A gang of Irish travellers with links to a worldwide criminal network raked in hundreds of millions of pounds by stealing rhino horns and jade from stately homes, museums and auction houses to sell in the Far East.
The gang stole £57 million in raids in Cambridge, Durham, Norwich and East Sussex. They made tens of millions of pounds more from thefts in about 70 locations across Europe since 2011.
The focus on rhino horn was fuelled by demand from China and Vietnam, where it is used as medicine or a party drug. One horn can be worth up to £220,000.
Four self-declared “generals” from the gang were found guilty yesterday of a conspiracy involving six British raids or attempted burglaries relating to works from the Qing and Ming dynasties.
The verdicts came at the end of three linked trials during which a total of 14 men were jailed for their part in the plot, which was uncovered by an analysis of mobile phone and computer activity. The group used vulnerable young men and a 15-year-old boy to do their bidding, ordering them to chisel through a 2ft by 3ft wall at the Oriental Museum at Durham University to gain access to its jade collection and cut through metal shutters to access the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University.
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At least three of the hired thieves were found through the traveller community in London and Kent.
Among the leaders of the gang, which was known as the Rathkeale Rovers, was Richard Sheridan, spokesman for the travellers living at Dale Farm, the largest illegal settlement in Europe until it was cleared in October 2011. The group, also called the Dead Zoo Gang, has criminal links to North and South America and Australia dating back to at least 2010, it can now be revealed.
From an auction house in Lewes, East Sussex, to châteaux in the Czech Republic, statistics provided by Europol suggest that the gang struck in as many as 68 locations.
Among the travellers facing jail sentences of up to ten years are at least three men with criminal records for rhino-horn theft. Richard O’Brien Jr, 31, and Michael Hegarty, 43, his brother-in-law, were convicted at Birmingham crown court. They had been jailed in Denver, Colorado, in November 2010 after an operation by the US Fish and Wildlife Service found them plotting to smuggle rhino horn.
They used distraction tactics, straw buyers, sledgehammers and even stun gas, and would tie up or assault venue workers in some attacks. In almost every case men with Irish accents visited or called before burglars struck but the suspects arrested would be turned out to be petty criminals or local labourers.
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Their uncle, Daniel “Turkey” O’Brien, 45, was jailed in 2014 after he and an accomplice beat up an antiques dealer in Newark, Nottinghamshire, as they stole a rhino horn from him.
Also facing jail is Donald Chi Chong Wong, 56, who moved back and forth between London and China overseeing the movement of cash and artefacts in his guise as a legitimate antiques dealer.
