Two males responsible over £4.8m Blenheim Palace heist

A gang has been convicted over the theft of a £4.8m gold rest room from an artwork exhibition at Blenheim Palace.

Thieves smashed their means in and ripped out the useful rest room, hours after a glamorous launch social gathering on the Oxfordshire stately residence in September 2019.

Michael Jones was discovered responsible of planning the housebreaking. Fred Doe was convicted of conspiring to promote the gold, whereas Bora Guccuk was cleared of the identical cost.

The BBC can now reveal the complete felony historical past of the heist gang’s kingpin James Sheen. He has been jailed no less than six instances since 2005 and has led organised crime teams that made greater than £5m from fraud and theft – cash authorities have largely did not get well.

5 males have been seen on CCTV finishing up the heist, however solely two – Sheen and Jones – have ever been caught.

Inside days the paintings, referred to as America, had been damaged up and offered on, the courtroom heard. Not one of the gold has been recovered.

Sheen, from Oxford, pleaded responsible final yr after police discovered his DNA on the scene and gold fragments in his clothes. He was described in courtroom because the “frequent denominator” – having been charged with planning and transferring felony property, in addition to housebreaking.

The 40-year-old, who has earlier convictions for fraud, theft and a firearms offence, was arrested 4 weeks after the heist, on suspicion of planning it, however he was launched on bail.

He continued his crime spree, together with an identical raid eight months later on the Nationwide Horseracing Museum in Newmarket, Suffolk, the place he stole gold and silver trophies value £400,000, none of which have ever been recovered.

The courtroom heard how the gang had meticulously researched the housebreaking at Blenheim Palace – a UNESCO World Heritage Website to the north of Oxford.

Jones, 39, from Oxford, visited the palace for a second time the day earlier than the heist, and took photos of the golden rest room, a lock on the door and a close-by window. Later that day, the artist Maurizio Cattelan hosted his launch social gathering.

Just a few hours after company left, the gang used two stolen vehicles to ram via palace gates, smash a window, wrench the bathroom from its fittings and roll it out of the constructing, the courtroom heard.

The BBC has found they exploited a sequence of safety flaws on the palace – the place there have been no guards patrolling the exhibition or the grounds. In a single day, the paintings was locked behind a skinny wood door and was not monitored by CCTV.

Exterior CCTV confirmed the gang have been inside for lower than three minutes. Palace chief government Dominic Hare instructed the BBC the “information converse for themselves”.

“We took possession of this valuable merchandise and managed to lose it inside a day,” he stated, as a result of the thieves merely “drove via the gates, smashed via the window, they picked it up they usually went”.

Police arrived inside 5 minutes of the alarm sounding however the thieves had already left.

As a murals, the bathroom weighed 98kg (216lbs) and was insured for $6m (£4.8m). Gold costs on the time would have meant the steel alone was value £2.8m, the courtroom was instructed.

It’s not identified precisely when the gang broke the bathroom into smaller items, or whether or not they melted the gold themselves. However the courtroom heard inside two days of the heist, Sheen was searching for consumers, providing gold at about £25,500 per kilo.

He contacted Fred Doe, and, in a sequence of coded voice messages, requested for assist in promoting it.

Doe, 36, from Windsor and often known as Fred Sines, admitted attempting to assist Sheen promote the gold however stated he had no concept it was stolen.

Jurors heard the pair organized to fulfill with jeweller Bora Guccuk, and visited him at his store in Hatton Backyard – London’s well-known jewelry quarter, negotiating a value for about 5kg of gold.

Mr Guccuk, 41, from west London, denied he knew it was stolen and the courtroom heard negotiations broke down and no sale came about. He was cleared by the jury.

Nonetheless, Sheen admitted promoting among the stolen gold in Birmingham, inside a fortnight of the heist.

{A photograph} discovered by police on his cellphone confirmed a provider bag full of money, which was despatched on WhatsApp with the message “520,000 ha ha ha”.

4 weeks after the heist – on 16 October 2019 – Sheen was arrested. However he was launched on bail and over the subsequent eight months was concerned in no less than 12 extra crimes, together with the housebreaking on the Nationwide Horseracing Museum.

He was solely later charged when police confirmed his DNA on a sledgehammer discovered contained in the palace, and in a stolen automotive deserted close by. Fragments of gold have been additionally discovered a while in a while clothes at his residence.

Thames Valley Police stated the forensic evaluation of Sheen’s clothes and DNA was “sophisticated work, which regularly takes time”, including that consequently there was not sufficient proof to cost him on the time of arrest they usually couldn’t proceed retaining him in custody.

