(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) Three men are on trial for stealing a toilet. You didn’t misread that sentence. A toilet.
In his opening statement at the Oxford Crown Court trial, Attorney Julian Christopher called the theft an “audacious raid.” You can watch a security video of the September 2019 theft HERE.
One of the suspects on trial allegedly helped pilfer the potty, and the other two helped sell the spoils, according to authorities.
Why on earth would anybody steal a toilet?
Well, it was made out of gold.
Eighteen-karat gold to be precise.
The golden potty was valued at about $6 million at the time of the crime. The three thieves stole it from Blenheim Palace in England.
Artist Maurizio Cattelan created the solid, 18-karat gold crapper. As the Washington Post describes it, the golden potty is “an interactive work titled ‘America’ that critics have described as pointed satire aimed at the excess of wealth in this country.”
Initially, it was displayed in a public restroom on the fifth floor of the Guggenheim Museum in New York for patrons to use. Such is art in the 21st century! At some point, it was moved to Blenheim Palace in the UK. I have no idea when or why. I could research it and find out, but I have to be honest, I don’t care. I suspect you don’t either. Just know it was there.
According to CNN, the toilet weighed just over 215 pounds and was insured for £4.8 million ($6 million). The value of the gold at the time of the theft was £2.8 million ($3.5 million).
To pull off the heist, the gang of thieves crashed stolen vehicles through the wooden gates of the palace before dawn. They pulled up to the front steps, smashed the bathroom window, and removed the potty.
They never did find the toilet. This raises some questions. Namely, what do you do with a stolen $6 million commode?
I mean, it’s not like you can walk into Bob’s Pawn Shop and cash out. I’m pretty sure a gold potty would raise some eyebrows and most likely the curiosity of the local cops. So, what did our intrepid thieves do with their booty? (Get it? Booty? There’s a subtle joke there. Think about it. Think about it. There it is!)
So, where’s the crapper?
Here are some theories that were floated at the time of the theft in a report by the New York Times.
A gardener at the palace said he thought it was still on the grounds. He speculates that the robbers probably threw it off a bridge into one of two lakes on the property. “It ain’t going to rust, is it? You could wait a year, then get it out.”
Mmmm. OK. Seems like a stretch. I feel like a bunch of dudes trying to wrench a toilet out of a pond might be noticed, even at night.
Another lady said she thought the thieves might have hidden the potty at one of the nearby building sites. Dig a hole, bury it, and come back later. With all the construction and digging, who would notice? That’s a little more plausible, I guess.
On a side note, I can picture some construction workers uncovering it by accident. “Hey, Bubba! Check out this porta-john they put in here!”
Anyway, here’s another pretty fun theory. Some people think Cattelan (the artist) took the potty himself and hid it for publicity.
“It’s a hoax,” retiree Jackie Blake told the Times. She said Cattelan “probably got it sitting somewhere to see what the reaction of us people is.”
This wasn’t an unreasonable theory. Cattelan has been called “eccentric.” That’s the gentle way of saying weird.
In an odd bit of toilet history, the Guggenheim once offered the toilet to President Trump when the White House requested to borrow van Gogh’s Landscape With Snow. At that time the Washington Post contacted Cattelan and asked why he was willing to offer his work of art to the president. His response was completely incomprehensible.
“What’s the point of our life? Everything seems absurd until we die and then it makes sense.”
He had an equally incoherent comment about the theft. In an email to the New York Times, Cattelan said he wanted “to be positive and think the robbery is a kind of Robin Hood-inspired action.”
So, yeah. This is the kind of guy who would steal his own toilet. I wonder if that’s a criminal offense?
Anyway, I think the most logical guess is that the thieves melted it down and that seems to be the consensus today. Why try to unload a gold toilet when you can just turn it into gold bars and sell them? A retired cop summed it up pretty well. He told the Times the thieves would have melted the crapper down within 24 hours.
“I very much doubt anyone’s stolen this because it’s art. It’s because it was a big lump of gold.”
And you know, who doesn’t want gold?
Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for MoneyMetals.com with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.
