Rare books stolen in a 'Mission: Impossible-style' raid on a warehouse in west London in 2017 have been returned after a joint operation with Met police officers and Romanian authorities.

Around 240 have been given back to the dealers who owned them and had used the warehouse for storage ahead of their transportation to The California International Antiquarian Book Fair.

The items, including incunabula, early books and manuscripts, were taken from trunks housed in a storage unit in Feltham, near Heathrow, on the night of January 29, 2017.

After more than three years of investigation the books were recovered in September from a hidden underground store in a rural house in Romania.

Detectives from the Met's Specialist Crime South travelled to Romania to carry out identification of the books and met with four of the five victims, along with Romanian police officers and the National Library of Romania.

Unfortunately, 83 of the books had suffered some damage, ranging from slight to severe. This mainly consisted of damage from water and mould because of the way the books had been hidden underground, and broken spines believed to be from poor methods of transportation.

Twenty-eight were assessed as having substantial damage and two were so severely damaged they have been initially assessed as being beyond repair.

However, four of the stolen books have still not been recovered:

Italian book dealer Natalina Bado said: "Reviewing and touching our books three years and nine months after the theft was a profound joy. Every time we were about to view a book we had many expectations regarding the conditions and when we found our works in good condition it was a great happiness for us, just as it was a deep pain to see some damaged books."

To read the complete article, see:
Police return £2.5m rare books to dealers but four still missing after west London raid (https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/news/2020/police-return-25m-rare-books-to-dealers-but-four-still-missing-after-west-london-raid/)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
LOOSE CHANGE: SEPTEMBER 20, 2020 : Stolen Books Found in Romania(https://www.coinbooks.org/v23/esylum_v23n38a31.html)