Fourteen men linked to an organised crime gang have been convicted of plotting to steal rhino horn and Chinese artefacts worth up to £57m in a series of museum and auction house raids.



On Monday a jury at Birmingham crown court convicted four of the gang’s “generals” who helped to plan and oversee a string of offences, including break-ins at Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum and Durham’s Oriental Museum in 2012.

Stealing museum artefacts worth a total of at least £50m might seem like the work of a hugely accomplished and organised criminal gang, not one whose mishaps included dropping a rhino head as they ran away or losing a priceless Ming dynasty bowl because they forgot to properly mark on a map where they had hidden it.

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Among the many misjudgments of the so-called Rathkeale Rovers gang, named after six of the members’ family village in Ireland, was getting a separate gang to carry out the raids – hired help who seemed better at breaking into museums than escaping successfully with the loot.

Nonetheless, the gang managed to steal items more valuable than the combined haul of last year’s Hatton Garden raid, according to police.

The series of verdicts can only now be reported after Monday’s conclusion of the two-month trial of four men. John “Kerry” O’Brien Jr, Richard “Kerry” O’Brien, Daniel “Turkey” O’Brien and Michael Hegarty were convicted of masterminding a series of raids in 2012. Ten other men had previously been convicted for their parts in the conspiracy.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest (top row, left to right) Paul Pammen, Donald Chi Chong Wong, Richard Sheridan, Robert Gilbert-Smith, Ashley Dad, John “Kerry” O’Brien Jr and Terence McNamara; (bottom row, left to right) Richard “Kerry” O’Brien, Patrick Clarke, Daniel “Turkey” O’Brien, Danny Flynn, John “Cash” O’Brien, Michael Hegarty and Alan Clarke. Photograph: PA

In the first attempted raid, in January 2012, a paid accomplice tried to grab a Ming dynasty sculpture at the Oriental museum in Durham. He was stopped by staff after stuffing the sculpture into a rucksack and sprinting up a staircase.

Worse was to come the next month in an attempt to take a rhino head from Norwich’s Castle museum, a raid described in court as “a fiasco”. Four thieves hired in by the gang dropped the head, which was heavier than they expected, as they ran out of the museum pursued by members of the public. They also left behind a car number plate bearing an incriminating fingerprint.

Still more chaotic scenes followed about six weeks later after more rented gang members smashed a hole in a wall at Durham’s Oriental Museum late at night. They stole a figurine and a Ming dynasty jade bowl, the latter described by police as one of the best in the world and estimated to be worth between £2m and £16m.

The thieves left the items at a pre-agreed “deposition site” on wasteland near Durham’s Meadowfield industrial estate, the trial heard, but the organising gang were unable to find them, prompting a series of frantic phone calls. Police eventually recovered the items eight days later.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The scene of the raid at Durham University’s Oriental Museum. Photograph: Durham Police/PA

Robert Davies, prosecuting, told the trial that the raid had been a case of “steal it, can’t find it”. He said: “It all came to nothing when they had not, pirate-style, put a cross on a map.”



The gang’s luck did not change in March 2012 when three more hired-in thieves, posing as customers at an auction house in Lewes, East Sussex, jumped over a counter and stole a £20,000 bamboo cup instead of the rhino horn equivalent they were meant to take, worth about 10 times as much. They were arrested after members of the public intervened.

The following month, however, there was success, as four hired burglars, one aged just 15, took more than a dozen jade pieces worth at least £15m from the Fitzwilliam Museum. The thieves were soon arrested but the stolen items have never been recovered. The court heard that the gang also targeted the Kelvingrove Museum and the Burrell collection in Glasgow, but failed to take anything.

Police say it is almost impossible to place an authoritative total value on the items stolen, especially given variable potential resale values in China. Det Supt Adrian Green, of Durham police, said the total was estimated to be in the range of £18m to £57m, versus the £14m of valuables taken from safe deposit boxes in London’s Hatton Garden. “If you think the Hatton Garden break-in was big, this will blow that out of the water,” Green said.

Green said the gang hired in thieves while they waited “at safe distances, sometimes in another country”. He said: “If you look at the audacity of what they do and the value of the property that they have taken, I think that makes them significant criminals both within the UK and potentially across the world. I also think they are cowards because they hire in others, some of them vulnerable, some of the children, to actually do the dirty work.”

