Stolen British Museum jewellery worth up to US$63,000 sold on eBay for as little as US$50
- The items were stolen from the museum’s secure vaults in 2013 and they began turning up on the auction platform three years later
- A curator suspected of being behind the thefts was fired after an internal investigation
Some of the items were worth up to £50,000, or around US$63,000, and were listed on eBay for as little as £40 (US$50), according to British newspaper The Telegraph.
An antiquities expert reported suspicion that a staff member was stealing from secure vaults at the museum in 2013, and the missing items began turning up on eBay three years later.
Peter Higgs, 56, who held the position of curator of Mediterranean cultures at the museum for over three decades, was fired after an internal investigation.
Higgs’ 21-year-old son Greg maintained that his father is innocent.
“He’s not done anything,” Greg Higgs said, per The Times of London. “He’s not happy about it at all. He’s lost his job and his reputation and I don’t think it was fair.”
“He’s devastated about it, because it’s his life’s work, basically. I’ve never known somebody who’s so passionate about what he did.”
