A pair of British brothers have been jailed for 3 and a half years by a Geneva court.
Louis and Stewart Ahearne from Greenwich in South London were found guilty of stealing extremely valuable Ming dynasty items from the Baur Foundation Museum in the city’s Old Town. The items are valued at USD 3.5m.
The burglary was in 2019 – but only made public in 2022.
One of the brothers had taken a vase to Hong Kong to sell it at an auction – but the sale was blocked.
One cup, valued at a million dollars, has not been recovered. A reward is being offered for information about its whereabouts.
The defendants argued that they were merely pawns in the robbery and the ring leader is in jail in the UK.
The brothers, aged 35 and 45, were arrested in London and extradited to Switzerland after close cooperation between the Metropolitan Police and Swiss authorities.
They’ll be deported after their sentence and banned from re-entering Switzerland for five years.
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