Inspired by a real case

The Feltham rare book heist

London, United Kingdom, 2017

This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.

In late January 2017, on the night of 29 to 30 January, a gang climbed onto the roof of a customs cargo warehouse in Feltham, west London, near Heathrow airport. The thieves cut holes in the ceiling and abseiled down ropes so as not to trigger the floor motion sensors. Inside they opened the trunks of three antiquarian booksellers, with books that were to be shipped to the United States.

They took about 200 rare books, including early editions of Galileo and Isaac Newton and prints by Goya, valued at over 2.5 million pounds. The British press called it a "Mission Impossible" style burglary. The Metropolitan Police linked the crime to a Romanian organised crime group that carried out the same kind of warehouse raids, and in June 2019 made searches and arrests at 45 addresses in the United Kingdom, Romania and Italy.

Sources

In the game

Rope in the Skylight

Feltham, Monday, 30 January 2017, 9 am. In a customs cargo warehouse near Heathrow, the night guard found two round holes in the skylight at 6:15 am and a cut rope hanging from the ceiling.

In September 2020, British and Romanian police found the books buried under a house in Neamț county, in northeastern Romania. Twelve men pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary and were sentenced in early October 2020 at Kingston upon Thames court, to terms of roughly three to six years in prison. In November 2020 the books were returned to their owners; only four were still missing.

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