Metropolitan Police Sting Operation Recovers £2 Million Chinese Ming Dynasty Vase in London

A Metropolitan Police sting operation helped recover a Chinese Ming Dynasty vase worth around £2 million. Reports say the operation also ended a criminal organization believed to have stolen the artifact in Switzerland in 2019.

On August 19, the Metropolitan Police Service announced that a police sting operation helped in recovering a 15th-century Chinese vase worth around £2 million ($2.5 million). Further reports say the Chinese vase dates back to the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty.

An article in The Messenger states that the police sting operation also ended a criminal organization that was believed to have stolen the vase and two other artifacts from the Museum of Far Eastern Art in Geneva, Switzerland in June 2019.

The Metropolitan Police stated that they collaborated with Swiss authorities for the police sting operation after an auction house alerted them about an e-mail asking for a valuation of the stolen vase. Undercover officers of the police sting operation then offered to buy the vase for £450,000 ($573,000) and make the transaction at a hotel in central London.

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Suspects Convicted Following Police Sting Operation

According to Davies, on August 18, the Southwark Crown Court in London found Mbaike Nkhwa, 47, and Kaine Wright, 26, guilty of one count of conspiracy to convert criminal property. Reports say last March, David Lamming, 31, pleaded guilty to the same charges.

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