The trial of three alleged accomplices in a high-profile robbery in which a gold toilet worth six million dollars was stolen from Blenheim Palace in 2019 is underway in Oxford. The criminals committed the heist in just five minutes.
This was reported by the BBC, аnd UNN.
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According to prosecutor Julian Christopher, on the night of September 14, 2019, five people rammed two cars into the palace gate, broke a window, and then used sledgehammers to dismantle the toilet. Then they left the sledgehammers at the crime scene and fled. The entire operation took the criminals about five minutes.
It is reported that the 750 gold standard (18 carat) toilet was not a permanent piece of furniture in the Palace of the Dukes of Marlborough, where a descendant of the family, Winston Churchill, was once born. It was installed temporarily as part of an exhibition of works by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Catellan. He called this work "America".
At the same time, the artifact was fully functional and even connected to the sewer system, and during business hours a guard was watching it to make sure that no one used it for its intended purpose.
The toilet weighed 98 kilograms and was insured for $6 million. In the form of gold scrap, it would have been worth about $3.5 million in September 2019. Since the toilet was never found, investigators believe that the criminals either sawed it or broke it into pieces.
Michael Jones, 39, from Oxford, Frederick Doe, 36, from Windsor, and Bora Güçcük, 41, from London, were put in the dock. Jones is accused of complicity in the robbery, and Doe and Güçcük are accused of conspiracy to sell stolen goods.
Another suspect, 40-year-old James Sheen, pleaded guilty last year.
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According to the prosecution, messages found in the phones of Shin, Doe and Gyucheuk prove that they agreed to buy and sell 20 kg of stolen gold for 25,632 pounds sterling (now about 33.6 thousand dollars) per kilogram, which is about three thousand pounds cheaper than the market price at the time.