BIG JEWEL HAUL

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 137, 11 June 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

BIG JEWEL HAUL

THIEVES' £25,000 LOOT. TREASURE HOUSE RANSACKED. COUNT'S RESIDENCE RAIDED. Thieves who broke into the home of Count Spetia di Radione in Kensington Court, London, stole jewellery and valuable antiques worth £25,000. Among the things they got away with was a bronze statue of 400 8.C., which ifi known to every art dealer and expert, and which

id unique. Count di Radione, in an interview, described how the coup was carried out while servants were sleeping on the floors below and above the one in which the jewellery and antiques were kept. " The theft must have been carefully planned, and carried out in a very short time," lie said. "My wife and I went last night to the theatre, and afterwards to supper. We returned about 1.35 a.m. to find the glass panel of the door broken.

" I rushed upstairs, and found all the lights on on the third floor, where my own and my wife's bedroom are situated. The place was in disorder. The thieves had broken the lock of a cabinet contain-

ing valuables, and had opened a safe by means of a key which they found in my wife's dressing table. I at once notified the police, and the officer on duty told me that he had examined my front door between midnight and 32.15. That means that the whole thing was carried out in about an hour. The men took my own suitcase to carry away their haul. Calm Crooks. " They must have calmly walked out of the front door carrying the case, a very short time before my wife and I returned. It is thought that the raid is the work of expert thieves who carefully watched the movements of the household ana were in touch with means of disposing of the jewellery. " The glass which they cut from the front door in order to effect an entry was dropped quietly on the thick rug, and so the servants were not awakened. There were five of them in the house at the time, and not one of them heard a sound. " I am puzzled as to why they took the bronze statue. There is not another one like it in the world. Apart from its value as a work of art the thieves could make no use of it. I think they must have been after the jewellery and have taken the statue without realising the difficulty they would meet with in trying to dispose of it. What They Missed. " The thieves missed a bundle of notes which was in a drawer in my wife's bedroom. Also, the silver was untouched, and no attempt was made to steal some valuable old masters and another statue. The fact that the lights were left on seems to indicate that they were disturbed. They certainly made no attempt to find the key of a second safe containing jewellery. This was left intact. " The estimated value of £2.1,000 is a rough one. It is impossible to estimate how much some of the antiques would fetch. I am particularly anxious to recover the statue. I have had it since 10'28, and prize it as one of the most beautiful examples of Greek art in my collection." It is a bronze statuette of the Aphrodite. IV2 inches high, and is worth thousands of pounds. Diamond pendants, rings, stars, and brooches are among the raiders' haul.