Gang caught trying to sell stolen £2m vase to undercover cops will serve less jail time due to overcrowded prisons

A gang with international criminal links was caught trying to sell a ‘priceless’ stolen £2m Chinese Ming Dynasty vase to undercover cops but will serve less jail time because of overcrowded prisons. The group, including a former professional footballer once signed to West Ham, tried to sell the vase stolen from the Museum of Far Eastern Art in Geneva in June 2019.

Kaine Wright, 26 and Mbaki Nkhwa, 47 were each convicted of one count of conspiracy to convert criminal property. David Lamming, 31, changed his plea to guilty just before the trial began.

A judge sentencing the trio at Southwark Crown Court said each will serve six months less because of conditions inside HMP Wandsworth.

The Pomegranate Vase from the Yongle Period was priceless, but valued for insurance purposes for $2.5m (£2,050,625). The thieves also took a bowl worth £80,000 and a wine cup which remains missing.

How were they caught out?

Prosecutor Mr James Thacker told the court the trio were involved in an organised criminal group that had attempted to sell the historic vase - which dates between 1403 and 1425 - for £1m. However, having had no luck, they later settled on an agreed price of £450,000 in cash with undercover coppers posing as buyers.

An exchange was eventually arranged in October 2020 for the supposed sale of the vase, at the five-star Marriott Hotel in Grosvenor Square, central London.

In July 2020, China Guardian Auction House tipped off police after receiving an email requesting a valuation of the missing white porcelain vase.

The sender revealed they knew where the vase was, and specialist crime officers traced the email account’s IP address to Lamming’s home in Lewisham, southeast London.

The court heard Lamming’s role was to find a buyer for the vase. Siblings Stewart and Lydia Ahearne, 45 and 34, and Wright’s birth father, who was not named, are believed to have carried out the actual theft.

The former two have been extradited to Switzerland, while Wright’s father is currently serving a prison sentence.

At least one of them is also wanted for extradition to Japan for a 2015 robbery in Tokyo.

Wright drove three men to the five-star Marriott Hotel in Grosvenor Square, central London, planning to meet people who they believed would buy the vase for £450,000 in cash.

Two undercover police officers - one posing as the buyer and the other posing as an expert in Far-Eastern art - met Nkhwa in room 347, who was wheeling the vase in a black hold-all flanked by Stewart Ahearne.

How long were they sentenced for?

After they exchanged the centuries-old vase police stormed the room and arrested Nkhwa while Wright and Lamming waited outside in the car. Lamming and Wright absconded and the pair attempted to get in contact with each other, Nkhwa, and the Ahearnes. Addressing Lamming and Wright, Judge Griffiths continued: “That amount of contact, with both of you talking to each other, suggests to me that you were both active members of the group that was trying to sell the vase.

“I don’t suggest that you were leaders. But you three played significant roles.”

An earlier sentencing hearing heard that Wright was being held in a Category A prison, Wandsworth, although he was a Category C prisoner.

Judge Griffiths reduced all three sentences by six months because of the state of the British prison system.

Sentencing Lamming, who was currently on bail, he said: “Prison conditions are bad at the moment, I will reduce that sentence by another six months.”

Handing Nkhwa his sentence, who is already in HMP Wandsworth, he said: “I have read what you have complained on prison conditions, and I will reduce your sentence a further six months.”

Wright’s sentence was also reduced for the same reason, and he is already in HMP Wandsworth.

The judge added: “He (your father) might been the source of the vase but you planned a valuation and attempted to sell it.”

Nkhwa, 47, who has seven daughters and worked as an air conditioning engineer, was sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment. David Lamming, who is the only one of three to have been granted bail until now, was sentenced to three years and two months, while Wright was given three years.