were evident only later, but their audacity was clear from the
start. The spree began in Stockholm in 2010, with cars burning in the
streets on a foggy summer evening. The fires had been lit as a
distraction, a ploy to lure the attention of the police. As the vehicles
blazed, a band of thieves raced toward the Swedish royal residence and
smashed their way into the Chinese Pavilion on the grounds of
Drottningholm Palace. There they grabbed what they wanted from the
permanent state collection of art and antiquities. Police told the press
the thieves had fled by moped to a nearby lake, ditched their bikes
into the water, and escaped by speedboat. The heist took less than six
minutes.
A month later, in Bergen,
Norway, intruders descended from a glass ceiling and plucked 56 objects
from the China Collection at the KODE Museum. Next, robbers in England
hit the Oriental Museum at Durham University, followed by a museum at
Cambridge University. Then, in 2013, the KODE was visited once more;
crooks snatched 22 additional relics that had been missed during the
first break-in.
Had they known exactly
what was happening, perhaps the security officials at the Château de
Fontainebleau, the sprawling former royal estate just outside Paris,
could have predicted that they might be next.
With
more than 1,500 rooms, the palace is a maze of opulence. But when
bandits arrived before dawn on March 1, 2015, their target was
unmistakable: the palace's grand Chinese Museum. Created by the last
empress of France, the wife of Napoleon III, the gallery was stocked
with works so rare that their value was considered incalculable.
In
recent years, however, the provenance of those treasures had become an
increasingly sensitive subject: The bulk of the museum's collection had
been pilfered from China by French soldiers in 1860 during the sack of
Beijing's Old Summer Palace.
In the low
light before daybreak, the robbers raced to the southwest wing and
shattered a window. They climbed inside, stepping over broken glass, and
swiftly went to work dismantling the empress's trove. Within seven
minutes, they were gone, along with 22 of the museum's most valuable
items: porcelain vases; a mandala made of coral, gold, and turquoise; a
Chimera in cloisonné enamel; and more.
The
police arrived quickly, but there was little to be done. Before
vanishing, the criminals had emptied a fire extinguisher, spraying its
snowy foam perhaps in the hopes that it would erase their fingerprints,
hide their footprints, and remove any lingering clue as to who they
were. “The thieves knew what they were doing and exactly what they
wanted,” the museum's president, Jean-François Hebert, told the press.
They were “probably very professional.” The theft, he added, was a
“terrible shock.” But maybe it shouldn't have been.
In
the years since the Fontainebleau heist, the robberies have continued
throughout Europe—sometimes in daring, cinematic fashion. The full scale
of the criminality is impossible to pinpoint, because many heists never
make the headlines. Security officials and museum boards are sometimes
reluctant to publicize their own failures, both to avoid embarrassment
and to save on the cost of security upgrades.
But
the thefts that were made public bear striking similarities. The
criminals are careful and professional. They often seem to be working
from a shopping list—and appear content to leave behind high-value
objects that aren't on it.
In each
case, the robbers focused their efforts on art and antiquities from
China, especially items that had been looted by foreign armies. Many of
these objects are well documented and publicly known, making them very
hard to sell and difficult to display. In most cases the pieces have not
been recovered; they seem to simply vanish.
After
that first robbery, in Stockholm, a police official told the press that
“all experience says this is an ordered job.” As the heists mounted, so
did the suspicion that they were being carried out on instructions from
abroad. But if that was true, an obvious question loomed: Who was doing
the ordering?
Security guards stand beside a vase after being sold for $14.8 million at a Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong Bobby Yip/Reuters
For much of the 20th
century, China's leaders hardly seemed to care about the country's lost
and plundered antiquities. Art was a symbol of bourgeois decadence, fit
for destruction rather than preservation. By the early 2000s, however,
China was growing rich and confident, and decidedly less Communist. The
fate of the country's plundered art was seized upon as a focus of
national concern and pride.
Suddenly a
new cadre of plutocrats—members of the country's growing club of
billionaires—began purchasing artifacts at a dizzying pace. For this new
breed of mega-rich collector, buying up Chinese art represented a
chance to flash not just incredible wealth but also exorbitant
patriotism.
But less conspicuous
campaigns to lure art back to China were initiated, too. One of the
country's most powerful corporate conglomerates, the state-run China
Poly Group, launched a shadowy program aimed at locating and recovering
lost art. Poly—an industrial giant that sells everything from gemstones
to missiles—was run by a Communist Party titan who staffed the project
with officials connected to Chinese military intelligence.
The
government, meanwhile, was sanctioning its own efforts via a web of
overlapping state agencies and Communist Party–affiliated NGOs. In 2009,
a year before the Stockholm heist, the efforts got more serious.
Beijing announced that it planned to dispatch a “treasure hunting team”
to various institutions across the U.S. and Europe. Museums were left
clueless about the purpose of the mission. Were the Chinese coming to
assess collections, to conduct research, or to reclaim objects on the
spot? More importantly, who, exactly, were the visitors gathering
information for?
When an eight-person
team arrived at New York's Metropolitan Museum, it was led by an
archaeologist and largely composed of employees from Chinese state media
and Beijing's palace museum. As the group poked around and asked about
the art on display, one participant, a researcher named Liu Yang who had
gained some notoriety for his zeal in cataloging China's lost
treasures, sleuthed through the museum's long corridors, looking for
objects he might recognize. The visit ended without incident, but the
shift in tactics was evident: China was no longer content to sit back
passively and hope for the return of its art. The hunt was on.
Soon, all across Europe, thefts began.
Bartholomew Cooke
Those looking for
China's lost art have plenty of targets. According to one widely cited
government estimate, more than 10 million antiquities have disappeared
from China since 1840. The works that mean the most to the Chinese are
the ones that left during the so-called Century of Humiliation, from
1840 to 1949, when China was repeatedly carved up by foreign powers. The
modern Communist Party has declared its intent to bring China back from
that period of prolonged decline, and the return of looted objects
serves as undeniable proof—tangible, visible, and beautiful proof—of the
country's revival.
By far the most
important pieces are those that were hauled away by British and French
troops in 1860 after the sacking of the Old Summer Palace. In China
today, it's difficult to overstate the indignity still associated with
the looting of the palace, which had served as a residence to the last
Chinese dynasty. Its gardens, art, and architecture were said to be
among the most beautiful in the world. The palace held an array of
wonders, not the least of which was a fountain adorned with 12 bronze
heads representing the animals of the Chinese zodiac.
“The government in China doesn't think they're stolen objects. They think they belong to them."
