British Museum gems for sale on eBay – how a theft was exposed

In 2020, Danish antiquities supplier Dr Ittai Gradel started to suspect an eBay vendor he had been shopping for from was a thief who was stealing from the British Museum.

Greater than two years later, the museum would announce that 1000’s of objects had been lacking, stolen or broken from its assortment. It had lastly believed Dr Gradel – however why had it taken so lengthy for it to take action?

“The gems that fascinate me are nothing so boring as diamonds,” says Dr Gradel from his attic research, lined with show cupboards of treasures.

He collects historic gem stones carved with intricate figures or motifs – they assist paint an image of what life was like within the classical world and had been usually used as jewelry.

It’s a area of interest ardour. The circle of sellers is small – so the web has change into an important buying and selling device and eBay particularly a wealthy supply of bargains.

Hundreds of thousands of miscellaneous objects are posted on the market every day, however on 7 August 2016, one thing uncommon occurred.

A gray and white piece of a cameo gemstone that includes Priapus – the Greek god of fertility – was posted by a consumer known as “sultan1966” for simply £40.

The itemizing was taken down after a number of hours, unsold.

Priapus is among the extra memorable gods – usually depicted along with his outsized genitals on present. The vendor might have hoped Priapus’ temporary look on-line had gone unnoticed – however alas not.

It was noticed by Dr Gradel, who says he was born with a photographic reminiscence.

He says the weird talent has helped him establish uncommon finds. On this case, it will additionally assist him uncover the id of a suspected thief.

Dr Gradel had been shopping for gem stones from sultan1966 on eBay for nearly two years. The vendor had informed him his identify was Paul Higgins and that he had inherited the gems from a grandfather. They had been being offered at discount costs however Dr Gradel may inform many had been very helpful.

This time, he knew he had seen the Priapus cameo earlier than. He was positive it featured in an previous gems catalogue he owned from one of many world’s most well-known establishments, the British Museum.

“There was little doubt it was the identical object and I used to be confused,” he says.

The museum has since stated in paperwork filed on the Excessive Court docket that it believes the cameo had been taken from a storeroom within the Greece and Rome division by a senior curator, Dr Peter Higgs, only a week earlier than it appeared on the market.

Dr Higgs began working on the British Museum in 1993 as a analysis assistant, having studied archaeology on the College of Liverpool.

Residing in an odd semi-detached home in Hastings on the south coast, he was later described by the museum’s chairman as a “reasonably quiet, introverted” individual.

Inside hours of eradicating the eBay itemizing in 2016, the museum believes Dr Higgs logged into its database and tried to tamper with the Priapus cameo’s catalogue entry.

An estimated 2.4 million objects on the museum are uncatalogued, or partially uncatalogued, out of its whole assortment of 8 million. The museum, which has now introduced a civil court docket case towards Dr Higgs, believes he was largely concentrating on these uncatalogued artefacts – and that, this time, he had made a mistake.

Dr Higgs would have been capable of see the cameo was a catalogued merchandise, searchable by the general public and workers alike. It was even on the museum’s web site – it was not the type of merchandise that would disappear and never be missed.

If his tampering had been profitable, says the museum in its court docket papers, it will have hidden the database picture of the cameo from view – nevertheless it says he failed.

The subsequent day, Dr Higgs is understood to have returned alone to the storeroom the place the cameo was saved, the museum says. It believes this was so he may return it.

Thief on the British Museum is obtainable on BBC Sounds and you may watch a documentary of the identical identify on BBC iPlayer

Nonetheless, one thing helpful remained lacking – the cameo’s gold mount. The museum believes it was eliminated by Dr Higgs and offered to a scrap supplier.

The cameo’s worth is estimated at £15,000. It will be value double that, says the museum, if it nonetheless had its gold mount.

Dr Gradel says it’s “completely weird” that he may sit at a pc on a small Danish island and be the primary individual to find one thing was awry on the British Museum.

He wrote to sultan1966, the person he knew as Paul Higgins, asking why the Priapus cameo had been withdrawn. The vendor replied saying it had been a mistake – it belonged to his sister, who did not need him to promote it.

Dr Gradel selected to not alert sultan1966 about his suspicions. “That will allow him to cowl his tracks,” he stated.

As a substitute he determined to keep watch over him – to see if another items belonging to the museum appeared.

4 years would go earlier than the subsequent clue – when Dr Gradel would make the surprising discovery that it seemed to be an inside job.

In Might 2020, Dr Gradel observed a picture in a newly revealed e book on gem stones.

Determine 736 was a gem that includes a person who resembled the Roman Emperor Augustus. It was labelled as belonging to the British Museum.

