Detectives have found more than £5m worth of antiques stolen from stately homes in a tatty caravan and neighbouring lock-up garage in a quiet Yorkshire village.
Two men have been arrested for questioning over the haul which is thought to be part of a long-term and sophisticated targeting of mansions over the last five years.
Items recovered from Tankersley, near Sheffield, included treasures taken in two thefts which attracted international publicity in 2009. A Chippendale table was taken from Newby Hall near Ripon, for which it had been specially made, and porcelain worth £1.3m was stolen in a daring raid on Firle Place in Sussex.
A member of the National Trust, 58-year-old Graham Harkin from Wakefield, was jailed for nine years in March for the Firle theft. Detectives said after the case that he had refused to co-operate over the whereabouts of the stolen goods, but by then a major investigation was under way.
All three Yorkshire forces and the regional organised crime unit worked with specialised roads crime officers to track suspected gang members to where the goods might be stashed. Inquiries led them to a nondescript store in Tankersley, a village probably best known for the crumbling fortified farm that featured in Ken Loach's 1969 film Kes.
Officers who broke into the lock-up and caravan found the George III rosewood table from Newby, a house which influenced the plot of the TV drama Downton Abbey. Antiques experts at the time of the theft described the piece by the UK's best-known furniture-maker as having "worldwide importance".
Stored beside the Chippendale table was the Firle haul: a pair of Louis XVI ormolu and Sèvres bleu vases with an insurance value of £950,000; a Meissen statue from the 1740s titled The Indiscreet Harlequin, and a Sèvres Hollandois Nouveau vase from 1761, valued at £180,000 each.
Nine other items were recovered, including an embellished bracket clock made by Daniel Delander of London around 1710 which was stolen from Sion Hill Hall in Northallerton, north Yorkshire, shortly before the two other thefts.
Police raided addresses in Tankersley and the Leeds suburb of Middleton. They are currently questioning a 68-year-old man from the former and a 44-year-old man from the latter. The inquiry includes possible links to the illegal drugs trade.
Detective superintendent Steve Waite, head of regional intelligence for Yorkshire and the Humber, said: "We are so pleased and proud to have recovered these high-value antiques which have been described as true pieces of British heritage. We will now begin the formal process of identification and will eventually be in a position to reunite the pieces with their owners.
"A couple of items had suffered minor damage during the ordeal, but this demonstrates that those involved in the thefts were not in it for their love of antiques. In fact, recent trends indicate these types of high-value items are being used by organised crime groups as currency or collateral in relation to serious criminality, often involving drugs."
Other items which form part of the operation's continuing search include porcelain from 21 country house thefts since 2007. They include a Meissen teapot and bronze bust worth a total of £40,000 stolen in 2009 from Sutton Park near York, the home of the David Cameron's in-laws, Sir Reginald and Lady Sheffield. There have been 15 similar attempted but failed robberies that showed extensive knowledge of mansions and their security systems.
by Martin Wainwright taken from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/26/police-recover-5m-stolen-antiques
Two men have been arrested for questioning over the haul which is thought to be part of a long-term and sophisticated targeting of mansions over the last five years.
Items recovered from Tankersley, near Sheffield, included treasures taken in two thefts which attracted international publicity in 2009. A Chippendale table was taken from Newby Hall near Ripon, for which it had been specially made, and porcelain worth £1.3m was stolen in a daring raid on Firle Place in Sussex.
A member of the National Trust, 58-year-old Graham Harkin from Wakefield, was jailed for nine years in March for the Firle theft. Detectives said after the case that he had refused to co-operate over the whereabouts of the stolen goods, but by then a major investigation was under way.
All three Yorkshire forces and the regional organised crime unit worked with specialised roads crime officers to track suspected gang members to where the goods might be stashed. Inquiries led them to a nondescript store in Tankersley, a village probably best known for the crumbling fortified farm that featured in Ken Loach's 1969 film Kes.
Officers who broke into the lock-up and caravan found the George III rosewood table from Newby, a house which influenced the plot of the TV drama Downton Abbey. Antiques experts at the time of the theft described the piece by the UK's best-known furniture-maker as having "worldwide importance".
Stored beside the Chippendale table was the Firle haul: a pair of Louis XVI ormolu and Sèvres bleu vases with an insurance value of £950,000; a Meissen statue from the 1740s titled The Indiscreet Harlequin, and a Sèvres Hollandois Nouveau vase from 1761, valued at £180,000 each.
Nine other items were recovered, including an embellished bracket clock made by Daniel Delander of London around 1710 which was stolen from Sion Hill Hall in Northallerton, north Yorkshire, shortly before the two other thefts.
Police raided addresses in Tankersley and the Leeds suburb of Middleton. They are currently questioning a 68-year-old man from the former and a 44-year-old man from the latter. The inquiry includes possible links to the illegal drugs trade.
Detective superintendent Steve Waite, head of regional intelligence for Yorkshire and the Humber, said: "We are so pleased and proud to have recovered these high-value antiques which have been described as true pieces of British heritage. We will now begin the formal process of identification and will eventually be in a position to reunite the pieces with their owners.
"A couple of items had suffered minor damage during the ordeal, but this demonstrates that those involved in the thefts were not in it for their love of antiques. In fact, recent trends indicate these types of high-value items are being used by organised crime groups as currency or collateral in relation to serious criminality, often involving drugs."
Other items which form part of the operation's continuing search include porcelain from 21 country house thefts since 2007. They include a Meissen teapot and bronze bust worth a total of £40,000 stolen in 2009 from Sutton Park near York, the home of the David Cameron's in-laws, Sir Reginald and Lady Sheffield. There have been 15 similar attempted but failed robberies that showed extensive knowledge of mansions and their security systems.
by Martin Wainwright taken from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/sep/26/police-recover-5m-stolen-antiques
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