British Museum theft - 11th September 2023

The British Museum is missing 2,000 artefacts. They were stolen and now people are worried about the safety of the rest of the objects there.

The British Museum was built in 1753. It has a collection of 8 million artefacts but only 80 thousand artefacts are put out for visitors to see. The rest are kept in storage where only staff and researchers can enter.

Archeologist Dan Hicks explained that the museum made a big mistake. It didn't document all the artefacts and the storage area has few security guards or cameras. This makes it easy to steal the artefacts and difficult to track them.

The thefts have taken place over several years but museum officials weren't aware of them. An antiques dealer, whose name is Ittai Gradel, told the museum in 2021 that the artefacts weren't safe. But the museum didn't take the news seriously. Sometime later, Gradel took a photo of 70 stolen museum items on sale on eBay and sent it to the British Museum.

Now with this evidence, the British Museum has begun investigations. But some countries are demanding it return their cultural artefacts because they don't trust the museum's security.