Sentences passed on those behind the theft of Cattelan's golden toilet from Blenheim Palace

Participants in the theft of the golden lavatory have been sentenced. The landmark work by Maurizio Cattelan, the very Italian-American who taped a banana to a wall, entitled "America", was stolen straight out of a museum in 2019.

At around five o'clock on the morning of 14 September 2019, a gang of criminals in stolen cars rammed the gates of Blenheim Palace in Great Britain, where an exhibition of Cattelan's works was under way. With the help of sledgehammers they broke down the doors, dismantled the 100-kilogram lavatory, loaded it into a car and vanished to parts unknown. The whole operation took a little over five minutes. Not the most elegant plan for a robbery, but at the very least, an efficient one.

The gang of lavatory thieves left a great many clues behind and was soon arrested, yet the lavatory itself, insured for some six million dollars, has still not been found. One of the criminals has been sentenced to four years' imprisonment, the other to 27 months.