Law, crime and regulation

THE owners of a mid-18th century cello by Tomasso and Lorenzo Carcassi of Florence have appealed for its safe return following a theft in North Finchley.

THE lengthy compensation payment process in the Sotheby’s-Christie’s price-fixing case looks set to drag on as the validity of every claim is determined.

CORNISH Ware fakes are becoming more sophisticated.

AUCTIONEERS and dealers in the south east are being warned by police to be alert to a man who has bounced cheques in a succession of salerooms in East Anglia.

THAMES Valley Police urgently want to trace the man pictured right, in connection with a serious offence in Oxfordshire.

SIX masked raiders broke into the South Cotswolds Antiques Fair at Westonbirt School, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire around 3am on the morning of Sunday August 15 and escaped with an estimated £400,000 worth of jewellery.

NEWS has come in of the theft of a New Zealand ‘Waitangi’ crown. This one should prove to be particularly easy to identify because it is the rare proof – not the ‘ordinary’ issue. 

CHRISTIE’S have won leave to appeal against the High Court judgment that found them liable to pay damages to Taylor Lynne Thomson in the dispute over the £1.75m Houghton urns.

LIKE the proverbial bad penny, scam advertising company European City Guide have struck again, targeting antiques dealers in London and the South East.

A GANG made off with £400,000 worth of Asian jewellery after fooling a shop owner into believing they were police officers. Pretending to carry out a drugs raid, the men appeared to be genuine policemen with uniforms, radios, evidence bags, bullet-proof vests, and what appeared to be authentic ID and search warrants.

A GANG slashed patrol car tyres at Petworth police station before launching an audacious burglary at an antiques shop in the town, escaping with hundreds of pieces of silver.

THE High Court has barred the former directors of now-bankrupt Interactive Collector Ltd from serving as directors of any British company for a period of seven years.

CONTINUING the recent spate of sophisticated country house thefts, valuable antiques were stolen from two homes in the south east of England in the space of a week last month.

THE first victory for a new art recovery company, a statue stolen from one of Yorkshire’s finest stately homes almost two years ago has been recovered in Chicago.

DEALERS should be aware of a stolen cheque scam that targets regular Internet bankers.

POLICE are investigating the theft of antiques valued at hundreds of thousands of pounds stolen from Uppark, the National Trust House in West Sussex, overnight on June 6-7.

FIRST dealers were subjected to the data protection scam – now the trade are being alerted to a health and safety con.

THE vicar of St Thomas the Apostle in Hanwell is appealing to dealers to look out for an altar cross stolen from the West London parish church on May 20.

POLICE have arrested a woman wanted for questioning in connection with a series of thefts from London antiques shops earlier this year.

AN Antiques Trade Gazette investigation has raised serious questions over how eBay police their site, questions that remain unanswered after weeks, despite eBay being given ample opportunity to address these concerns.