The 18 -carat golden bathroom, at 4.8 million pounds, was arrested by the gang in the middle of the night before breaking up and selling it – with no recovery of any of the gold since the robbery 2019
Three men stole a golden toilet with millions of pounds from Blaneheim Palace before dividing it into pieces and sold it was convicted.
The 18-carat golden bathroom-an artwork insured with $ 6 million (4.75 million pounds) and weighs about 98 kg-before the gang under the cover of darkness just two days after its installation as part of an exhibition in the luxury Oxfordshire house. James Shin, 40, and his partners drove two stolen cars across the closed palace gates before 5 am on September 14, 2019. CCTV shots, who played in court, showed the trio armed with armed slopes and young men who used to storm the palace and remove the toilet completely.
Then it was loaded in the back of a stolen vehicle before the trio escapes from the scene. The planned raid ended carefully in just five minutes. A few days later, the artwork, called America, has been dismantled, and sold – with no recovery of any of the gold since then.
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“This was a bold raid that was carefully planned and implemented – but the officials were not careful enough, leaving a path of evidence in the form of forensic medicine, CCTV clips and phone data. It was a complex case for the prosecution, which involves an investigation at the national level with many surveys to determine those who were encouraged with regard to follow -up.
“While no of gold has been recovered at all – undoubtedly dismantled or dissolved and sold after a short period of its theft – we are confident that this claim played a role in disrupting the wider money crime network.”
James Shin, 40, from Oxford, admitted that he was guilty of the crime last year after the police found the DNA at the scene and golden fragments in his clothes. While Shin was one of the masterminds behind the robbery, Michael Jones, 39, played his role by conducting a survey visit in the palace in the days before the theft and was present on the night in which the toilet was stolen.
While they were placed in the trial by the prosecutors, on his first visit before the opening of the art exhibition, he took pictures from inside the window building that thieves will use to enter the palace. On the day before the raid, he took pictures of the toilet itself, lock on the toilet door and other pictures of the same window from the outside.
A few days after the robbery, Shen Farid Du, 36, called him to ask him about selling gold. Through encrypted messages, the two men talked about the “cars” and their width “26 and a half” – which said the coronary prosecution service that alludes to men obtaining 26500 pounds per kilo of stolen gold.
Today, Michael Jones, a jury at the Crown Court in Oxford, found that Michael Jones is guilty of robbery and Farid de, guilty of conspiracy to transfer or transfer criminal property. Bora Gokuk, 41, is not guilty of conspiracy to transfer or transfer criminal property.
Sheen was charged with robbery, conspiring to transfer or transfer criminal property, and to transfer or transfer criminal property earlier this year. Its DNA was found both on a heavy hammer who left at the scene and in the stolen truck used in the raid. The bottoms of the pieces that were seized at his home had hundreds of golden shrapnel on it, which were not distinguished when the toilet was made.
Men will be judged at a later time.