His offending solely got here to an finish when he was recalled to jail in June 2020 for breaching the phrases of an earlier launch. He had been let loose of jail on licence in 2017, midway via a 14-year sentence for his position within the capturing of two harmless bystanders.

Sheen and his brother had chased one other household via the streets of Coventry in 2009, firing a shotgun from the window of their Vary Rover.

A younger couple on their means residence from an evening out have been caught within the crossfire. One nonetheless has pellets lodged of their face. The victims stated they have been “haunted” by that day greater than 15 years later.

In an announcement to the BBC, the victims and their households stated Sheen was “a critical hazard to the general public and may by no means be allowed out of jail once more”.

Regardless of spending about half of the previous 20 years in jail, Sheen has personally made about £2m from his crimes, not together with the golden rest room heist. Gangs he led have made greater than £5m revenue, in keeping with archived courtroom data accessed by the BBC.

Within the months earlier than and after the Blenheim heist, Sheen was main one other group of thieves that made greater than £2.6m by blowing up money machines, stealing high-value farm equipment and different thefts throughout the south and east of England, together with the Newmarket museum raid.

He was sentenced to 17 years for these offences in 2022, greater than a yr earlier than he was charged with the Blenheim heist. After that trial at Oxford Crown Courtroom, a decide dominated Sheen had personally made £900,000 from the crimes – however was ordered to pay again simply £1.

Thames Valley Police stated it obtained a confiscation order for a “nominal sum” of £1, which allowed a “parallel monetary investigation” to be carried out. It stated that – 5 years after the crimes – monetary investigations have been “actively ongoing… for a major quantity in property”.

Former residence secretary David Blunkett stated Sheen was “making a monkey of the system”, including, “we will not permit that to proceed”.

In 2002, Lord Blunkett launched the Proceeds of Crime Act – a flagship Labour coverage that was supposed to point out that crime didn’t pay by giving police and courts new powers to get well criminals’ property.

However the peer stated the act was failing, and believed it was as a result of police, enforcement businesses and the judiciary have by no means been given satisfactory coaching or funding to correctly implement the regulation.

“The one factor that can deter a prolific offender who’s doing very effectively out of the proceeds of crime is to get these proceeds again, it is so simple as that,” he stated.

Following the verdicts, Shan Saunders of the Crown Prosecution Service stated the raid had been “rigorously deliberate and executed”.

“However these accountable weren’t cautious sufficient, leaving a path of proof within the type of forensics, CCTV footage and cellphone knowledge,” he added.

“Whereas not one of the gold was ever recovered – little question having been damaged up or melted down and offered on quickly after it was stolen – we’re assured this prosecution has performed an element in disrupting a wider crime and cash laundering community.”

Det Supt Bruce Riddell of Thames Valley Police stated it had been a “advanced investigation”.

“It’s clear that Sheen has just one intent, and that’s to do no matter he can to steal cash and property whatever the impression it has on others and communities.

“Jones was clearly eager to help Sheen within the housebreaking, finishing up the recces on his behalf and it’s our case that he benefitted financially from the crime and we consider he additionally was current on the raid.”

Figures obtained by the BBC confirmed Sheen’s case was not an remoted instance.

We requested every police pressure in England and Wales for his or her 10 greatest proceeds of crime investigations from 2024 the place there had been convictions. Thirty forces responded, offering a snapshot of 300 high-value circumstances.

In complete, within the 300 circumstances, criminals had made greater than £300m – however had been ordered to repay simply 10% of that determine. Many who had made hundreds of thousands of kilos from crime have been ordered to pay again simply tens of hundreds – usually as little as £1.

The House Workplace stated its felony asset restoration system was usually reviewed, including that the Crime and Policing Invoice – which is being thought-about by Parliament – would “bolster the present system” and “enhance the restoration fee of property”.

It stated when police couldn’t discover a felony’s property, courts might grant confiscation orders for a “nominal sum” – usually £1 – however this could possibly be elevated if property have been ever uncovered.

Thames Valley Police stated it was dedicated to “bringing offenders to justice” and had carried out a “thorough and intensive investigation” into the Blenheim heist.

It added {that a} “monetary investigation will probably be carried out alongside our companions to get well any property from the theft”, however stated this might solely start now the trial had completed.

Sheen, Jones and Doe will probably be sentenced at a later date.

Further reporting by Jonathan Eden and Mary O’Reilly