The determine portrayed on the gem had an standard coiffure for the interval.

Suspicious as soon as once more, Dr Gradel regarded via his data.

He matched the picture within the e book to {a photograph} on his pc exhausting drive of an olive-green gem fragment that he had beforehand been provided on the market by a British supplier known as Malcolm Hay.

Dr Gradel informed him about his suspicions across the gem instantly.

However when Malcolm Hay wrote to the museum to make enquiries concerning the startling similarity, he was informed it was closed due to the Covid lockdown.

“[Deputy Director] Jonathan Williams replied to me, and he stated, in fact, there is not any manner of confirming something in the mean time as a result of no-one may get into the museum,” Mr Hay stated. “He requested me to carry it.”

Fortunately, the one who had first offered it to Mr Hay occurred to be a mutual good friend of Dr Gradel’s – a gallery-owner in Bathtub known as Rolf von Kiaer. Dr Gradel bought in contact with him instantly.

Rolf replied that he had purchased the olive-green gem on eBay a number of years earlier than.

The identify of the vendor? Sultan1966.

At this level, Dr Gradel feared one thing was very unsuitable. He started to comb via pc information and paper data of all the things he had purchased from sultan1966.

He meticulously went via eBay listings, correspondences and transaction receipts, courting again to his very first buy from sultan1966 in 2014.

A web-based receipt supplied an important clue – apparently revealing the vendor’s actual identify. It was listed as Peter Higgs reasonably than Paul Higgins.

“A PayPal receipt must be hooked up to an actual checking account,” Dr Gradel explains. “So this needed to be his actual identify.”

He instantly known as Rolf von Kiaer as soon as once more.

“[Rolf] then stated to me, ‘Ittai, you do realise that’s the identify of a curator within the British Museum Greece and Rome division, do not you?’ And I keep in mind that distinctly, my hair stood on finish, I used to be completely shocked by this.”

Over the approaching days, Dr Gradel continued to unearth new connections between the net vendor and Peter Higgs.

He found that “sultan1966” was additionally Dr Higgs’s account identify on Twitter – now often known as X – and that 1966 was the yr he was born.

“The e-mail tackle on the PayPal account was Bodrum1966,” stated Dr Gradel. “His specialty was really engaged on sculpture from historic Halicarnassus in modern-day Turkey. And the fashionable identify of that place is Bodrum.”

Lastly, Dr Gradel discovered an eBay receipt for a gem he had purchased from sultan1966 that gave a full non-public tackle. Dr Gradel determined to verify it towards property data – and the identify given was Peter Higgs, the British Museum curator.

Every thing instantly made sense to the Danish collector with the photographic reminiscence.

“There was no different potential conclusion to attract from this. It was what it gave the impression to be – that the British Museum curator was pilfering his personal museum,” says Dr Gradel.

Dr Higgs has since denied all of the allegations and is defending the civil declare the British Museum is bringing towards him.

Whereas Dr Gradel was combing via his receipts, Peter Higgs’ profession gave the impression to be going from power to power.

In January 2021, he was promoted to performing head of the Division of Greece and Rome, having constructed a fame for serving to observe down stolen antiquities across the globe.

He had been described by the UK authorities as “a world-renowned curator” in 2015 after serving to to return a stolen 2,000-year-old statue to Libya. Dr Higgs later appeared on BBC’s Crimewatch to explain his work.

When Dr Gradel emailed the museum’s administration in February 2021 along with his issues about Dr Higgs, he bought a return acknowledgement from deputy director Jonathan Williams however that was all.

Dr Gradel was unaware the administration had already heard concerning the allegations towards Dr Higgs only a day earlier, accompanied by a warning he is perhaps being framed. Dr Higgs had been tipped off by one other archaeologist – Dorothy Lobel King, after Dr Gradel had approached her on social media for recommendation.

Ms Lobel King had change into involved Dr Higgs was being arrange. She had emailed him, and he had forwarded the e-mail on to Dr Williams the deputy director – the court docket paperwork now say.

The museum did examine Dr Gradel’s issues – however because it did so, Dr Higgs was allowed to maintain operating his division. He tried to throw colleagues off his scent, the museum says, by altering pc data and implying that objects had gone lacking many years earlier.

The day after Dr Gradel emailed his allegations, in response to the museum’s court docket paperwork, it believes Dr Higgs made a report falsely claiming that the olive-green gem, which had been purchased by Malcolm Hay, had really been misplaced many years in the past.

The museum additionally believes Dr Higgs marked the merchandise as misplaced in its catalogue entry by inserting a notice made to appear like it had been written in 1963.

The British Museum chairman, George Osborne, says the museum’s court docket proof prompt the thief had gone to “fairly elaborate lengths” to cowl his tracks.

