Officers look on a police van outside the gates of the British Museum to deal with a public disturbance on August 23, 2023 in London, England. Leon Neil/Getty Images
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A suspected thief who robbed the British Museum for 20 years could be a spy, a report says.
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Exquisite jewelery and ancient coins are among the missing treasures of the world famous museum.
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The thefts from the museum’s safes took advantage of the museum’s failure to catalog the artifacts it held, the report said.
A police source told The Times of London that a suspected thief who looted valuable artefacts from the British Museum in London for 20 years could be a spy.
A curator at the museum was recently fired after it was discovered that jewelry and other artifacts were missing from the museum’s safes and valuable items were being sold cheaply on eBay.
According to the British newspaper The Telegraph, a stolen piece of ancient Roman jewelery made of onyx valued at £50,000, or about $63,000, was listed on an online auction site for at least £40, or $50.
“The suspicion is that we are dealing with a possible case of kleptomania,” said a police source.
The source said there are apprehensions that some of the items have been defaced, such as having been melted down or having their gems removed and sold online for a fraction of their value.
The source told The Times, “Some of them would have been very, very valuable – tens of thousands of pounds – if it had been known that they were from the British Museum. But they could not be sold like this.”
Many of the missing items, including semi-precious gems and gold coins, were kept in the museum’s basement gallery and were not on public display, the source said.
A “lack of proper cataloguing” made it possible to remove the items, the source said. According to The Times, the museum has acknowledged that many of the artifacts in its collection are not listed.
As The Times reports, the British Museum was first alerted that several missing items were being sold online several years ago.
According to The Times, the museum said last week that they would take legal action against the fired employee and that police are investigating.
The fired man, Peter Higgs, who worked as a curator at the museum for more than 30 years, has denied any wrongdoing.
A former trustee of the museum said it was a “disturbing” matter because curators generally consider themselves custodians of the artworks they work with and would not steal or deface them.
He said it was an “attractive idea” that kleptomania could prevent theft.
He told The Times, “I can see it as a realistic possibility.” “You get curators who inevitably become obsessed [with the items in their departments], I’d certainly be willing to place a light bet on that because I don’t see any other explanation.”
Over several decades, about 2,000 objects from the museum are feared to have gone missing, stolen or damaged, The Times reports.
According to The Times, the British Museum said: “We take the issue of any missing items incredibly seriously. Losses are recorded and reported to the Trustees on an annual basis.”
British Museum director Hartwig Fischer said he would step down from his role over the scandal, admitting that the museum had “not reacted as comprehensively as it should have” after being first alerted to the theft in 2021. Was needed
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