A £4.8 million solid gold toilet was stolen in 2019 in a daring five-minute heist at Blenheim Palace, as revealed in the UK court. The toilet, titled America, was an art installation by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan and was fully functional, and connected to the plumbing system. A gang of masked thieves broke into the palace using sledgehammers and fled, leaving their tools behind.
Prosecutors at Oxford Crown Court stated that the stolen toilet was likely dismantled into smaller gold pieces and since then has never been recovered. The accused suspects are: Michael Jones (39) from Oxford, who denied the burglary charge. Fred Doe (36) from Windsor and Bora Guccuk (41) from London, both pleaded not guilty to conspiring to transfer stolen property. James Sheen (40) from Northamptonshire had already admitted to burglary and money laundering in April.
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However, the court was presented with a photograph allegedly taken by Jones 17 hours before the crime was committed. Which prosecutors claimed was part of the planning. Mobile phone records of Sheen, Doe, and Guccuk reportedly contained discussions about selling 20kg of stolen gold. This gold was valued at £25,632 per kilo. Guccuk, a jewellery dealer from Hatton Garden, London, allegedly made £3,000 profit per kilo from the sales.
The gold toilet weighed 98kg and had been insured for $6 million. At the time of the robbery, its raw gold value alone was around £2.8 million. Blenheim Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is widely known as the birthplace of Winston Churchill.
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