Law, crime and regulation

A GANG made off with £400,000 worth of Asian jewellery after fooling a shop owner into believing they were police officers. Pretending to carry out a drugs raid, the men appeared to be genuine policemen with uniforms, radios, evidence bags, bullet-proof vests, and what appeared to be authentic ID and search warrants.

A GANG slashed patrol car tyres at Petworth police station before launching an audacious burglary at an antiques shop in the town, escaping with hundreds of pieces of silver.

THE High Court has barred the former directors of now-bankrupt Interactive Collector Ltd from serving as directors of any British company for a period of seven years.

CONTINUING the recent spate of sophisticated country house thefts, valuable antiques were stolen from two homes in the south east of England in the space of a week last month.

DEALERS should be aware of a stolen cheque scam that targets regular Internet bankers.

THE first victory for a new art recovery company, a statue stolen from one of Yorkshire’s finest stately homes almost two years ago has been recovered in Chicago.

POLICE are investigating the theft of antiques valued at hundreds of thousands of pounds stolen from Uppark, the National Trust House in West Sussex, overnight on June 6-7.

FIRST dealers were subjected to the data protection scam – now the trade are being alerted to a health and safety con.

THE vicar of St Thomas the Apostle in Hanwell is appealing to dealers to look out for an altar cross stolen from the West London parish church on May 20.

POLICE have arrested a woman wanted for questioning in connection with a series of thefts from London antiques shops earlier this year.

AN Antiques Trade Gazette investigation has raised serious questions over how eBay police their site, questions that remain unanswered after weeks, despite eBay being given ample opportunity to address these concerns.

FRANCE'S national auction watchdog, the Conseil des Ventes, has banned the firm Rey & Associés from all auction activity, for repeatedly staging sales without adequate insurance cover.

LAST week’s High Court judgement on the dispute over the gilded urns sold by Christie’s to Taylor Lynne Thomson should not prompt any dramatic changes to traditional cataloguing practice.

APPEAL Court judges have lifted the punishment given to a London dealer convicted of handling £1.5m worth of stolen silver after hearing how he had committed the crimes in order to pay for his wife’s cancer treatment.

POLICE investigating a series of gate thefts that have occurred in North Wales believe that they were stolen in order to sell as antiques.

FURTHER delays look likely before those promised redress following the Sotheby’s and Christie’s price fixing settlement receive compensation.

THE gang targeting antiques centres in the south-midlands appear to have struck again, this time walking away with £4000 worth of carriage clocks.

THE jewellery dealer targeted by a gang at Sandown Park Fair on April 27 has told the Antiques Trade Gazette it was the second attack on him in as little as two weeks.

Pictured right is one of two major pieces of Georg Jensen silver stolen in a raid on Denmark’s National Art Gallery in the early hours of May 2. The thieves involved got away with an estimated £70,000 worth of silver that formed part of an exhibition featuring the work of the celebrated Danish silversmith.

A SUBSTANTIAL reward is being offered after thieves smashed a dealer’s car window and made off with a large amount of jewellery at Sandown Park Fair on April 27.