UK gang guilty over £4.8m gold toilet heist

A gang has been convicted over the theft of a £4.8m gold toilet from an art exhibition at Blenheim Palace in the United Kingdom, the BBC reports.

Thieves smashed their way in and ripped out the functional toilet, hours after a glamorous launch party at the Oxfordshire stately home in September 2019.

Michael Jones was found guilty of planning the burglary. Fred Doe was convicted of conspiring to sell the gold, while Bora Guccuk was cleared of the same charge.

The BBC revealed the full criminal history of the heist gang's kingpin James Sheen.

He has been jailed at least six times since 2005 and has led organized crime groups that made more than £5m from fraud and theft, money authorities have largely failed to recover.

Five men were seen on CCTV carrying out the heist, but only two - Sheen and Jones - have ever been caught.

Within days the artwork, called America, had been broken up and sold, the court heard.

None of the gold has been recovered.

Sheen, from Oxford, pleaded guilty last year after police found his DNA at the scene and gold fragments in his clothing.

He was described in court as the "common denominator", having been charged with planning and transferring criminal property, as well as burglary.

The 40-year-old, who has previous convictions for fraud, theft and a firearms offence, was arrested four weeks after the heist, on suspicion of planning it, but he was released on bail.

He continued his crime spree, including a similar raid eight months later at the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket, Suffolk, where he stole gold and silver trophies worth £400,000, none of which have ever been recovered.

The court heard how the gang had meticulously researched the burglary at Blenheim Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site to the north of Oxford before executing the heist.