In Might 2021, Malcolm Hay was invited to a gathering at hand again his gem. He stated the museum was not likely all in favour of the place he had bought it: “They had been simply pleased to have it again.”

In the meantime, Dr Gradel was rising more and more anxious that he hadn’t heard something again about his allegations, regardless of asking for an replace a number of occasions.

Lastly, in July 2021, he acquired a reply from deputy director Dr Williams saying the museum had carried out a “thorough investigation”. All objects had been accounted for, he was informed, and there was no suggestion of wrongdoing by workers.

Dr Gradel says this was “weird to say the least – completely absurd”.

He knew Mr Hay’s gem had gone lacking, been purchased on-line and was solely within the assortment after being handed again. When Dr Gradel tried to search out out extra, the museum informed him particulars had been confidential.

Contained in the museum nevertheless, that was not the tip of it.

In December 2021, a routine spot-check revealed objects had been lacking within the Greece and Rome division and a top-secret second investigation was launched. The next April, a curator was employed to verify each single merchandise – though beneath the supervision of division head, Peter Higgs.

However, it was turning into clear that one thing was very unsuitable.

The museum says the employed curator found that greater than 300 registered objects, many with gold mounts, had been broken or stolen. A few of these remaining had deep gouging and scratches, which regarded like marks left by pliers.

When the curator went on to have a look at the unregistered objects contained in a single specific storeroom, court docket paperwork declare she found that 1,161 objects had been lacking – greater than three-quarters of its total contents.

The curator handed over preliminary studies to her boss, Dr Higgs, in late December 2022 and the museum’s court docket paperwork declare Peter Higgs tried to delay escalating the findings a number of occasions.

At first, he stated it wouldn’t be good to announce the information earlier than a weekend or Christmas, the paperwork declare – then, they proceed, he stated it was his birthday and he didn’t wish to cope with the matter.

However, in response to the museum, the curator insisted and her findings rapidly made their option to the highest.

The museum’s director on the time, Hartwig Fisher, shared the data with chairman George Osborne.

“I instantly stated: ‘Properly, maintain on, that should be linked to that electronic mail that I noticed a few months in the past,’” Mr Osborne informed the BBC.

They determined to name the police instantly and Dr Higgs was suspended.

“It took us a while as an establishment to just accept the betrayal of belief that these thefts represented,” Dr Fischer later informed the BBC. “Betrayal by an insider has been a tough lesson to be taught, and exhausting to arrange for”.

He later resigned from his place early over the response to Dr Gradel’s allegations.

“I feel it was fairly traumatic for the individuals who had been investigating this, significantly as the dimensions of the thefts emerged,” stated Mr Osborne.

Each Dr Higgs’ workspace and residential had been raided by the Metropolitan Police over the following months.

In accordance with the museum’s Excessive Court docket paperwork, police discovered handwritten notes and printed directions on modifying museum data at his work, whereas at residence they seized objects believed to have come from the museum’s collections.

“I am 100% sure we have got our man, we all know who has stolen these things,” says Mr Osborne, “lacking cash had been present in his home”.

Dr Higgs has denied the cash got here from the museum, stating they belonged to a lifeless relative.

He was lastly dismissed from the museum in July 2023 – greater than two years after Dr Gradel first raised the alarm.

Mr Osborne informed the BBC the Danish antiques supplier had finished the museum an awesome service, and he was sorry he had not been listened to initially.

“I hope he can take a look at the adjustments… and see that some good has come out of what has been a really unhappy and unlucky sequence of occasions,” stated Mr Osborne.

These embody a dedication to catalogue each single merchandise within the collections and tighten safety processes, making certain no member of workers can enter a storeroom alone.

Police say the investigation is ongoing and no one has been arrested or charged with any offence.

As for Dr Gradel, he has handed again greater than 360 gem stones he believes belong to the museum, together with some he had offered to different sellers and tracked right down to return.

“I encourage everyone who has come by these gems to do what I’ve finished and simply hand the gems again to the museum,” he stated.

The British Museum’s lack of cataloguing means Dr Gradel has needed to donate objects that had been in his possession, whereas the museum tries to show possession.

It’s contemplating how you can reimburse patrons who unwittingly purchased objects on-line and which it believes are from its collections.

Consumers like Ittai Gradel, who says he’s nonetheless understanding how a lot cash he has misplaced paying for gems which should not have been up on the market within the first place.

“I do not suppose there’s rather more I can do to help the museum in retrieving gems,” he says. “It is like a kind of a closure.”

Thief on the British Museum is obtainable on BBC Sounds and you may watch a documentary of the identical identify on BBC iPlayer