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1 Preparation
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That is the thing about burglary, you can break into a crib, for instance a suburban home and net a television and a DVD player and for all your trouble you will net perhaps a hundred pounds or even less. Every day you have the same risk as a professional but the mathematics of chance will see you answering for your crimes in front of the magistrates in short order.
The alternative is to spend time researching and seeking the perfect target and net a few hundred thousand. Twice a year I place myself in danger as I cut the maths of risk to the bare bones, for the maximum profit.
I proudly belong to that second group who shun the small time opportunistic crimes and head for the large rewards of well planned and executed theft.
You have all seen the popular Hollywood films of thieves dressed like demented Ninjas who weave through laser alarm systems seeking the diamond of their dreams.
Well, for me, it's not like that at all. Most of the time is spent leafing through catalogues of auction houses and museums looking for items that, for a few moments, will be poorly protected and vulnerable to attack.
Finding the buyer before the theft is another of the most important considerations, the same conscientious effort is expended in this direction as well.
Thus begins the preparation, the research and the waiting. Then there is the motion, the short burst of activity followed by the delicate matter of the money passing hands, before the theft is complete and the next bout of groundwork begins.
I would like to feel that I am an exemplar of my rather dubious trade. I am in and out like lightning but with months of hard planning work. That every mistake costs more than anticipated, could be the thread running through my story. The devil is always in the detail!
To cut a long story short I should perhaps bore you all with some background so that you understand what it is that I do for a living. You see, I am proud of my competence, but that skill mainly is in the organisation and I am always eager to boast of my strengths. This is the story of someone who found out my weakness and exploited it to the full.
The prize that I was after was a small Hu southern Song Dynasty vase. Not much to look at I suppose but to some collectors, priceless, or at least a price of hundreds of thousands of pounds. About eight inches in height, cracked glaze green-azure finish, one of the few existing without a chip or scratch. Value between a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. In other words two hundred grams of pottery worth a thousand pounds a gram.
Well, I saw it in the Huntford collection art and design exhibition in Manchester where it was under glass and alarms that are simply impossible to bypass. But I knew that the owner of the collection was going to split it and sell.
You see the Chinese are getting rich and they are buying up all the Chinese items that went astray when the French, British and Germans forced the emperor into submission a couple of hundred years ago. Believe me when I say that prices are going up and the sky is the limit.
So I photographed the vase, posing as a collector and had a superb replica made in Derby. It might seem a simple thing to do but there are very few artists in pottery and glaze that can copy this kind of thing, using original methods and materials. That undertaking took weeks of impatient waiting as the Huntford collection finally came up for sale. For a few days I thought that I would end up as the proud owner of a copy that had cost me two thousand pounds.
But my artisan came up trumps and I collected the vase the day of the first auction. It is generally not a good thing to attend in person at your victim's auction because cameras and memory can catch you out. But I had to risk it to see who bought the vase and I like to work alone. The chain needed all of its links.
Well the bidding was fierce and fluid and the vase went for three hundred and fifty thousand pounds to Meijin Xia Hu who was clearly buying for another party in China.
An hour on the Internet and a walk round Portland Place on the West End of London and I was ready. Meijin was a woman in her thirties who was acting as an aide to the Chinese cultural attaché. She had a small apartment in the back of the Chinese Embassy. This was going to be the first time that my business was taking me abroad. At least in a legal sense, as an Embassy is the lawful ground of the owning country by international law!
This was looking pretty good. The vase was picked up in the afternoon and would leave in the diplomatic bag to China in the next few days. All I had to do was to break in, switch the vase for my fake and meet the seller to pick up my two hundred thousand.
2. Break In
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I always think that jeans and leather jacket are a much better uniform than some crazy black spandex suit. Anyone wearing that sort of gear will be picked up by a policeman in short order. My tools are my brain and natural ability to improvise plus a few basics. I like to think that I blend into the background at average height. As the police like to say 'he has no distinguishing marks'.
The roof of the adjoining school and doctor's surgery is easy to enter. I just shimmied up a couple of pipes, no fuss, no tools needed. I have a pretty good head for heights, which stands me in good stead. There was, I will admit, a moment of tension, when the drain pipe separated from the gutter. I really pisses me off when owners don't bother to maintain the glorious buildings that are the proud heritage of this country.
At any rate, a slightly wind-blown two minutes later and I was looking at the security fence between embassy and the building that I was on. Looking down into the darkened street I could see the public moving around, four stories below, going about their business.
Even better I could see the windows of Meijin's rooms. At just seven in the evening it was already dusk and the work of the city was done, now was the time when the good citizens of London come out to play.
I waited.
Patience is a virtue. Actually it is another one of my strong suits. I can sit and focus on nothing but my target for hours at a time without weariness.
I waited some more.
The lights in the rooms went out so I looked into the street, hoping that Meijin was leaving for the dubious delights of the West End. Sure enough, just twenty minutes later she left the building with a couple of big guys and headed off up Weymouth Street.
I still waited.
The best sign is thirty minutes of inactivity. It is so easy to be caught by someone who returns for a small item or forgotten handbag. That short half an hour is enough to show that the victim is well clear. I knew that Meijin was single so there was not likely to be any other person in the rooms.
