Golden toilet worth 4.8 million pounds stolen in five minutes

A solid gold toilet worth 4.8 million pounds was stolen in a desolation at the Blenheim Palace in 2019, he heard a court in the UK on Monday. The Heist, who only lasted five minutes, involved a group of masked men, who entered the imposing house using Sledgehammers.

Toilet, an 18 carat gold art work, entitled America by the Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, was fully functional and was installed as part of an art exhibition.

However, prosecutors told Oxford Crown Court that the stolen piece was most likely broken down into smaller amounts of gold and has never been recovered.

Michael Jones, 39 years old, from Oxford, denied an accusation of burglary, while Fred Doe, 36, from Windsor, and Bora Guccuk, 41, from London, pleaded that they are not guilty that they have conspired for the transfer of criminal properties. The court was informed that a fourth suspect, James Sheen, 40 years old, from Northamptonshire, was already guilty of burglary and money laundering in April this year.

According to prosecutor Julian Christopher KC, the burglary took place in the early hours of September 14, 2019, when five people forced their way through the locked gates of the Blenheim Palace using two vehicles. Then they threw their way into the building with Sledgehammers, which were later found abandoned on the spot.

“The work of art has never been recovered. It seems to have been divided into smaller amounts of gold and never recovered,” Christopher said.

The court showed a photo taken about 17 hours before Heist, assumed by Jones, as part of what prosecutors described as “recognition for theft”.

The evidence recovered from the mobile phones belonging to Sheen, Doe and Guccuk would have shown negotiations on the sale of about 20 kg of the stolen gold, with a price of 25,632 pounds per kilogram. Guccuk, who led a jewelry business in the Hatton Garden in London, was said to have obtained an estimated profit of 3,000 pounds per kilogram of transactions.

The gold toilet weighed 98 kg and was insured for $ 6 million. At the time of theft, gold prices indicated that the raw materials were worth around 2.8 million pounds.

Blenheim Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage, is known as the birthplace of former British prime minister Winston Churchill.