When
European troops reached the garden, the desecration of the palace became
a mad frenzy. Soldiers stripped it of everything they could carry. The
zodiac heads were wrenched from their bases and hauled away as trophies.
When the soldiers had removed all they could, they torched what
remained—retribution, they said, for the torture and murder of British
envoys who'd attempted to negotiate with the Chinese. The grounds of the
palace were so large and so intricate that the 4,500 troops needed
three days to burn everything.
Most of
the plunder was taken back to Europe and either tucked away in private
collections or presented as gifts to royal families. Queen Victoria of
Britain was given a pet Pekingese dog, the first of its kind ever seen
in Europe. Unabashed by its provenance, she named it Looty.
In
China, the memory of the Old Summer Palace's destruction remains
vivid—and intentionally so. The site has been kept as ruins, the better
to “stir feelings of national humiliation and patriotism,” as one
Chinese academic put it. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before
those feelings transformed into action.
The porcelain "chicken cup" that sold for $36 million in 2014 Aarom Tam/Getty Images
Of course, not
all of the art that's finding its way home to China is being snatched
off museum walls in the dead of night or wrangled back by aggressive
bureaucrats. The country's new elite are helping, too.
“The
Chinese don't need a coordinating campaign,” says James Ratcliffe, the
director of recoveries and general counsel at the Art Loss Register.
“There are enough Chinese collectors with a huge amount of money who
want the pride of acquiring this art.”
In
2016, for the first time, China had more billionaires than the United
States. Many of the country's nouveau riche have taken to art collecting
with a giddy enthusiasm. In 2000, China represented 1 percent of the
global-art-auction market; by 2014, it accounted for 27 percent. The
market for historical Chinese art is so frenzied that even seemingly
mundane pieces of Chinese art can electrify the scene at auction houses.
In
2010, a 16-inch Chinese vase went up for sale at an auction house in an
unremarkable suburb of London. The starting price was $800,000. Half an
hour later, the final bid—reportedly from an anonymous buyer from
mainland China—was $69.5 million. Though the provenance of this vase was
mysterious, similar objects with traceable histories of looting have
proved valuable. “Buying looted artwork has become high-street fashion
among China's elite,” Zhao Xu, the director of Beijing Poly Auction,
told China Daily.
Their
desires adhere to a nationalistic logic: The closer an object's
connection to China's ignominious defeats, the more significant its
return. In recent years, vases, bronzeware, and a host of other items
from the Old Summer Palace have all sold for millions. Behind these
purchases is almost always a well-connected Chinese billionaire eager to
demonstrate China's modern resurgence on the world stage.
In
2014, a taxi driver turned billionaire named Liu Yiqian paid $36
million for a small porcelain “chicken cup,” coveted because it was once
a part of the imperial collection. (According to the Wall Street Journal,
he completed his purchase by swiping his Amex card 24 times and
promptly stoked controversy by drinking from the dish.) A few months
later, he paid an additional $45 million for a Tibetan silk tapestry
from the Ming era. “When we are young, we are indoctrinated to believe
that the foreigners stole from us,” Liu once told The New Yorker.
“But maybe it's out of context. Whatever of ours [the foreigners]
stole, we can always snatch it back one day.” (Liu Yiqian did not
respond to requests for comment.)
Chinese billionaire Huang Nubo Nicolas Asfouri/Getty Images
Huang
Nubo has a similarly patriotic interest in China's art. Tall and
broad-shouldered, with a ruddy complexion and close-set eyes, he's the
kind of billionaire who makes other billionaires jealous: He's an
accomplished adventurer, one of the few people alive to have visited
both the North and South Poles and summited the world's seven
tallest peaks (he's topped Everest three times). When I met him at his
office in Beijing, he had just returned from an expedition in western
China, where he'd reached the top of the world's sixth-tallest mountain.
Huang
made his money by building one of the country's most powerful real
estate conglomerates, a task he undertook after spending ten years as an
official in the publicity department of the Communist Party. His
passion for Chinese culture has helped make him famous, and through an
effort called the National Treasures Coming Home campaign, he's focusing
on the reclamation of lost relics.
After
the second break-in at the KODE, Huang contacted the museum. He wanted
to fly to Bergen and tour the closed China exhibit. Once there, he was
shown a collection of marble columns taken from the Old Summer Palace.
Huang began to weep and told the museum director that the columns had no
business being displayed in Norway. He donated $1.6 million to KODE,
which he says was to upgrade its security. (A spokesman for KODE said
the agreement did not concern security.) Soon thereafter the museum
shipped seven of the marble columns back to China to be displayed at
Peking University on permanent loan. (Huang denies any connection
between his donation and the return of the columns.) The looting of the
columns and their open display in a European museum “were our disgrace,”
he told China Daily, and their return represented “dignity returned to the Chinese people.”
In
addition to visiting the KODE, Huang had toured the Château de
Fontainebleau, not long before it was robbed. I asked him what he had
heard about the theft and the rumor that the stolen relics had made
their way back to China. He tightened his face into a small smile and
laughed. “I only heard about it,” he said. “[That they might go back to
China] is a good suggestion, in terms of result, but it encourages more
stealing. I think it's because Chinese relics have good prices on the
market nowadays.”
Bartholomew Cooke
In the face of
China's repatriation campaign—and the recent robberies—museums are now
scrambling. Some have stood their ground, arguing the legitimacy of
their acquisitions or touting the value to the Chinese of sharing their
culture abroad. Others have quietly shipped crates of art back to China,
in hopes of avoiding trouble with either the thieves or the government.
In
2013, for instance, two of the famed zodiac heads, the rabbit and the
rat, from the estate of the French designer Yves Saint Laurent, were
handed over after a planned auction was scuttled. Officials in China
told Christie's, the auction house, that if the heads were ever sold
off, there would be “serious effects” on the firm's business. (Not long
after the heads were returned, Christie's became the first international
fine-art auction house to receive a license to operate independently in
China.)
Many institutions, though,
have begun beefing up security. Certainly no museum has been more
bedeviled by all of this than the KODE Museum in Bergen, Norway, on the
country's rugged southwestern coast. The twice-robbed KODE may not be a
household name, but it's apparently well-known to the people stealing
China's lost antiquities.
Located on
Bergen's picturesque central square, the museum is just three blocks
from the local police headquarters. After it was robbed for a second
time, in January 2013, Roald Eliassen was eventually hired as director
of security. Eliassen is a former cop. He's brawny and compact, with a
windburned face and messy gray hair. “I read about the thefts in the
newspaper,” he told me. “I thought, ‘How could this happen?’ Once, okay.
