Cops return rare books taken by abseiling gang

STOLEN books worth more than £2.5million, including works by Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton, have been returned to their owners.

About 240 tomes – en route to a US auction – were snatched in 2017 by members of an organised crime gang who abseiled from the roof of a customs centre in Feltham, west London. The haul was taken to Romania, where UK officers later found all but four of the treasures, owned by three book dealers, buried under a house.

Twelve Romanians were jailed last month at Kingston crown court for a series of burglaries.