Stolen

It must be the dream insurance policy: compensation for loss and the return of the goods stolen. But for security giant Chubb, it was a claim too far when wealthy art lover Michael Clarke-Jervoise demanded he be handed back a 17th century Dutch masterpiece for which they had earlier paid him £125,000 in compensation.

The importance of clear due diligence in dealings has been highlighted by an Irish court overruling the country’s statute of limitations on stolen goods in a civil case.

UK: SOTHEBY’S have denied reported claims by a gang caught in possession of stolen antiques that they had an insider working at the auction house. The theft was highlighted after the arrests of four Romanians and one Kosovan last week during a police sting to uncover an alleged plot to kidnap the celebrity Victoria Beckham.

UK: A man who stole two extremely rare atlases to remove maps and sell them individually over the Internet has been jailed for 15 months.

Thieves plagued West Country churches over the summer, stealing monumental brasses and, in one case, a misericord. Experts suspect the thefts are the work of one gang, targeting villages close to the M4 and M40. It is thought the thief must have at least one accomplice to act as lookout as several of the churches are popular with summer visitors.

A set of paintings, including two by Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens, have been stolen from a country house in Ireland that has now been targeted four times by thieves, police said.

AN ex-Cambridge University student, jailed for four years for plundering priceless historical book collections, may face a stiffer sentence unless he repays hundreds of thousands of pounds.

ROBERT Lenkiewicz, one of Britain’s most controversial artists, has been burgled for the third time in five weeks in what is widely believed to be a ‘stolen to order’ theft.

A £70,000 REWARD is being offered after five paintings worth more than £1.7m were stolen from an antiques fair in Sweden.

POLICE are casting their net farther afield in the hope of recapturing a missing mermaid, and the thieves who stole her.

Lawyers have filed a motion attempting to quash a case that has the potential to blight the entire trade in Egyptian antiquities in the United States.

UK: THE dealer charged in connection with the theft of the German Enigma cypher machine from Bletchley Park has been told he could go to jail after admitting receiving stolen goods.

UK: The trade are being warned to be on their guard following the theft of a Louis XV rococo clock worth in the region of £10,000 from Mayfair dealers Howard Antiques. At approximately 4pm on Tuesday, August 21, a man aged between 40 and 45 and of Eurasian appearance entered the Davies Street shop.

NEW YORK-based British-born dealer Adam Williams is expected to appeal against his conviction in a French court for receiving stolen property.

UK: A SOLICITOR’S clerk has been banned from his profession after a tribunal heard how he arranged the theft of valuable works of art to order.

UK: THE trial of Dennis Yates, the Nottingham-based radio specialist accused of blackmail and receiving stolen goods after an Enigma code machine was stolen from Bletchley Park Museum, may be delayed by a defence plea to move the venue.

ORIENTAL rug expert Simon Crosby had launched a global appeal after his cleaning woman made off with part of his collection.

UK: THE net surrounding the UK’s illicit art and antiquities trade has tightened with the Government signing up to an international convention to return stolen artefacts to their rightful owners.

INVALUABLE have secured a £1m injection of capital from an ethical investment fund to help develop their stolen database services further.

FRANCE: POLICE today appealed for help in tracing up to 100 bronzes and other antiques which were stolen in a £1m burglary at a Paris Gallery in June 1998.