£2.5m Of Books Stolen In ‘Mission Impossible’ Heist Recovered From Underground Romanian Lair
Some 200 “culturally significant” books including works by Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton and Goya that were stolen in a west London heist have been found buried underground in Romania.
The books were swiped in January 2017 during a burglary in Feltham, which saw thieves cut holes in the roof of the warehouse they were being stored in and abseil down, thus avoiding sensors in a Mission Impossible-style break-in.
They were recovered this week by a joint partnership with the Met and the Romanian National Police.
The books, featuring works from the seventeenth century by Italian astronomer Galileo, Newton, and the eighteenth century Spanish painter Francisco Goya, have a combined value of more than £2.5 million, but are deemed to be of international importance and are considered irreplaceable.
Over the past three years the Met has been working with officers from the Romanian National Police and Italian Carabinieri, supported by Europol and Eurojust, on the international operation to recover the books and bring the offenders to justice.
In January 2017 they were being stored in a postal transit warehouse in Feltham waiting to be sent to Las Vegas for a specialist book auction.
Detective Inspector Andy Durham, from Specialist Crime South, said: “This recovery is a perfect end to this operation and is a demonstration of successful joint working between the Met and our European law enforcement partners in Romania and Italy - and at Europol and Eurojust.
“These books are extremely valuable, but more importantly they are irreplaceable and are of great importance to international cultural heritage.
“If it wasn’t for the hard work of Detective Constable David Ward and others in this Joint Investigation Team these books would have been sadly lost to the world forever.”
The Met investigation identified the suspects involved were part of a Romanian Organised Crime Group (OCG) that were responsible for high-value warehouse burglaries across the UK.
The OCG flies members...
