The police in the UK’s West Midlands think a gang of thieves who spent the better part of an hour making a hole in the wall of a museum to gain entry and head straight for two Chinese works of art worth an estimated £2m were working on specific orders:

The senior investigating officer, Det Supt Adrian Green described the break-in: “I am sure this job has been planned for quite some time and I would think the artefacts have been stolen to order, for someone who has already identified a potential market.”