Preventing the Swiss Museum Robbery: Unraveling the Plot with an Ingenious Sting Operation in a London Hotel

In June 2019, a group of masked men broke into Geneva's Museum of Far Eastern Art and stole valuable Chinese and Japanese artefacts. The thieves used power tools to break through the front door and quickly grabbed two bowls and a vase from display cases. They escaped in a grey Renault Koleos and left behind DNA evidence, which later led investigators to identify one of the thieves as Stewart Ahearne from London. Swiss and British detectives worked together to track down the suspects, including Ahearne's younger brother Louis. They discovered that the stolen items had been taken to Hong Kong, where one of the bowls was sold at an auction house. The investigation took a major turn when a man named Mr Steel contacted the auction house and claimed to have another stolen item, a vase. Undercover officers were able to establish contact with Mr Steel, whose real name was David Lamming, and arranged a meeting to discuss the sale of the vase. Lamming and Stewart Ahearne eventually met with undercover officers in London to exchange the stolen vase for cash. However, the police intervened and arrested the two men, as well as an associate named Leslie Mbaki Nkhwa. The Ahearne brothers were eventually extradited to Switzerland and confessed to their involvement in the heist. They were sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison and banned from entering Switzerland for five years. The recovered vase and the bowl sold at the auction house were returned to the Museum of Far Eastern Art in Geneva.