A UK court heard on Monday that a solid gold toilet valued at £4.8 million was stolen in a daring burglary at Blenheim Palace in 2019. The theft, which lasted just five minutes, was carried out by a group of masked men who used sledgehammers to break into the historic estate.
The 18-carat gold toilet, titled America, was created by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan and was fully operational as part of an art exhibition. However, prosecutors at Oxford Crown Court stated that the artwork was likely dismantled into smaller gold pieces and has never been recovered.
Michael Jones, 39, from Oxford, denied charges of burglary, while Fred Doe, 36, from Windsor, and Bora Guccuk, 41, from London, pleaded not guilty to conspiring to transfer criminal property. The court was informed that a fourth suspect, James Sheen, 40, from Northamptonshire, had previously pleaded guilty to burglary and money laundering in April.
Prosecutor Julian Christopher KC detailed that the burglary took place in the early hours of September 14, 2019. Five individuals forced open the palace’s locked gates using two vehicles before smashing their way inside with sledgehammers, later found abandoned at the scene.
“The work of art was never recovered. It appears to have been split up into smaller amounts of gold and never recovered,” Christopher told the court.
Evidence presented included a photograph allegedly taken by Jones about 17 hours before the burglary, which prosecutors described as part of the gang’s planning. Mobile phone records from Sheen, Doe, and Guccuk reportedly revealed discussions about selling around 20 kilograms of the stolen gold at approximately £25,632 per kilo. Guccuk, who owned a jewelry business in London’s Hatton Garden, was said to have profited around £3,000 per kilo from these sales.
Weighing 98 kilograms, the stolen toilet was insured for $6 million, with the raw material alone worth about £2.8 million at the time of the theft.
Blenheim Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is notably the birthplace of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
It’s very good that it has been stolen, when the thing go unnatural, it could happen.
V good, it should be stolen