In a dramatic 2019 burglary, a solid gold toilet valued at £4.8 million was stolen from Blenheim Palace, as revealed in court proceedings this week. The 18-carat gold toilet, titled America and crafted by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, was part of a unique art exhibition and fully functional at the time of the heist. The thieves, masked and armed with sledgehammers, managed to pull off the entire operation in just five minutes.
The UK court was informed that despite extensive investigations, the stolen toilet was likely dismantled into smaller gold pieces and sold off, never to be recovered. Prosecutor Julian Christopher KC stated that the theft took place during the early hours of September 14, 2019, when five suspects forced their way into the palace using two vehicles and broke in with sledgehammers, which were later found abandoned.
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Among the accused, Michael Jones from Oxford denied involvement, while Fred Doe from Windsor and Bora Guccuk from London also pleaded not guilty to conspiring to transfer stolen property. A fourth suspect, James Sheen from Northamptonshire, had already pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges of burglary and money laundering. Evidence presented in court linked the suspects to negotiations over the sale of 20kg of gold from the stolen toilet, with a price of £25,632 per kilogram.
The toilet, weighing 98kg, had an insured value of $6 million, though its gold content alone was worth around £2.8 million at the time. Blenheim Palace, a historic site and the birthplace of Winston Churchill, remains at the center of this high-profile and unsolved art theft.