Twice…well, that's not good.”
During
the KODE's first robbery, in 2010, police say the alarms never even
sounded. The intruders rappelled through a glass ceiling and grabbed
dozens of pieces: imperial seals, elegant vases, and more.
Three
years later, the scheme was even more sophisticated. Just after 5 A.M.
on a Saturday, criminals set fire to two cars far from the museum. Once
the police had dispatched units to respond, two robbers entered offices
adjoining the KODE and smashed through a glass wall into the museum's
China exhibit. Cops sped to the scene, but the burglars were in and out
in two minutes. “They were very exact,” a police official told me. They
took 22 items, ignoring more valuable pieces in favor of grabbing
specific ones: delicate statues, intricate vases, imperial seals.
The
police managed to arrest six men but determined they were merely foot
soldiers, unwilling or unable to share useful information about who had
hired them. “The thieves didn't think of this themselves,” the police
official said. Eliassen offered a simple explanation of what happened:
“We had objects that somebody wanted, and he hired someone to take
them.”
When I visited Bergen, the China
exhibit was closed to the public for renovations after a security
upgrade, which included the installation of an imposing series of
sliding gates and metal doors. A guard stood watch nearby. Inside the
gallery, the space was mostly empty. Anything light enough to be carried
had been moved into storage, and the heavy items—white marble statues
and pillars and big-bellied Buddhas—were covered in clear tarp.
At
the KODE, there was a silver lining to that second heist. Amid all the
unwanted attention, authorities got a lucky tip about a piece taken in
the first break-in. They were told it had made its way back to China and
was now on display at a Shanghai airport. But even this possibility
came with its own frustrations: Bergen police lacked the power to follow
up, and Norwegian officials, wary of upsetting a delicate relationship
with China, did nothing. “If we say an item is in China, they say,
‘Prove it,’ ” said Kenneth Didriksen, the head of Norway's art-crime
unit. So, he told me, they stood down. “We don't want to insult anyone.”
Eliassen
believed that the best thing for the museum to do was to protect the
art that remained. The pieces were probably never coming back. “The
government in China doesn't think they're stolen objects,” he said.
“They think they belong to them. They won't take it seriously, won't
follow the trail. That's the biggest problem.”
Even
art-crime experts, though, are quick to acknowledge that the situation
might look different from China's perspective. Noah Charney, a professor
of art history and founder of the Association for Research into Crimes
Against Art, says that when it comes to winning back their lost art, the
Chinese can't imagine how such a thing would be wrong. “It's almost
like there's a fog around it from a criminological perspective,” he
said. “It's like another planet, in terms of the way people think about
what art is, what authenticity is, what is socially unacceptable to do.”
After Beijing’s Old Summer Palace was sacked, many of its treasures ended up at the Château de Fontainebleau, near Paris. Paul Popper/Popperfoto
Château de Fontainebleau Paul Popper/Popperfoto
On a gray day
in Beijing, I visited the grounds of the Old Summer Palace. Today the
site is a popular destination for tourists and school field trips. It
has not been rebuilt; the point of the park is its state of destruction.
I'd
come to meet with Liu Yang, who'd been a member of the treasure-hunting
delegation to the Met in New York City. In his office, Liu keeps a lone
photo on the wall—an aerial shot of the park. In it, the site looks
like a bombed-out war zone, with barren patches where statues and
monuments once stood. “It was a Chinese fairy tale,” he told me, “and it
was destroyed by foreign armies.”
Liu
is mild-mannered and scrupulously polite. For 20 years he's been a
player in China's battle to get its art back, but even today he feels
his work is just beginning. He showed me a book he'd published, a
comprehensive inventory of the palace's lost treasures. The pages were
filled with sticky notes and handwritten notations, and as he flipped
through, he pointed out photos of items held by some of the world's
best-known museums.
Of course, he'd
been to many of them, sometimes under odd circumstances. “My most
troublesome experience was at the Metropolitan Museum in New York,” Liu
said. “Everyone was very nervous. They called a Chinese lawyer and gave
me the phone so she could tell me that the museum had no items from the
Old Summer Palace and that all their items were held via legal means.”
(A spokesman for the Met denied that any such call took place.)
“We will never give up, we will never stop—no matter the effort. We
need [the Chinese] people to see that everything that belonged to us is
coming back.”
Liu says
curators in the UK were less defensive. “When I told them these objects
were taken, they barely reacted,” Liu said. “They just showed me their
records of which generals took what. They're very direct about it. They
don't hide it.”
Still, he's not
surprised when a museum clamps down once he begins sniffing around.
After a visit to the Wallace Collection, in central London, he says, he
noticed the museum's website no longer listed the objects he'd asked
about. (A spokesman for the Wallace Collection said those objects were
temporarily removed to be prepared for an exhibition and are now on
display.)
It didn't much matter; Liu
had a good idea of what was housed there. He knows the collections of
foreign museums inside and out, and museum officials know him, too, even
if they don't have much enthusiasm for his research. A few years ago,
he had visited the Château de Fontainebleau, and his book had been
published right before the sensational robbery there. After the crime,
he got a panicked phone call. “I was the first person to learn the news
about the robbery there, about 30 minutes after it happened,” he told
me. “The museum staff contacted me in very broken Chinese. They said,
‘These items were stolen right after your book was published, and your
book was the first catalog of the Old Summer Palace. Do you see a
connection?’ ” He says he politely suggested that they maybe tell other
museums to improve their security. (Officials at the Château de
Fontainebleau did not respond to requests for comment.)
Liu
seems ambivalent toward the plight of burgled museums, especially a
place like the Fontainebleau, which he says holds more looted Chinese
art than any other institution on earth and advertises the collection's
origins as plunder from the sacking of the Old Summer Palace.
“Displaying these objects in European museums is like a theft
itself—they're just showing it off without concern,” Liu said. “I know
that we won't get everything back in my lifetime,” he continued. “We
will never give up, we will never stop—no matter the effort. We need
[the Chinese] people to see that everything that belonged to us is
coming back.”
The
biggest prize of all, and the most elusive, is the set of zodiac heads
from the fountain at the Old Summer Palace, five of which remain
missing. “For 100 years we've been looking,” Liu said. Despite his
persistence, it's likely that if the 12 zodiac heads are someday
re-united and the glorious fountain is re-established, it would not be
through the work of a researcher like him, or even thanks to the big
spending of a patriotic billionaire like Huang Nubo. Instead, it would
be due to the efforts of one of China's richest, most powerful, and most
impenetrable entities, a corporation that's been in on the hunt since
the very beginning: China Poly.
