Stolen

A GANG made off with £400,000 worth of Asian jewellery after fooling a shop owner into believing they were police officers. Pretending to carry out a drugs raid, the men appeared to be genuine policemen with uniforms, radios, evidence bags, bullet-proof vests, and what appeared to be authentic ID and search warrants.

A GANG slashed patrol car tyres at Petworth police station before launching an audacious burglary at an antiques shop in the town, escaping with hundreds of pieces of silver.

CONTINUING the recent spate of sophisticated country house thefts, valuable antiques were stolen from two homes in the south east of England in the space of a week last month.

POLICE are investigating the theft of antiques valued at hundreds of thousands of pounds stolen from Uppark, the National Trust House in West Sussex, overnight on June 6-7.

THE vicar of St Thomas the Apostle in Hanwell is appealing to dealers to look out for an altar cross stolen from the West London parish church on May 20.

POLICE have arrested a woman wanted for questioning in connection with a series of thefts from London antiques shops earlier this year.

APPEAL Court judges have lifted the punishment given to a London dealer convicted of handling £1.5m worth of stolen silver after hearing how he had committed the crimes in order to pay for his wife’s cancer treatment.

POLICE investigating a series of gate thefts that have occurred in North Wales believe that they were stolen in order to sell as antiques.

THE gang targeting antiques centres in the south-midlands appear to have struck again, this time walking away with £4000 worth of carriage clocks.

THE jewellery dealer targeted by a gang at Sandown Park Fair on April 27 has told the Antiques Trade Gazette it was the second attack on him in as little as two weeks.

Pictured right is one of two major pieces of Georg Jensen silver stolen in a raid on Denmark’s National Art Gallery in the early hours of May 2. The thieves involved got away with an estimated £70,000 worth of silver that formed part of an exhibition featuring the work of the celebrated Danish silversmith.

A SUBSTANTIAL reward is being offered after thieves smashed a dealer’s car window and made off with a large amount of jewellery at Sandown Park Fair on April 27.

POLICE are warning the trade to be on the alert after a gang stole £8000 worth of jewellery from Banbury Antique Centre on April 19.

DEALERS at the Saffron Walden Antiques Centre have offered a reward of up to £10,000 for information leading to the return of their stock and the capture of the burglars who stole it.

ON Friday April 2, this distinctive silver and 18 carat rose gold Boucheron lady’s minaudière, pictured right, 5 1/4in (13.5cm) across, was stolen from the Pullman Gallery at 14 King Street in St James’s.

ON Thursday March 18 thieves broke into the Oxfordshire home of ex-jockey and racehorse trainer Stan Mellor and stole silver and works of art.

POLICE are warning that a thief, fitting the description of a woman who stole from London antiques shops in January, has struck again.

A MASKED gang took a substantial quantity of antique jewellery during a robbery at the Petersfield Antiques Fair held at the Festival Hall in the town from February 6-8.

UK: The BADA have issued a description of a woman, operating under a number of names, thought to be responsible for a number of thefts at antiques shops in London. Last week, dealers in Kensington Church Street and in the Fulham Road were taken in by the woman, whose approach was most unusual.

A thief who stole garden antiques worth over £34,000 in highly planned operations has been jailed for 15 months after being caught as a result of a Antiques Trade Gazette advertisement.