British Museum
Thefts

Thefts from the museum include: several historic coins and medals in the 1970s; a 17th-century Japanese Kakiemon figure in 1990; two Meiji figurines and a fragment of a gold ring in 1991; fifteen Roman coins and jewellery worth £250,000 in 1993; and a Japanese chest and two Persian books in 1996.

In July 2002 a marble head, valued at £50,000, was stolen from the Archaic Greek gallery. In 2004, 15 Chinese artefacts including jewels, ornate hairpins and fingernail guards were stolen. In 2017, it was revealed that a Cartier diamond had been missing since 2011.

In August 2023, a staff member was fired after it emerged that items including gold, jewellery and gems had been stolen over a "significant" period of time. The incident led to an investigation by the Metropolitan Police and an independent review by the museum. Some of the missing artefacts were later found to have been sold on eBay for considerably less than their estimated value. The museum had been warned of the thefts as early as 2021. The museum's director, Hartwig Fischer, resigned because of the museum's inadequate response to the warnings of theft. The number of artefacts stolen was estimated to be about 2,000. As a consequence of the thefts, the museum announced a five-year plan to digitise the complete collection and make it available to view online. By May 2024, 626 of the missing items had been recovered.
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