A
boy views the ox bronze head of Qing Dynasty, one of the 12 Chinese
zodiac sculptures which originated from the Old Summer Palace in
Beijing. China Photos/Getty Images
Even among China's elite class of state-controlled behemoths, the China Poly Group is unique for its power and its varied pursuits. According to Fortune,
last year it had declared assets of $95.7 billion, almost twice the GDP
of Croatia. Its art-repatriation campaign—begun by its former
president, the military-intelligence chief He Ping—is now run by an
offshoot firm called Poly Culture, which manages the company's
burgeoning antiquities collection. In 2000, the same year as Poly
Culture's founding, Poly managed to buy back three of the Old Summer
Palace's zodiac heads. It's since added a fourth, while a fifth and
sixth are housed at China's National Museum and a seventh is kept at the
Capital Museum.
“The heads represent
our feelings for the entire nation; we love them and we weep for them,”
said Jiang Yingchun, the CEO of Poly Culture. We were sitting at a large
conference table high up in the company's Beijing headquarters, with a
view of the smog-drenched skyline. Jiang was reclining in a black
leather chair and smoking an e-cigarette. In the corner of the room, an
air filter hummed quietly.
“We can try
many ways to get the heads back,” he told me without much elaboration.
“The auction is just one method.” It was not the technique that
mattered, he seemed to be saying, but the result: The heads must return.
“We can't ignore that the art was taken illegally,” even if it was
being well cared for, he said. “If you kidnapped my children and then
treated them well, the crime is still not forgiven.”
Poly
has long worked hand in hand with the Chinese state and the Communist
Party. For decades the company operated as the commercial arm of the
People's Liberation Army, peddling weapons around the world while also
buying and selling art—and running a global information network to
locate lost antiquities. That operation was reportedly once described by
the company as a long-term “retrieve action” to reclaim treasures
“robbed away from China by western powers.” (Officials for the company
didn't respond to written requests to elaborate on this program or to
questions about the recent spate of art crimes.)
His
e-cigarette depleted, Jiang excused himself for another meeting and
handed me off to a curator from the Poly Museum. She proudly offered to
show me the recovered zodiac heads. At the entrance to the museum, I
noticed a wooden plaque. Many items in the collection, it announced, had
been “recovered from overseas and saved from being lost to the nation.”
The
curator guided me toward a dark, carpeted room in the rear of the
museum. Inside, each of the four revered heads—the ox, the tiger, the
monkey, and the pig—had been given its own display case, in which it sat
atop purple velvet cushioning.
“The
first time I saw them, I was so excited,” the curator told me. She spoke
in a low, reverential whisper. She was a student then and remembered
how, on the day the heads were officially returned, her entire school
had watched the ceremony on television. Students wept at their desks.
I
asked if she thought the rest would ever be returned. There had been
nothing but fakes and false leads for years, and the best guess seemed
to be that the remaining five were hidden away in private collections
somewhere in Europe. She paused and walked forward to admire the
growling bronze tiger head. “Their return is the deepest hope of the
Chinese people,” she said. “It's a very sad and hard history for us.
When the heads come back, we will finally feel the power of our
country.”
'SCUMBAG'
Vile conman who preyed on vulnerable victims in £400k scam stole man’s priceless World War One family medal collection
Daniel Clelland admitted scamming people out of items worth around £400,000 – after protesting his innocence for three years
A
MAN who had three of his great uncle’s World War One medals stolen by
an antiques dealer conman described him as a “scumbag” who preyed on
vulnerable victims.
Daniel Clelland, 44, admitted six offences of fraud by false representation at Chelmsford Crown Court on Tuesday.
This stirrup cup was one of the items victim Richard Browning-Smith had
stolen - thankfully it was recovered, but three of his great uncle's
war medals from World War One are still missing
The court heard he opened an antique shop called the Dolls House, in Harwich, and another called Scrooge, in Manningtree.
He earned his victims’ trust by initially selling items and paying them - but then the money stopped coming.
In total, Clelland admitted scamming people out of items worth around £400,000 – after protesting his innocence for three years.
Among them was a stamp collection and other goods belonging to one customer said to be worth £300,000.
Another fraud related to using £31,530 cash belonging to 64-year-old Richard Browning-Smith.
Geoffrey Wear, who served in the Essex Yeomanry, during the First World War
Mr Browning-Smith, from Manningtree, told the Sun Online: “Mr
Clelland had opened two antique shops, one in Harwick and another in
Manningtree. In the window he said he would do valuations on gold,
silver and family heirlooms.
“So I asked him to do that but the items never came back, as he stole them.
“My great uncle [Geoffrey Wear] served in World War One and there
were two medals stolen with his name, along with Essex Yeomanry,
engraved on them.
“He was also awarded the Russian medal which was given to any
Commonwealth active member of the Armed services who showed particular
deeds of valour. That was also stolen.
“Also taken was his 9 Carat gold vesta case, a vital item for
soldiers in trench warfare as this kept their matches dry as they needed
to smoke to help with nerves, especially if going over the top.
"All the medals have Geoffrey Wear on them and I'm still hopefully I will get them back somehow. He’s stolen my heritage.”
The 64-year-old, a retired insurance agent, added: “Recently I was
with the Royal British Legion in Belgium at the Menin Gate Ypres to
commemorate 100 years since the end of WW1. I could have worn these
medals to honour his name as I am my great uncle’s nearest surviving
relative.”
Mr Browning-Smith said Clelland preyed on vulnerable victims
Mr Browning-Smith said Clelland preyed on vulnerable victims.
He said: “I asked him to do the valuations for insurance purposes at
the end of November 2015. I was in a very vulnerable position as my
father had died in January 2015…I didn’t feel good at the time.
“It’s been a very stressful time, it doesn’t help my bipolar, what he
did has affected me. Mr Clelland preyed on vulnerable people. He’s
scum. When he gets sentenced, I hope he gets 20 years in prison. For
three years he was saying he was not guilty. I will go to see him get
sentenced.”
Mr Browning Smith said Clelland stole around 20 to 30 items from him,
including his father’s coin collection which was made up of around 500
to 1,000 coins.
Another victim was 79-year-old Eileen Tyrer, from Dovercourt.
She said: "My husband gave him a Penny Black worth £700 as well as silver coins.
"There was a tin box I wish I have never given him. There was quite a bit of stuff worth £3,000. It was a horrible time.
"But the police have been absolutely wonderful and I can't thank them enough."
Judge David Turner QC adjourned sentence until September 28 and told
Clelland: “The overwhelming likelihood is there will be a prison
sentence.”
