Strange Museum Thefts

[Story]

Posted on Wed, Aug. 31, 2011

Man steals 8-foot whale tooth from Norway museum
The Associated Press

OSLO, Norway - The tooth fairy in disguise? No, just a simple tooth thief.

A man dressed in a black leather hat and a dark coat on Wednesday ran off with an eight-foot (2.5 meter) whale tooth from a museum in the Norwegian city Stavanger.

Museum official Atle Fiskaa says the tooth was more than 100 years old and valued at around $9,300. Fiskaa says the thief was between 40 and 50 years old and took off with the tooth together with a big, white dog that he had left outside the museum before entering.

The incident has been reported to police, who are searching for the thief.

[TAK]

Artie is crazy

[heresiarch]

I saw this, and thought of fanatical Tcho-Tcho foiled by a cabal of rural museum keepers.

Two rhino horns were targeted in a theft at the Natural History Museum at Tring, Hertfordshire, last weekend. However, the thieves only got away with replicas.

The horns were from rhinoceros specimens on display and were removed in a break-in at 4.30am on Saturday 27 August. The horns have no financial value.

The incident follows a spate of break-ins at museums and other institutions across Europe in recent months.

Rhino horn is extremely valuable in illegal markets, where it is sold for use in some traditional medicines in Asia or as trophies.

The Natural History Museum in London and Tring had recently replaced all of the horns on display with hand-crafted replicas in response to these events.

...

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2...ing102898.html

Would the investigators be able to remain hidden in the broom cupboard while the theft is carried out? (I've clearly been reading too much Charlie Stross ...)