THE IRISH GANG THAT TOOK GLOBAL RHINO THEFT BY THE HORNS
A UK court case revealed how organised crime groups are targeting museums to supply demand in Asia
Museums are spending too little to maintain the security of their collections in the face of a growing threat from the sort of organised crime groups responsible for the theft in Britain of rhino horns and Chinese artefacts worth nearly £60 million (three billion baht), a leading international expert warned.
Ton Cremers, the former head of security at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, said that leading institutions were too slow to respond to raids targeting their collections, amid claims that the Irish Rathkeale Rovers cartel behind a spate of multimillion-pound thefts in Britain and across the world were stealing for pre-arranged buyers in China.
Over a period of four years, the syndicate — named after the Irish town where its senior members from the Traveller community were based — was linked to raids or planned break-ins at nine British museums and auction houses.
Mr Cremers, a consultant who now runs the Museum Security Network, said museums across Europe were “lethargic” in reacting to thefts at other institutions and wrongly blamed reduced funding for an inability to increase spending on improved anti-theft measures.
“Museums are far too slow in taking security measures after incidents in peer museums. They always use lack of funds as an excuse for what really is lethargy. There are always plenty of funds to make fancy exhibitions, publish colourful catalogues. Museums that complain about not [having] enough funds to update security know that their security is not up to standard but continue displaying very valuable objects, many of which are loans.”
In Britain, several museums removed rhino horns from display, replacing them with replicas, after receiving security advice that such items were at risk of theft. The advice followed raids including a bungled attempt in 2012 to steal a whole rhino head from the Castle Museum in Norwich, which proved too heavy for the thieves, causing them to drop it as they tried to flee. Horn from endangered rhinos is prized for its fictitious medicinal properties in places such as Vietnam, fetching up to £45,000 a kilo.
It was revealed last week that senior planners from the Rathkeale Rovers were among 14 people convicted over roles in nine attempted or planned raids in Britain. The raids included two at Durham’s Oriental Museum and the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge: Chinese antiquities worth up to £57 million were stolen. Two-thirds of the haul has never been recovered and is believed to have been shipped out of the country to Far Eastern buyers.
Key planners from the gang — blamed for dozens of burglaries across Europe dating back to 2009 — were convicted of two smash-andgrab raids in Britain within eight days. These targeted Chinese antiquities and each landed bigger hauls than the £14 million Hatton Garden safety deposit heist.
The convictions of six members of one family deal a significant blow to the Irish Traveller gang whose criminality led to a pan-European police operation and sparked demands for action from the top of the UK government.
“If you think the Hatton Garden break-in was big, this will blow that out of the water,” said Detective Superintendent Adrian Green, who led the investigation. “Because of the variations which can be given by auction houses the total value of the items targeted comes to anywhere between £18 million and £57 million. This illustrates just how massively profitable this trade was.”
The gang, with strong links to the Irish town in Limerick from which it takes its name, has been connected to museum or auction house raids in at least 16 nations across Europe, rhino poaching in southern Africa and attempts to smuggle horn from the United States. At least eight of those convicted had links to the town.
Rhino horn can bring a higher profit than gold or cocaine, fuelled by strong demand from countries such as Vietnam and China, where it is prized for its supposed medicinal qualities. It has been known to command prices of around £45,000 a kilo. Investigators estimate nearly 100 rhino horns were stolen in just a few years to 2013.
The gang’s senior members — said to be from a small group of families from the nomadic community — escaped detection by remaining in the shadows while paying career criminals and the vulnerable to carry out the raids, and ensuring their silence with at times brutal violence.
Members of the extended Irish “Kerry” O’Brien family were identified through telephone data during a series of panicked calls after their hired hands “lost” a £16 million haul from the Durham Oriental Museum in April 2012. After failing to find the antiquities that they stashed on waste ground on the outskirts of Durham, the gang stole 18 precious items from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge just over a week later to fulfil an order for a jade bowl for a Far Eastern buyer. Those items, worth up to £40 million, have never been recovered.
Noah Charney, the founder of the Association of Research into Crimes against Art, said, “Theft on commission is largely a fictional concept — but it’s an exception when dealing with the Far East and China in particular.”
Along with the senior leadership, a Hong Kong middleman, Chi Chong Donald Wong, who garnered orders for Far Eastern customers, and a raft of low-level criminals have also been found guilty after three trials that could not be reported until today for legal reasons. The convictions represent a rare series of victories against the gang, also believed to have been involved in fraud, fake goods, drug smuggling and violence.
With the world’s rhino population cut by 90% since the 1970s, the gang focused on dead creatures in museums, which for years had failed to understand the value of their stocks before beefing up security in response to the raids.
“They are a bit like banks where people can come in and touch the money,” said Superintendent Green.