He said Clelland would get credit for his pleas at the “59th minute”
because it avoided a number of “quite vulnerable people from a true
ordeal”.
How An FBI Sting Operation Helped NC Recover Its Copy Of The Bill Of Rights
From left, Deputy Attorney General Karen Blum
and state Archivist Sarah Koonts reveal North Carolina's copy of the
Bill of Rights.
Charles Harris
/ Our State
In an effort to tell more stories from throughout North Carolina, WFAE has launched a new collaboration with Our State magazine. In this report, Our State's
Jeremy Markovich has the story of a priceless document that was stolen
during the Civil War, and recovered in an FBI sting operation 138 years
later.
This
story starts in a small room, on the third floor of the old Capitol
building in Raleigh. In April of 1865, in the closing days of the Civil
War, a Union soldier came into this room, looked through cabinets and
found a folded up piece of parchment. That parchment turned out to be
North Carolina’s original copy of the Bill of Rights.
"When the
Bill of Rights was proposed in Congress, they created 14 original
copies, one for each of the original states and one that the federal
government kept," explained state archivist Sarah Koonts. "And North
Carolina's was sent to us, and it has had a long and interesting
journey."
That is an incredible understatement. Because over the
next 138 years, the document itself was missing. We now know that a
Union soldier sold the Bill of Rights to a family in Indiana for $5.
That family kept it for more than a century before selling it to an
antiques dealer named Wayne Pratt, who used to be a regular on the
Antiques Roadshow on PBS.
In 2003, Pratt and his associates tried
to sell the document to the National Constitution Center in
Philadelphia for $4 million. And that’s when then-North Carolina Gov.
Mike Easley received a surprise phone call.
"I remember being up
in the Southwest bedroom at a desk working on a State of the State
address when I got this call that Governor Rendell from Pennsylvania was
on the other line and wanted to speak to me," Easley said.
And
Pennsylvania’s governor told Easley that somebody wanted to sell a copy
of the Bill of Rights that was stolen from North Carolina.
"And I
told him I was certainly surprised to hear that it had surfaced again
because there's only two other times to my recollection,” Easley said.
“And that I certainly want to figure out a way to get it. I did not want
to give it up to Pennsylvania or anybody else, and it was our property
and we would take that position."
After that, a lot of
people get involved – including the FBI – and a special agent named
Robert Wittman, who specialized in recovering priceless documents and
works of art.
"Probably the most valuable piece that I ever
recovered was the North Carolina copy of the Bill of Rights. The value
on that has placed it close to $100 million — if it could be sold,"
Wittman said.
"In other words, if it could be brought
legitimately to market and marketed to the collector societies, it can
actually bring as much as $100 million," he added. "True reality though,
of course, is zero because it belongs to the state of North Carolina.
It's owned by the people of North Carolina. And, therefore, it can't be
sold. It can't be passed. So it's actually zero."
So it’s worth a lot and nothing at the same, "the case with all stolen art," Wittman said.
Wittman
and the FBI put together a sting operation. First, they got the
National Constitution Center's then-CEO Joe Torsella to play along.
"What
I assumed at the beginning of this was us calling and saying we’re
going to buy it, why don’t you bring it over next Tuesday," Torsella
said. "What wasn’t really clear to us, in the beginning, was how real
this was going to need to be."
It was so real that Torsella and
his attorneys negotiated a deal with Pratt, and on March 18, 2003, they
showed up in the conference room of a Philadelphia law firm with
paperwork and a check.
“So we actually had a check drawn up on the National Constitution Center,” Wittman said.
A cashier’s check for $4 million that was shown to the sellers when they arrived.
He added, “Of course it was not going to be paid, but we had it there."
Wittman
was in the room undercover playing a wealthy philanthropist. The lawyer
for the seller went into the room, looked over the paperwork and
checked out the check.
"That's when he made the phone call, it
was almost like a drug deal in some respect," he said. "You know, you
see the money then you make the phone call to have the drugs delivered.
And in this case it wasn't drugs. It was the North Carolina copy of the
Bill of Rights."
A bike messenger showed up with a cardboard carrier. Wittman opened it up and took a look.
"I
said, ‘That's really a neat looking piece, isn't it?’ It was like, ‘Wow
that's the Bill of Rights,'" Wittman said. "It was just a eureka
moment."
Right after that, someone in the room gave the signal to the five FBI agents waiting in another room to come in.
"He (the seller) was a bit surprised," Wittman recalled.
A few hours later, Governor Easley got another surprise phone call.
"And he said we got it," Easley said. "I said, 'Got what? What are you talking about?' He said, 'We got the Bill of Rights.'"
Two
weeks after that, the Bill of Rights was flown back to Raleigh on the
private jet of FBI Director Robert Mueller. It would take five years of
legal wrangling with Pratt and others before, in 2008, the North
Carolina copy of the Bill of Rights was officially declared to be
property of the state. So, where is it now?
In a vault underneath the state archives building in downtown Raleigh.
"The
main concern that we have with having this document on display all the
time is fading," Koonts said. "When it was out of the state's custody,
it was exposed to a lot of light a lot of natural and fluorescent light.
So it is extremely faded in spots and we have been advised by an
outside conservator to not have it on permanent display."
But
from time to time, it does come out as part of an exhibit, and it
usually draws a big crowd – proof that the Bill of Rights can’t belong
to one of us, but it can belong to all of us. For more on how
the North Carolina’s copy of the Bill of Rights stayed hidden for 138
years, and how it was proven that a really old piece of parchment really
belonged to the state, you can find the answers in the newest episode
of Away Message, Our State magazine’s podcast about hard to find people, places, and things.
Thieves escape by motorboat after royal jewels heist in Sweden
Two crowns and an orb dating back to the early 1600s stolen from church in Strängnäs, west of Stockholm
Jewel thieves are on the run from police in Sweden after they stole some of the country’s royal jewels from a cathedral before fleeing in a motorboat.
The daring theft occurred at about noon on Tuesday in Strängnäs, west
of Stockholm, while the cathedral was open to visitors, and a lunch
fair was being held nearby.
The robbers then made their getaway in a motorboat that was waiting
just a couple of hundred metres away on Lake Mälaren, Sweden’s third
biggest lake, police said.
The local news channel Aftonbladet reported the thieves stole two
crowns and an orb, adorned with gold, precious stones and pearls that
come from the funeral regalia of Charles IX and Kristina the Elder,
dating back to the early 1600s.
