$2.5 Million Worth Of Rare Scientific Books Stolen In “Mission: Impossible-Style Heist”

A gang of extremely well - read thieves   have stolen over $ 2.5 million worth of famous antique scientific books in a “ Mission : Impossible - style heist . ”

The suave criminals scat with over 160 books –   including other editions by Leonardo da Vinci , Isaac Newton , Galileo Galilei , and Copernicus –   from a warehouse in west London , where they were due to be wing over the pond to the fiftieth California International Antiquarian Book Fair , harmonize to theMail on Sunday .

The jewel of the holdup is a 1566 copy of Nicolaus Copernicus’sDe Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium(On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres ) , thought to be worth over $ 268,000 . This is one of the earlier edition of the book , which proposed the truly Earth - shattering idea that the satellite orbit the Sun in the Solar System , challenging the millennia - old belief that Earth was the center of the universe . This “ Copernican Revolution ” is regularly cited as one of the most significant steps in   humanity ’s reason of the world and blanket world .

So while the book could certainly get a lot of cash , their true Charles Frederick Worth is more than simply their monetary value . This is leading experts to believe the heist was orchestrated by a " specialist   aggregator " , perhaps a wealthy supervillain who get it on science a bit too much .

The three burglar are believed to have practice holes in the construction ’s fiberglass skylight then used ropes to drop 12 meters ( 40 base ) to the storage warehouse ’s ground . Over a period of time of several minute , they managed to break into the four sealed containers containing the books while ignoring all of the other items in the building . It is n’t clear how they knew the gold - mine of book were in the warehouse , however ,   it ’s most likely they got the information through hacked emails .

“ Quite honestly I have never get wind of a heist like this involving books – it is extraordinary , " Brian Lake , of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association , told the Mail . " Nothing like this has hit the rarified Christian Bible craft before . ”