Three burglars who carried out a record-breaking US$637 million art heist in Hong Kong but remained oblivious to the value of their historic haul were jailed on Friday, local media reported.
Police show a picture of a calligraphy scroll written by Mao Zedong worth about US$300 million, that had been recovered but found chopped in half following a robbery that included antique stamps and revolutionary items from mainland China worth an estimated US$637 million, at a press conference in Hong Kong on October 7, 2020. File photo: Isaac Lawrence/AFP.
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Hong Kong’s art community was rocked by the theft that included a two-metre tall scroll containing a 1929 Politburo report written by Mao Zedong valued at hundreds of millions of dollars – but was sold to an amateur collector for just HK$200 (US$25).
When police recovered the parchment a month after it was stolen, they discovered it had been cut in half to make it easier to store by the collector, who also did not realise it was genuine.
A calligraphy letter and handwritten poem by Mao remain missing, as do dozens of sets of highly prized Chinese stamps, the Post reported.
A collector who received some of the goods alerted the police once he realised the items were stolen.
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