Witness Tom Rowell, who is getting married in the cathedral next
week, told Aftonbladet he saw two men run from the building, jump into a
small white motorboat and speed away.
“We contacted the police and told them and they told us that
something had been taken from the cathedral,” he said. “I knew
immediately they were burglars because of the way they were behaving.”
“It’s despicable that people would steal from a holy building and a historical building,” said Rowell.
It is believed the thieves fled via the vast system of lakes west of
Stockholm. Police have mobilised a huge search operation with a
helicopter and boats to find the men and recover the items but have so
far been unsuccessful.
“It’s 1-0 to them right now,” Thomas Agnevik, a police spokesman,
told Aftonbladet. “We want to spread information and pictures of these
items so that they can be identified as stolen objects.”
King Karl IX died in 1611 and his wife Queen Kristina in 1625. The
items are priceless and police said that the objects would be very hard
to sell on the open market.
“What usually happens with this type of object is that they are
recovered sooner or later, because there are very few people who are
prepared to handle such items,” Agnevik said. “We have high hopes of
getting them back.”
Police and cathedral officials said they did not know the value of
the objects that were stolen. “It’s too difficult to translate these
things into some kind of value. It’s such a unique object,” said
Agnevik.
Catharina Fröjd, who works at Strängnäs cathedral, called the theft “an enormous loss in cultural value and economic value”.
Maria Ellior of the Swedish police’s National Operations Department
told Sweden’s TT news agency the items would be “impossible to sell”.
Police release CCTV of suspects in £1m burglary case
Thieves climbed a two-metre high wall to steal antiques from the country home of a multi-millionaire entrepreneur.
The
four suspects, who were captured on CCTV, raided the home of Prof Sir
Christopher Evans in Bibury, Gloucestershire, on 9 July and took diamond
rings, tiaras and bracelets.
The theft had a "devastating" effect on his wife Lady Anne, due to the sentimental nature of the items.
A "substantial cash reward" has been offered for information.
The
CCTV footage captured the gang carrying items in a log basket across
the grounds before putting them in a silver or grey Audi S5 and heading
towards Cirencester.
Antique items taken include diamond rings,
gold brooches, a tiara, a Cartier bracelet, a choker, silver
candlesticks and three Art Nouveau silver rose bowls.
It is
estimated the items stolen in the burglary - which happened between
17:00 and 20:00 on Monday 9 July - have a value of at least £1m.
In
a statement, Sir Christopher, an internationally renowned life sciences
entrepreneur originally from Port Talbot, said: "The real pain comes
from what these stolen items mean and symbolise in our lives.
"Anne's engagement ring was her late father's signet ring - the only
thing she has left of him. The diamond ring I bought my wife when our
first child was born cost almost our entire savings at that point."
He
added the couple had "always taken security around the property very
seriously and we have obviously stepped up security with 24-hour dog
patrols around the property".
Det Con Faye Satchwell-Bennett, from
Gloucestershire Constabulary, said the burglary has had a "marked
impact" on the victims, and asked that antiques dealers be on the
lookout for any of the items.
Former mobster may hold clue to recovery of stolen Caravaggio
The Nativity was stolen in 1969 and could have been hidden in Switzerland
Hopes of solving one of the worst art crimes in history were
reignited last night, after Italian investigators announced they had
received new information.
Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence, a Caravaggio masterpiece that was stolen in 1969, could be being hidden in Switzerland after it fell into the hands of organised crime, the head of Italy’s anti-mafia commission said on Thursday.
The new lead on the whereabouts of the 17th-century painting – a
depiction of the newborn Christ on a bed of straw, painted in the
chiaroscuro technique – came from a former mobster-turned-informant, who
revealed to Italian investigators that it had once been held by Gaetano
Badalamenti, a Sicilian “boss of bosses” who was known as one of the
ringleaders of an infamous heroin trafficking network in the US called
the Pizza Operation.
Investigators announced this week that Gaetano Grado, the mafia
informant, said Badalamenti had been put in touch with an art dealer in
Switzerland after obtaining the work – also known as The Adoration –
from another mafia boss. Badalamenti was arrested in 1984 under the
leadership of the then US attorney in New York, Rudolph Giuliani, and
was accused and convicted of helping to bring $1.65bn in heroin into the
US. He died in a Massachusetts hospital in 2004.
The fate of The Nativity has been a subject of speculation for nearly
half a century, ever since two criminals stole the painting out of San
Lorenzo Oratory in Palermo, where they used razors to cut the painting
out of its frame.
Among theories that have captured the imagination of art history
buffs is that the painting – which was long believed to have been stolen
by elements of the Sicilian mafia – may have been left to rot in a barn
and was eaten by rats.
But this week’s news suggested it could yet be recovered.
Rosy Bindi, the head of Italy’s national anti-mafia commission, said
new evidence suggested that The Nativity was intact and could be in
Switzerland, after being sold to art traffickers there.
“We have collected enough evidence to launch a new investigation and
ask the collaboration of foreign authorities, especially to the Swiss
ones,” said Bindi. “We hope to find it and bring it back to its home in
Palermo.”
The mafia has long been known to have an interest in stealing precious artwork and using it as a form of collateral.
Caravaggio’s masterpiece was thought to have been painted by the old master in Rome and later moved to Sicily.
Leoluca Orlando, the mayor of Palermo, who has helped transform the
Sicilian capital from a mafia stronghold to a European capital of
culture, said the theft of the painting had dealt a blow to the city at a
time – in 1969 – when it was dominated by mobsters and godfathers.
“Today this city has changed and is demanding back everything the
mafia took away from it,” he said. “Even getting back a small piece of
it would be considered a victory.”
What’s the motive for museum thefts?
Gold reliquary containing Anne of Brittany's heart. Photo: Guillaume Souvant/AFP/Getty Images
Two recent museum thefts can be taken to illustrate the thinking behind such crimes. One, in Nantes,
saw thieves snatch a 16th-century solid gold reliquary containing the
preserved heart of a French queen from the Thomas-Dobrée museum. The
other, in Bath, involved the theft of Chinese jade and gold from the Museum of East Asian Art.
The Nantes theft was carried out in the night between 13 and 14
April, with the thieves breaking in through a window. Although the loss
of the heart of Anne of Brittany, which had only gone back on display on
the Tuesday of the preceding week, attracted the majority of attention,
the thieves also took
a range of gold coins and medals and a gilt sculpture of a Hindu deity –
the latter presumably in the mistaken belief that it too was gold. This
theft appears to be a prime example of opportunism. The return to
display of the reliquary presumably drew the attention of the thieves
and they then took the first available opportunity to take it, and other
items that appeared valuable to them at the same time. Little planning
was presumably carried out if amongst their haul of gold was a gilt
sculpture of far lower financial value. The fact that the reliquary was
subsequently buried just outside Saint Nazaire (a nearby town), from
where it was recovered after police were led to it following two
arrests, indicates that it is unlikely that the thieves had thought
beyond the initial ‘smash and grab’ element of their crime and had not
considered how to dispose of their haul.
