About
200 "irreplaceable" books worth more than £2.5m ($3.2m), which were
stolen from a warehouse in London, have been found buried under the
floor of a house in rural Romania, police say.
The works include first editions of Galileo and Isaac Newton.
They
were taken by thieves in January 2017 who cut holes in the roof of a
warehouse in Feltham then abseiled in, dodging sensors.
The men were identified as being part of a Romanian organised crime gang.
The gang is responsible for a series of high-value warehouse burglaries across the UK, London's Metropolitan police said in a statement.
Officers
discovered the books underground during a search of a house in the
region of Neamț, in north-eastern Romania, on Wednesday.
The
find follows raids on 45 addresses across the UK, Romania and Italy in
June 2019, investigators say. Thirteen people have been charged, 12 of
whom have already pleaded guilty.
The
hoard includes rare versions of Dante and sketches by the Spanish
painter Francisco de Goya, as well as the titles by Galileo and Isaac
Newton dating back to the 16th and 17th Centuries.
"These
books are extremely valuable, but more importantly they are
irreplaceable and are of great importance to international cultural
heritage," said Det Insp Andy Durham, from the Metropolitan police's
Specialist Crime South command.
The
works were being stored in a warehouse ahead of being transported to a
specialist book auction in Las Vegas, in the US, when they were stolen.
The
thieves cut through the roof of the warehouse in Feltham, near Heathrow
airport, and abseiled 12m (40ft) to the ground, dodging movement
sensors, according to AFP news agency.
