‘Operation Haul’ Ends 20-Year Crime Spree By Johnson Family

Reading, England

:The robbing of "barons" of millions worth of art and antiques has ended for a notorious gang of thieves — four of them members of the Johnson family — when they were recently given jail sentences following a two-decade-long crime spree. The thefts include a 2006 robbery that has been characterized as the largest burglary in the United Kingdom.

Sentenced for up to 11 years in jail were five men, including four family members, charged with stealing more than $50 million worth of art from stately residences within several counties in southeast England. Richard Johnson, 33, and Daniel O'Loughlin, 32, drew 11-year sentences. Michael Nicholls, 29, drew ten years, Albi Johnson, 25, will serve nine years and Ricky Johnson, 54 and father of Richard and Albi, was given eight years. O'Loughlin is the elder Johnson's nephew, and Nicholls was the partner of his daughter.

The five men were collectively dealt sentences totaling 49 years imprisonment for a series of burglaries and attempted break-ins across a half dozen counties, including Wiltshire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire. Worcestershire and Berkshire. The bulk of the booty was pilfered from Ramsbury Manor in Wiltshire in February 2006, where it is believed that approximately $40 million worth of art and antiques were stolen.

Police have since recovered a significant amount of the property taken during this burglary, and with the cooperation of the Art Loss Register (ALR), a London-based firm that maintains a database of information about stolen works of art, numerous items have been identified and returned to their owners.

One of the items identified by the ALR was a painting by a Seventeenth Century pupil of Peter Paul Rubens that was stolen from Ramsbury Manor. Additional items recovered by the ALR include several valuable antique clocks stolen from a private house in Berkshire. Suspicious of their origins, a provincial auction house that had been consigned the clocks checked with the database firm and discovered that they were listed as stolen. The ALR notified the police, who linked the seller to the Johnson family and made a successful arrest.

The Johnson gang men were found guilty of conspiracy to commit burglary between April 2005 and October 2006 following a monthlong trial in December 2007 at Reading Crown Court. Details of the trial and their sentencing have only recently been released, however, after the judge in the case lifted reporting restrictions.

Mark Warwick, detective superintendent of the Thames Valley Police, who led the investigation, said, "This has been a long and arduous investigation involving a unique collaboration of five forces from across three regions over two years. Senior investigators from the five forces worked together to tackle a longstanding organized crime network that needed to be dealt with once and for all."

Prosecutor Paul Reid said the men comprised an "extensive and highly organized gang…ruthless in their intention to acquire high-value property."

"Operation Haul," as the multimember investigation was code-named, was put into place in order to round up the gang that had operated out of a trailer park in Worcestershire for 20 years. The gang would target and stake out properties, sometimes for weeks, then swoop in and quickly and efficiently raid them for their treasures, escaping in stolen cars.

One of the most egregious raids was made on Ramsbury Manor, the Seventeenth Century mansion owned by British real estate magnate Harry Hyams, and is thought to be the most valuable domestic burglary ever committed in Britain.

Warwick told Antiques and The Arts Weekly that approximately one-third of the items taken in that theft were discovered secreted in "wheelie bins" in an underground bunker. "I suspect that much of what they stole was hidden in a similar manner across the countryside," he said. Curiously, added Warwick, "Not one article recovered from that stash had any trace of forensic evidence [such as fingerprints or DNA]," despite the brute force in which the robbery was carried out. The gang used a pair of stolen sports utility vehicles to ram through a window, loaded up the loot and then took off over surrounding fields.

Press reports name other high-profile victims targeted by the gang, including Formula One advertising tycoon Paddy McNally (current owner of Warneford Place, former home of James Bond author Ian Fleming and Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire Sir Philip Wroughton). Following the burglary of Waddesdon Manor, owned by the Rothschilds, in which nearly $10 million of rare snuff boxes were stolen, the elder Johnson passed himself off as a "middleman" informant to the crime, according to Warwick, "although it was later revealed that he was the criminal."