In contrast – although superficially similar in that the thieves
broke in through a window during the early hours of the morning – the
theft from the Museum of East Asian Art in Bath on 17 April appears to
have been highly targeted. The pieces taken seem to have been selected
based on their quality and cultural significance, rather than simply
their material, which ranged from jade to soapstone to zitan wood,
or obvious financial value. The thieves made their selection of objects
rapidly and fled the scene in under five minutes before the police
could arrive, indicating that significant planning must have gone into
the robbery. Again in contrast to the Nantes theft, as yet it appears
that none of the material stolen has been recovered, nor have any
arrests been made.
This is not the first time that a European museum has suffered from
what appears to be a targeted theft of Chinese material. Similar thefts
have taken place over the last decade in Durham, at the Fitzwilliam
in Cambridge, and at the Château de Fontainebleau. This kind of crime
appears to be carried out with a specific view to then selling the
pieces stolen to the Chinese market where it is relatively easy to find a
buyer, and the chances of a piece being identified are far lower than
if it were offered to the Western art market.
Sadly, museums are particularly vulnerable to targeted thefts such as
this. Their very nature, with publicly listed catalogues of their
collections (the full collection of the Museum of East Asian Art is
available online), and outreach programs to ensure that people are aware
of their existence and holdings, means that for those who are seeking
particular types of item and are prepared to secure them through illicit
means they are almost a shop window for criminals. It is essential that
museums resist the temptation to keep their collections private, but
their public nature does mean that it is also essential to factor in
security when planning exhibitions, building works, and storage.
Equally, museums remain vulnerable to opportunistic theft of pieces
on display such as appears to have been the case in Nantes. It is rare,
but criminals see the pieces within museums as valuable, and thus worth
stealing if an opportunity to do so arises. As in this case though, they
rarely have a plan for how to turn that value into cash, and thus end
up hiding the items when it becomes clear that they are not as easy to
fence as they might have hoped.
Ultimately, for the general public, historians, and museums
themselves, the outcomes of these thefts are often sadly
indistinguishable: the loss of items integral to their collections.
Tackling museum theft is dependent upon financial resources for security
and policing, but for museums, especially those with lower budgets, an
increased awareness of the types of items likely to be liable to
targeted theft, and of the risks of opportunistic theft prompted by
publicity, is well worth keeping in mind.
Want your stolen portrait back? Bring us £100,000 cash: What
gangsters told Francis Bacon after taking his famous likeness, painted
by Lucian Freud, from Berlin art gallery 30 years ago
The masterpiece Portrait Of Francis Bacon disappeared 30 years ago from Berlin
Mail on Sunday can reveal that Bacon received a ransom demand a year later
Barry
Joule, Bacon's close friend and neighbour in London's South Kensington,
has now revealed that the artist received a phone call in his studio
from 'a tough-sounding East End man, probably an associate of the
Krays'
It is
one of the art world's great unsolved mysteries – the daring theft of
Lucian Freud's portrait of fellow artist Francis Bacon.
The
masterpiece, Portrait Of Francis Bacon, disappeared without trace after
it was removed from its wire frame and spirited out of Berlin's National Gallery 30 years ago.
But
The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Bacon received a ransom demand a
year later in 1989 and was apparently poised to recover the work – only
for the operation to be wrecked by a police blunder.
+3
Portrait Of Francis Bacon was spirited out of Berlin's National Gallery 30 years ago. Pictured: Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud
Barry
Joule, Bacon's close friend and neighbour in London's South Kensington,
has now revealed that the artist received a phone call in his studio
from 'a tough-sounding East End man, probably an associate of the
Krays'.
During the 1960s, Bacon fraternised with gangsters, among them Ronnie Kray.
Joule recalls: '[The gangster] told
him, 'If you want to get yer face picture back, get £100K together and
wait by the phone for a call at noon exactly.' '
Francis
called Joule who drove his black Porsche to pick up Bacon from his
studio and take him to his flat. Even though he didn't own the painting,
Bacon then panicked and stuffed £140,000 into a satchel, reappearing
'sweating and nervous'.
They argued
over whether to contact police but Bacon was 'dead set against doing
that' because he still felt aggrieved by a 1968 drugs bust involving his
then lover, George Dyer.
+3
People look towards the wild
west-style wanted poster showing the reward for the return of the
portrait of the late British artist Francis Bacon in downtown Berlin
June in 2001
Instead he alerted
the head of security at the Tate gallery, which had bought the picture
in 1952 from Freud and had loaned it to the German museum in 1988 when
it was stolen.
Then they went back to
the studio to await the noon call, but it never came. Leaving the studio
several hours later the two men spotted 'three undercover policemen' in
a Ford Fiesta. Joule said they all had their 'heads buried in
newspapers'.
Convinced the gangsters must also have spotted them, Bacon shouted angrily at the officers.
For
weeks afterwards, Bacon 'remained paranoid that the Krays and
associates would be 'out to get me for grassing to the police',' said
Joule, who added: 'If it wasn't for policemen sitting in their car right
outside the building, Francis might have got the stolen painting back.'
In a recorded interview with Joule three months after the ransom
blunder, Bacon spoke of 'how much the police have gone down in my
estimation'.
+3
Bacon (pictured) 'remained paranoid that the Krays and associates would be 'out to get me for grassing to the police'
The
7in x 5in oil on copper was one of the few Freud paintings Bacon really
liked, so much so he kept a photograph of it in his kitchen.
Freud
later plastered Berlin with 'Wanted' posters of the image, offering a
£100,000 reward for its recovery so he could include it in a
retrospective of his work.
Although the
Tate has never claimed the insurance money, because it has hoped to be
reunited with the painting, Bacon, who died in 1992, was more
pessimistic. 'Most likely it was burnt,' he says on the recording.
The Tate continues to list the painting in its catalogue, simply noting 'not on display'.
In 2004, Joule gave the Tate 1,200 Bacon sketches. They were then valued at about £20million.
He
kept about 120 sketches, and he is lending some to an exhibition in
Italy, at the Foundation Sorrento museum, in Sorrento, which opens today
and runs until October 21.
