On Tuesday, a British man was convicted of stealing a 18 -karat gold toilet that was shown as an artwork in an exhibition Winston Churchill flat.
The full working toilet, a work entitled “America” by Italian artist Maurizio Katilan, was stolen from the Churchill family seat at the Blinheim Palace in southern England, a major tourist attraction and the UNESCO World Heritage site.
Prosecutor Julian Christopher, at the beginning of the trial last month, told a group of five men who drove two stolen cars through closed wooden gates in the lands of the palace before dawn on September 14, 2019.
The screenshot shows this from the 18 -carat toilet video, entitled “America”, written by Maurizio Katilan in the toilet of the Suleiman R. Museum. Gognheim in New York, September 16, 2016. (AP image)
They stormed through a window, smashed a wooden door, torn the toilet from the wall and left after five minutes in the building.
The toilet, weighing 98 kilograms, was secured for $ 6 million. Prosecutors say it may have been divided into smaller amounts of gold to sell them.
Michael Jones, 39, was convicted of theft in the Crown Court in Oxford, after he admitted that he was not guilty.
Farid Du, 36, was convicted of conspiracy to transfer or transfer criminal property, gold, while 41 -year -old Bora Gokuk was acquitted of this charge.
James Shen, 39, acknowledged that he was guilty before trial for theft, conspiring to convert, transfer gold, convert or transfer gold.
James Shen admitted that he was guilty before trial. (Istock)
“This was a bold raid that was carefully planned and implemented – but the officials were not careful enough, leaving a path of evidence in the form of forensic medicine, CCTV and phone data,” said Sonders of the Crown Prince's prosecution service.
“While no gold has been recovered at all … We are confident that this claim played a role in disrupting a wider network of crime and money laundering,” Sundars added.
