A calligraphy scroll by former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東) estimated to be worth millions of US dollars was cut in half after it was stolen last month in a high-profile burglary in Hong Kong, police said.
The scroll was found damaged when police late last month arrested a 49-year-old man on suspicion of handling stolen property.
The South China Morning Post, quoting an unidentified police source, reported that the scroll was cut in two by a buyer who had purchased it for HK$500 (US$65) and had believed the scroll to be counterfeit.
“According to our investigation, someone thought that the calligraphy was too long,” Tony Ho (何振東), a senior superintendent at the Hong Kong Organized Crime and Triad Bureau, said at a news conference on Tuesday. “It was difficult to show it, to display it, and that’s why it was cut in half.”
Police said the scroll was part of a multimillion-dollar theft by three burglars from collector Fu Chunxiao’s (符春曉) apartment last month.
Fu, who is well known for his collection of stamps and revolutionary art, was in mainland China at the time of the burglary and has not been in Hong Kong since January because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The burglars took 24,000 Chinese postage stamps, 10 coins and seven calligraphy scrolls from Fu’s apartment, where he stored his collections.
Fu estimated that the Mao calligraphy was worth about US$300 million and that the theft totaled about US$645 million.
No independent appraisals of the collections were available.
Police have arrested three men in relation to the burglary and on suspicion of providing assistance to criminals.
At least two people connected to the burglary are still at large, Ho said.
Although some of the stolen items have been found, the 24,000 stamps and six other calligraphy scrolls have not been recovered, police said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing