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Nearly 200 ‘irreplaceable’ books stolen in a classy housebreaking by a Romanian gang in west London in January 2017 have been recovered from a village in Romania, Scotland Yard stated on Friday.
The books from the 16th, 17th and later centuries – including these of Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei and Spanish painter Francisco Goya – have been described as ‘culturally significant’ and of worldwide significance, value greater than £2.5 million.
The books had been stolen by members of a Romanian gang once they had been saved in a transit warehouse in Feltham earlier than being despatched to Las Vegas for a specialist guide public sale.
The suspects broke in by reducing holes in the roof and then abseiling down, avoiding many sensors. The books had been stolen in 16 massive baggage, with the suspects leaving the identical means they entered.
Detective inspector Andy Durham stated: “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.”
Scotland Yard’s investigation recognized that the suspects concerned had been a part of the Romanian gang that was answerable for high-value warehouse burglaries throughout the UK.
The police stated the gang flies members into the UK to commit particular offences and then fly them overseas shortly afterwards, with the stolen property taken overseas by different gang members utilizing totally different transport strategies.
The gang, the police added, is linked to numerous distinguished Romanian crime households who type a part of the Clamparu crime group, based mostly in the Iași area in Eastern Romania and has a historical past of complicated and large-scale excessive worth thefts, but prevented prosecution by offending outdoors Romania.
A joint operation with the Romanian National Police and Italian Carabinieri, supported by Europol and Eurojust culminated in coordinated arrests and searches of 45 addresses throughout the UK, Romania and Italy in June 2019.
Thirteen people had been charged in the UK with conspiring to commit burglaries between December 2016 and April 2019, and to accumulate felony property. Court proceedings proceed, with 12 people already pleading responsible.
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