Full extent of burglary at Bath’s Museum of East Asian Art revealed
With the value of Chinese antiquities on the rise, police suspect the items removed were stolen to order
Some of the objects stolen from the Bath Museum of East Asian ArtAvon and Somerset Police
A complete list of the 48 objects stolen from Bath’s Museum of East Asian Art has now been released,
following a burglary on 17 April. These details reveal just how serious
the loss has been. The stolen items include 22 jades, 10 ceramics and a
Tang (618-907AD) marriage mirror. Three other objects were damaged, but
not taken.
The burglary
occurred at 1.20am, when four masked men broke into the museum, which
is in a restored Georgian townhouse in Bath, in south-west England. They
entered through a first-floor window, smashing seven display cases.
A
police spokesman commented that “due to the items stolen and the speed
of the burglary we suspect this to be a targeted attack with the
artefacts possibly stolen to order”. The financial value of Chinese
antiquities has risen greatly in recent few years due to growing demand
in China. The stolen Bath objects could already have been smuggled out
to the Far East.
Immediately
after the Bath theft, details of six major items were released: a set
of 14 gold belt plaques, a jade monkey, a jade sculpture of mandarin
ducks, an inlaid wooden box, a soapstone figure of the scholar Dongfang
Shuo and a Jizhou stoneware vase. Information on the other 42 pieces has
now been released.
In
2012, the Museum of East Asian Art was targeted by three thieves while
the building was open to visitors. An alarm sounded and the men fled.
The
latest theft has been particularly distressing for Brian McElney, a
retired lawyer from Hong Kong who moved near Bath and set up the museum
in 1993. With 2,000 items, it is the UK’s only museum dedicated to East
and South-East Asian art.
Although
the museum reopened on 5 May, the first floor remains closed. A
fundraising appeal has been launched to help with the costs of replacing
the damaged cases and reopening the display.
Police seek man in connection with Masterpiece fair jewellery theft
The Metropolitan Police are trying to trace the
whereabouts of a man wanted in connection with a high-value theft of
jewellery at last year’s ‘Masterpiece London’ fair.
Police
have released this image of a man they are trying to trace in
connection the theft of three pieces of jewellery at last year’s
‘Masterpiece London’ fair.
They have released an image of the man they believe to be
Vinko Osmakcic, a Croatian national thought to be responsible for a
number of high-value diamond thefts throughout Europe.
At the 2017 Masterpiece fair at the Royal Hospital Chelsea,
three rings were stolen with a combined value of over £2m from the stand
of Switzerland-based jewellery dealer Boghossian.
The ‘Masterpiece London’ fair takes place annually in Chelsea.
Det Sgt Chris Taylor from Kensington and Chelsea CID, who is leading
the investigation, said: “This was a well-planned and audacious theft
committed in the middle of a busy art fair.
"We are re-releasing the image of Mr Osmakcic in an attempt to trace
him. It is highly likely that Mr Osmakcic may be out of the UK, possibly
in Europe. He may also be known by the following names: Vinko Tomic or
Juro Markelic.”
The items taken were a cushion-shaped diamond ring, a vivid yellow
cushion-shaped diamond ring encased in smaller oval and round-shaped
diamonds, an emerald-cut diamond ring with purple and pink stones, and
four pear-shaped diamonds. All three rings have diamond-encrusted bands.
Six-day remand for suspected ‘Pink Panther’ member
A man, 48, suspected to be a member of the international ‘Pink
Panther’ gang, was remanded for six days by the Limassol District Court
on Saturday.
On Friday, police arrested the man from Montenegro for armed robbery
on a Limassol jewellery shop almost ten years ago. An international
arrest warrant was also issued for a second man regarding the same case.
Authorities issued a European arrest warrant for the 48-year-old
suspected of robbing €212,000 worth of jewellery from the shop on
February 28, 2009.
The man was initially arrested in Spain, on March 1, and following
the cooperation of the Spanish authorities, Cyprus’ Interpol, and the
Limassol police, he was brought to the island on Friday afternoon, where
he was arrested.
Police are continuing their investigations.
Interpol ran an operation on the Pink Panthers gang from 2007 to
2016, and according to the international authority the network is
suspected to have carried out approximately 380 armed robberies from
1999 to 2015.
The organisation is believed to have targeted high-end jewellery
stores, and the combined value of their robberies is estimated to have
been approximately €334 million.
Stolen £1m painting returned to owners
Sir Stanley Spencer at work in his studio in Cookham (PA)
A £1 million painting stolen six years ago has been returned to its owners after it was discovered in a drug dealer's den.
The
work, by Sir Stanley Spencer and titled Cookham from Englefield, was
taken from the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Berkshire, in 2012.
Its
whereabouts remained a mystery until police arrested Harry Fisher, 28,
in June last year after finding a kilogram of cocaine and £30,000 in
cash in his Mercedes.
Officers discovered the artwork under a bed
next to three kilograms of cocaine and 15,000 ecstasy tablets when they
searched his flat in Kingston-upon-Thames, west London.
A
further raid on his family home in Fulham found more Class A drugs,
making a total street value of £450,000, and £40,000 in cash.
Fisher
was jailed for eight years and eight months at Kingston Crown Court in
October, having pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply Class A drugs,
acquiring criminal property and handling stolen goods, Scotland Yard
said.
His passenger at the time of arrest, Zak Lal, 32, of
Rochester, Kent, was jailed for five years and eight months after
admitting conspiracy to supply Class A drugs, acquiring criminal
property and possession of an offensive weapon, police said.
Jailed: Harry Fisher (left) and Zak Lal (Met Police/PA)The
Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said the
painting's owners, who were "devastated" at the loss, were finally
reunited with the artwork last month.
Arts Minister Michael Ellis
said: "Spencer is one our most renowned painters and a true great of the
20th century. It is wonderful that this story has had a happy ending
and the painting has been returned to its rightful owners."
The £1 million stolen painting by Sir Stanley Spencer (Met Police/PA)Detective
Constable Sophie Hayes, of the Metropolitan Police's art and antiques
unit, said: "The art and antiques unit was delighted to assist with the
recovery and return of this important painting.
"The circumstances of its recovery underline the links between cultural heritage crime and wider criminality.
"The
fact that the painting was stolen five years before it was recovered
did not hinder a prosecution for handling stolen goods, demonstrating
the Met will pursue these matters wherever possible, no matter how much
time has elapsed."
Described by the Stanley Spencer Gallery
gallery as one of "our greatest British artists", Sir Stanley often used
the Berkshire village of Cookham as inspiration for his work during a
45-year career.
He died in 1959.
