Thief has been plundering the British Museum for two decades

An art dealer is believed to have raised the alarm about three artefacts being sold for a fraction of their value online.

Many of the items which were stolen or destroyed were kept out of public view. Picture: Getty Images

A thief has been stealing and defacing ancient artefacts from the British Museum for at least two decades, The Times has learnt.

Items including gold jewellery and gemstones were not on public display and often not properly catalogued, an example of mismanagement that the culprit is believed to have known about and exploited.

A police source said: “We believe they sold many of these things for just a few hundred pounds. Some things were simply melted down. In one case, a ring was taken but the gem was prised out so all that was left was the gold.”

Many of the items are priceless, according to the source, who added: “Some of them would have been very, very valuable – tens of thousands of pounds – if it was known they were from the British Museum. But they couldn’t be sold like that.”

The museum was apparently alerted to the thefts in February 2021 when an art dealer is believed to have raised the alarm about three artefacts being sold for a fraction of their value online.

Ittai Gradel is said to have emailed the museum to highlight his concerns after spotting a fragment of Roman jewellery listed for sale on eBay.

However, his warning was dismissed by the institution’s leadership, which insisted the “collect­ion was protected”. Jonathan Williams, the deputy director, replied to the dealer five months later saying a “thorough investigation” had been conducted and “there was no suggestion of any wrongdoing”.

Their correspondence, which was seen by BBC News, shows that Mr Gradel also informed the museum that he had prompted a third party seller who was in possession of a gem to return it to the museum. Despite it being handed back, Mr Gradel claimed the institution failed to follow up and accused its director, Hartwig Fischer, of “sweeping it all under the carpet”.

In one response emailed in October 2022 to a trustee who was looking into the dealer’s concerns, Dr Fischer said the “three items” Mr Gradel had mentioned were “in the collection”.

Last week, the museum announced it had sacked a member of staff in July this year after learning treasures had been reported “missing, stolen or damaged”. A police investigation is under way.

The Times revealed that the dismissed employee is Peter Higgs, 56, the museum’s curator of Greek collections, Greek sculpture and the Hellenistic period. Higgs’s son, Greg, 21, denied his father was the culprit, saying: “It couldn’t have been (him). He worked there for what, (30) years without any incidents.”

Dr Fischer announced he was stepping down just days after the sacking. The museum insisted this had nothing to do with the scandal. As many as 2000 objects are now believed to have been lost from the museum’s vaults, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Gradel suspected the culprit was choosing items that did not appear in the museum’s online catalogue so it would be difficult for anyone to prove where they had come from.

Former Tory chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne, the new chairman of the museum, has vowed to change what has been described as a “culture” of unregistered objects at the museum. The missing items are believed to have been taken over a “significant” period of time.

The Times