At least eight of the men convicted have family or business links to the village of Rathkeale in Ireland. The four-year investigation was led by the National Crime Agency, supported by Europol and the Criminal Assets Bureau in Dublin.



John Davies, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s organised crime division in Birmingham, said: “This was a highly complex case as most of the individuals convicted were behind the scenes organising the entire operation, rather than physically entering the museums. We built a strong case based on evidence such as extensive telephone records. Material from the defendants’ laptops also provided evidence of websites they had accessed and search terms they had inputted online in relation to their crimes.”

DCI Jim McCrorie, of Cambridgeshire police, said the items lost from the Fitzwilliam were “of huge cultural significance”. He said: “We remain committed to following any new lines of inquiry that could lead to their recovery.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The rhino head which a thief attempted to steal from the Castle Museum in Norwich.

Among those convicted are six members of the same Rathkeale family, Richard Sheridan, a Travellers’ rights campaigner involved in opposing the eviction of families from the Dale Farm site in Essex in 2011, and Donald Chi Chong Wong, a London-based “fence” with close links to Hong Kong.

Wong’s trial heard that he submitted modest tax returns but lived in a double-fronted three-storey home overlooking Clapham Common in south London. The court was told police twice found him with thousands of pounds in cash stuffed in plastic bags. One one occasion, officers assisting Wong after he was injured in an unconnected attempted raid found a green carrier bag and a black pouch containing £68,000 under the passenger seat of a car.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Photograph: Alamy

Timeline

These are the key dates in the conspiracy in which Chinese artefacts worth up to £57m were stolen from museums in Durham and Cambridge. Fourteen members of a gang that planned and co-ordinated the offences, and sold stolen items on through a middleman, are facing jail after being convicted of taking part in the year-long plot.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The scene of a raid at Durham University’s Oriental Museum. Photograph: Durham Police/PA

16 January 2012 A paid accomplice drafted in by the gang’s “generals” attempts a smash-and-grab of a Ming dynasty sculpture at the Oriental Museum in Durham. Staff apprehend the thief, who was brought in from Belfast, after he stuffs the item into a rucksack and sprints up a spiral staircase. Other members of the gang then fly to Ireland or return to Cambridgeshire.

20 February In what is later described in court as “a fiasco”, four offenders – again hired in and working to the conspirators’ instructions – drop a rhino head as they attempt to leave the Castle Museum in Norwich. Having apparently failed to appreciate that the head would be too heavy to carry, the men then abandon a car number plate bearing an incriminating fingerprint.

16 March Thieves make off with a bamboo cup after vaulting the counter during a viewing day at Gorringes auction house in Lewes, East Sussex. Three raiders – who had been tasked with stealing a rhino horn libation cup worth about £60,000 – are arrested nearby after members of the public intervene.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Chinese jade bowl, stolen from Durham University’s Oriental Museum. Photograph: Durham Police/PA

5 April Criminals strike again at Durham’s Oriental Museum, escaping with a jade bowl worth at least £2m and a figurine after smashing a hole in a wall to gain entry. Both objects are left at a pre-agreed “deposition site” on wasteland near Durham’s Meadowfield industrial estate after the late-night raid. Frantic phone calls between senior gang members follow after numerous attempts to find the items fail.

An 18th century Chinese jade bowl stolen from the Oriental Museum. Photograph: Durham Police/PA

13 April Police eventually recover the artefacts. Prosecutor Robert Davies described the raid as a “steal it, can’t find it” failure, saying: “It all came to nothing when they had not – pirate-style – put a cross on a map.”

The gang finally hit the jackpot, successfully stealing 18 high-end jade pieces with a value of at least £15m from Cambridge University’s Fitzwilliam Museum. Although four people captured on CCTV smashing their way into the museum at 7.29pm were apprehended and dealt with by the courts within months, the items were removed via car and taxi. Detectives believe they were in the hands of gang member Alan Clarke – who was waiting to receive them in a station car park in Purfleet, Essex – by the early hours of the following day.

10 September 2013 After intensive pan-European investigations into those who directed the raids, police execute warrants simultaneously at about 30 locations in the West Midlands, London, Sussex, Cambridgeshire, Essex and Northern Ireland.