Golden toilet: Theft in 2019 and confession in 2024
Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. He made a toilet of 18-carat gold. It cost five million pounds. About 50 crore rupees in Indian currency.
His exhibitions were seen in many places in the world. American President Donald Trump also kept this golden toilet in the White House for a few days.
In 2019, this toilet was brought to Britain’s Blenheim Palace. It was fitted out and the exhibition was held, but on the third night of the exhibition, someone stole the toilet.
Immediately the police came running. The investigation began. There were cameras but it was not easy to reach the culprit. Thousands of people visited and used the toilet in three days.
The ‘fifty crore question’ was who stole from those thousands? There was an opening at the back of the palace and it was determined that the toilet was stolen from there, but there were no CCTV cameras, so the ruse went awry.
The news of 50 crore toilets became the talk of the town in many countries of the world. The police intensified the investigation.
The CCTV on the road opposite the palace was checked. It showed two suspicious vehicles, which had been passing by the palace for three days.
On seeing the mysterious cars, the police were on the lookout, but the windows of the car were black so it was not possible to tell who was inside.
The police immediately checked the number. It turned out to be wrong. Then the police swept up the whole area around Oxfordshire.
Finally, after many days, the police found the trail of the vehicle with the wrong number. Several kilometers from Oxfordshire a man got out of a car and was seen taking something from a motel.
The face was exposed. Now he had to match with the thief. The police again checked the CCTV footage of Blenheim Palace to find out if the man had come to the exhibition.
After days of looking at thousands of faces, the face was matched. The person came to the exhibition and also used the toilet.
The surprise was that it came not in one day but in three days. The police noted her body language and movements in the exhibition hall.
His eyes were spinning. He was doing Reiki. Now the police had to find out his name.
His name was found in the exhibition register and it turned out to be true. His name was James Shinn.
Now its location had to be found. The police also discovered it within a few days using technology.
James was from the Wellingborough area of Northamptonshire. Now the police thought that the thief of the toilet worth 50 crores would be caught.
The police reached his address but did not find James. He was missing from his house for a long time. Eventually, the police had to come back empty-handed.
The police again started searching for James day and night. Days began to pass.
Further investigation revealed that James was a professional thief. His age was 39 years. Even before this, he had stolen a lot from museums.
Not long ago, he stole a heritage tractor and priceless trophies from Britain’s National Horse Racing Museum.
In the end, this case turned out to be like a boy in the arm and a villager in the village. The one the police were looking for all over the city was in jail.
The police immediately completed the legal procedures and visited James in jail.
The case went to court, but James pleaded not guilty. Suspicious vehicles and the only information the police had was James had arrived at the exhibition.
Apart from that, there was no concrete evidence. So James did not believe.
Years passed, but neither the police could prove that James had stolen the gold toilet worth 50 lakhs nor did James admit it.
Five years have passed like this. Finally, James got fed up and on 3 April 2024, he confessed in the Oxfordshire court that he had stolen the world’s historic 50 crore gold toilet.
He gave the full details of the theft to the court. He admitted that he had been eyeing this 50-crore toilet for many days.
He and six other colleagues had started Reiki since his exhibition at Blenheim Palace.
After that, they came to know that there was no CCTV at the back of the palace, so on the third day late at night, along with his three friends, he climbed up with the equipment through the back pipe.
Removed the exhaust fan there and went to the washroom. After going inside, cutting the pipes, breaking the floor, and pulling out the golden toilet, tied it with a rope and handed it down to his friends.
Then that too went down and all four were dazed.
After James’s confession, the police arrested three of his accomplices, one being 38-year-old Michael Jones, the other 40-year-old Bora Gukkuj, and the third being 35-year-old Frederick Sines.
Apart from this, the police also arrested three other accomplices.
Finally, the police recovered the toilet worth 50 crores of gold hidden by the thieves in one place, and the vehicles used in the crime were also found.
James Shinn has already been sentenced to 17 years in the National Horse Racing case and the case is also ongoing.
Criminals will be punished according to law, but this case is the only case in the world in which a toilet has been stolen and the case is on.
It is different whether the toilet is gold or 50 crores because, after all, a toilet is a toilet!
