Stolen Sax.co.uk break-in

[Veggie Dave]

I was talking about this the other day and we couldn't work out where saxes with no cases could possibly be sold on.

Was anyone ever caught for the burglary?

 

[MikeMorrell]

Awful to read about this break-in! Damaging the saxes during the break-in is strange.

The thieves were professional enough to pick out a high-value store located on a commercial estate on the outskirts of Crowborough. The nearest houses are more than 50m away on the other side of a small woods. They also picked a metal-sided store that could be cut through and they seem to have known exactly where to cut the hole to avoid structural supports nearby. They picked out some (high-value?) saxes and left others that were closer to the hole. This suggests that they already knew which brands of saxes they wanted and where they were located in the store. No idea what security systems were installed but the thieves had probably cased these out too. Maybe even found a way of disabling them. All in all, it seems that this theft was well-prepared.

But then to just throw saxes by the armful through the hole? Weird.

Shocking news.

And yeah, it's obviously time for a full security review.
I would have thought commercial systems would be very sophisticated these days, given that you can get sensors for detecting almost anything. An angle grinder busting through the side of a wall would have made a hell of a lot of noise, and for quite a long time.

I can't imagine where they'll sell the horns - they're not exactly generic items. If you leave the serial numbers intact they're almost certain to turn up on the radar at some point - and if you grind them off it just advertises the probability that they're stolen.
And not having a case is a dead giveaway.

 

[Nick Wyver]

where saxes with no cases could possibly be sold on.

Eastern Europe.

 

[Jules]

Eastern Europe.

true.... in this case- no cases and probably smashed up pretty badly based on how they grabbed them...

 

[MikeMorrell]

How awful this (and any break-in!) is, this one still puzzels me. The break-in seems to me to have been well-planned (see my previous comment). Maybe something unexpected happened during the execution but I find it difficult to imagine that anyone who planned and prepared this theft so professionally would have had no plan/preparation for making a profit from the theft. I have no idea what this plan/preparation might be. Maybe it all just went awry in the moment. Maybe the 43 stolen saxes are still in pretty good shape.

 

[Tomasz]

Eastern Europe.

Yes, quite likely. If you were to sell those horns in Western Europe, leaving the serial numbers intact is asking for trouble because it's so easy to check online (2, 5 or 10 years from now) if they're completely pukka. The internet never forgets...

Of course, removing the serial numbers is counterproductive because it rings alarm bells for any savvy buyer. After all, there's no legitimate reason to remove the serial number from any saxophone. It's only ever done to conceal the fact that it's been stolen from someone.

I have a gut feeling those horns might be in Russia because it's a truly gigantic country. For all we know, one of them could already be in Vladivostok (further East than Beijing!) on the shores of the Pacific ocean:-

Vladivostok - Wikipedia

In truth, we'll probably never know for sure. I'd like to think that the perpetrators of this theft could be tracked down and suitably punished. It must be sickening for the rightful owners.