worldUpdated: Sep 18, 2020 17:26 ISTNearly 200 ‘irreplaceable’ books stolen in a sophisticated burglary by a Romanian gang in west London in January 2017 have been recovered from a village in Romania, Scotland Yard said on Friday. The books from the 16th, 17th and later centuries – including those of Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilei and Spanish painter Francisco Goya – have been described as ‘culturally significant’ and of international importance, worth more than £2.5 million. The books were stolen by members of a Romanian gang when they were stored in a transit warehouse in Feltham before being sent to Las Vegas for a specialist book auction. The books were stolen in 16 large bags, with the suspects leaving the same way they entered. A joint operation with the Romanian National Police and Italian Carabinieri, supported by Europol and Eurojust culminated in coordinated arrests and searches of 45 addresses across the UK, Romania and Italy in June 2019.

Source: Hindustan Times September 18, 2020 11:58 UTC