The short shorts affair

The short shorts affair - Mail Tribune

The short shorts affair - Mail Tribune
Chicago High-End Retail Crime: Gucci Store Robbery Reported Monday - NBC Chicago
Berlin Court Sends Three Suspects to Prison for Theft of Giant Gold Coin Worth $4 Million - Smithsonian.com
Best of Harford County 2019 - Baltimore Sun

Posted: 24 Feb 2020 12:00 AM PST

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The short shorts affair Mail Tribune

Chicago High-End Retail Crime: Gucci Store Robbery Reported Monday - NBC Chicago

Posted: 24 Feb 2020 01:58 PM PST

Chicago police were called to two fashion retailers Monday for a robbery and burglary — the latest two incidents in a string of crimes targeting high-end retailers within the last month on the Near North Side.

In the first incident, at approximately 10:21 a.m., two male offenders entered the Gucci store on the Magnificent Mile and implied they had a weapon, according to Chicago police. The offenders took an undisclosed amount of merchandise before fleeing eastbound across Michigan Avenue.

Chicago police were searching for five to six thieves who stole an unspecified number of items from the Louis Vuitton store on Michigan Avenue Monday evening, officials said. NBC 5's Patrick Fazio reports.

Less than an hour later, two women entered the George Greene men's clothing store, which is located at 49 E. Oak St. in the Streeterville neighborhood, and took merchandise, police said. The offenders ran to a waiting vehicle—possibly a Chrysler with out-of-state license places.

No one was in custody for either incident Monday afternoon. Police also had yet to confirm if the two instances were related.

Just four days earlier, several suspects wearing masks stormed the Louis Vuitton store in the 900 block of North Michigan Avenue.

After telling store employees they were armed, the thieves got away with multiple handbags. The suspects were tracked by GPS to Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood, where police found the handbags inside of a vehicle. No one was arrested in the incident.

On the same day, five alleged thieves were arrested after stealing merchandise from the H&M store on the Magnificent Mile. The suspects ran onto CTA Red Line tracks and were met by officers who were waiting for them.

On Jan. 31, six to 10 suspects stole merchandise from the Magnificent Mile Gucci store during a burglary, police said. In that incident, the offenders broke a display case and stole an undisclosed amount of merchandise before taking off, officers said.

Police haven't confirmed if any of the incidents are connected.

Berlin Court Sends Three Suspects to Prison for Theft of Giant Gold Coin Worth $4 Million - Smithsonian.com

Posted: 24 Feb 2020 10:26 AM PST

In the early hours of March 27, 2017, thieves stole one of the world's largest gold coins from the Bode Museum in Berlin. The coin—a behemoth weighing 221 pounds and valued at more than $4 million—has not been seen since. But as Taylor Dafoe reports for artnet News, a trail of evidence has resulted in prison time for three men linked with the brazen heist.

Last week, a German court sentenced two cousins aged 21 and 23 to four-and-a-half years in prison. Due to their ages at the time of the crime—18 and 20 years old—they were tried as juveniles, "which reduces the prison terms that could be imposed," according to Bloomberg's Karin Matussek. Prosecutors had pushed for sentences of between five and seven years.

A third suspect who had worked as a security guard at the museum received a sentence of three years and four months. A fourth defendant was acquitted.

The coin, produced by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007 and dubbed the "Big Maple Leaf," was made of 99.999 percent pure gold. ("Why did the Royal Canadian Mint make the world's purest and largest gold bullion coin?" the mint's site asks. "Because we can.") Loaned to the Bode by a private owner, it went on display in 2010.

Police believe the thieves broke down, melted and sold the coin sold soon after the theft. During the trial, which began last January, prosecutors presented a dramatic picture of the Big Maple Leaf's disappearance.

The cousins, prosecutors said, plotted an inside job with a childhood friend hired as a security guard at the Bode museum shortly before the heist. Following the tracks of an old overpass that led to the institution, the thieves took just 16 minutes to slip in through a second-floor window, smash the coin's glass case with a carbon-reinforced axe, and roll the Big Maple Leaf—transported by a skateboard and a wheelbarrow—to a nearby park where a getaway car waited. The museum's alarm system was not triggered—something the Bode has been "under huge pressure to explain," wrote Kate Connelly of the Guardian in 2019.

Security footage from the days leading up to the theft showed "three suspicious men dressed in all black" walking the getaway route, according to Deutsche Welle. Prosecutors attempted to identify the third individual in the security footage as a brother of one of the cousins but were unsuccessful, leading to the fourth defendant's acquittal.

Searches of the suspects' belongings yielded several key pieces of evidence: gold particles stuck to the men's clothing and consistent with the purity of the Big Maple Leaf; a pair of gloves laced with particles matching the security glass on the window through which the thieves entered; and a rare Armani jacket that was "clearly identifiable" in the security footage, per Deutsche Welle. On the phones of one of the suspects, police found "a detailed search history of how to break down large pieces of gold," the publication adds.

Three of the four individuals arrested in connection with the heist were reportedly "associates of a crime ring," as David Shimer wrote for the New York Times in 2017. Defense attorneys representing the accused claimed that news of their clients' links to organized crime prevented them from receiving a fair trial.

"Despite the huge effort in their investigations, including a special commission, 50 telephone surveillance operations and mobile phone site analysis, 30 house searches and the deployment of sniffer dogs, the evidence collected is scant," said Toralf Nöding, a lawyer who represented one of the suspects, as quoted by the Guardian.

But a Berlin court, which meted out the sentences last Thursday, evidently disagreed. In addition to receiving prison time, the cousins have been fined €3.3 million ($4.3 million), or the estimated price of the coin. The former security guard was hit with a fine of €100,000 (around $109,000), which is equal to the sum that authorities believe he was paid for his role in the heist, reports artnet News.

Both the prosecution and defense, according to Deutsche Welle, have one week to appeal the court's decision.

Best of Harford County 2019 - Baltimore Sun

Posted: 24 Feb 2020 09:30 AM PST

Matthew Loftus, right, 3, Mia Sadowski, 4, from left, and Juniper Ester, 3, play during Arena Tots Program at the Arena Club. The athletic club is voted Best in kids activity, child care, gym/fitness center, swim club and runner up for yoga and personal trainer in Harford County for 2019. (Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun)