Collecting art and antiques, nice and hot

Most cases in which it is claimed artworks are being stolen on commission for crooked collectors turn out to be anything but. The number of cases where a wealthy sociopath is caught furnishing with hot goods are vanishingly few. But never say never:

A wealth of stolen art and antiques found at crime boss Terry Adams' north London home was revealed today.

The haul was uncovered in a raid on Adams' Mill Hill home in 2003.

Police now say they have traced the owners of £274,000 worth of the items, stolen over a 15-year period.

Victims of Adams' crimes included the Library Museum of the Freemasons, which lost five pieces of Meissen porcelain worth £120,000 in two thefts in 1991 and 1996; an 85-year-old woman from Dorset, whose £2,000 Chinese lacquered Davenport writing bureau was stolen in 1992 and a the Marlborough gallery, which had three Henry Moore prints and three Picasso etchings worth £35,000 stolen in 1997.

From the Daily Mail (with pictures). The ormolu I can understand -- old bling and all that -- but Meissen figurines? Not what you'd expect from a gangster whose "family has been linked to 25 murders since the early Eighties".

Posted by David on June 7, 2007 10:28 AM