Stolen British Museum Jewelry Value $63,000 Sold on eBay for $50: Report

Stolen British Museum Jewelry Value ,000 Sold on eBay for : Report
  • Numerous jewelry products really worth up to $63,000 ended up stolen from the British Museum in London.
  • Things later appeared on eBay, priced for as very little as $50.
  • A museum curator suspected of staying powering the thefts was fired, and police are investigating.

A curator has been fired from the British Museum in London soon after stolen jewelry was discovered staying marketed cheaply on eBay, a report claims.

Some of the things had been well worth up to £50,000, or around $63,000, and ended up mentioned on eBay for as tiny as £40, or $50, in accordance to British newspaper The Telegraph.

An antiquities professional described suspicion that a workers member was thieving from protected vaults at the museum in 2013, and the missing objects commenced turning up on eBay three decades later.

Peter Higgs, 56, who held the place of curator of Mediterranean cultures at the museum for around three many years, was fired after an interior investigation.

Higgs’ 21-year-outdated son Greg managed that his father is innocent.

“He’s not done anything at all,” Greg Higgs said, per The Situations of London. “He is not pleased about it at all. He is dropped his work and his track record and I do not imagine it was good.” 

“He is devastated about it, simply because it is his life’s operate, basically. I have by no means known someone who’s so passionate about what he did.”

The museum explained on Wednesday that quite a few objects of jewelry built of gold, semi-treasured stones, and glass, courting from among 1,500 BC and the 19th century Advertisement, were among all those lacking, The Telegraph reported. Other merchandise had been broken.

One particular piece of ancient Roman jewellery created from onyx – that a seller explained was valued between £25,000 and £50,000, or $32,000 and $63,000 – was detailed on eBay with a bare minimum cost of £40, or around $50, in 2016. No one manufactured a bid for the treasure, however, The Telegraph described.

The law enforcement are now investigating the thefts.

The museum has not adequately cataloged all eight million things in its collection, which can make it simpler for thefts to go undetected, sources advised The Telegraph.

“Significant issues do get cataloged. There are a ton of minimal issues which are not, or which are all lumped with each other,” Professor Martin Henig, a Roman art professional at the College of Oxford, told the paper.

An impartial overview is underway to build what is missing, trying to get better the lacking products and blocking upcoming thefts.

A spokesman for the British Museum instructed the paper: “We have carried out a extensive investigation, determined the individual we believe that to be responsible, and that particular person has been dismissed. We are also getting more robust action to guarantee this can by no means take place once again.”

“The full concern of thefts at the museum is now topic to a criminal investigation, so we simply cannot comment additional.”