Consider this: You manage to steal some things that are extremely valuable because they are unique, historic, and irreplaceable. Only afterward do you realize that you cannot sell those things, because they are unique, historic, and irreplaceable. That may have been the case when a shipment of rare books including first editions by Galileo Galilei, Sir Isaac Newton, and Francisco Goya, plus 16th-century editions of works by Copernicus, Euripides, Aesop, and Manutius were stolen from a London postal warehouse in 2017.
Now, after three years of coordinated efforts by the MPS, the Romanian National Police, the Italian Carabinieri, Europol and Eurojust, authorities have finally recovered the purloined papers.
Per the statement, police discovered the trove of books—neatly wrapped and buried in a cement pit—beneath a house in Neamț, a county in eastern Romania, last Wednesday. The individuals responsible for the burglary appear to be connected to a network of Romanian families involved with the notorious Clamparu crime group.
Read about the heist and the recovery at Smithsonian. -via reddit
(Image credit: Metropolitan Police)