Half Full, or Half Empty: "British Museum recovers some of 2,000 stolen items"

Sean Seddon, ' British Museum recovers some of 2,000 stolen items' BBC News 26.08.2023.

About 2,000 items are thought to have been stolen from the British Museum, but some of the missing treasures have started to be recovered, chairman George Osborne has confirmed.[...] The museum, one of the UK's most prestigious cultural institutions, has been under pressure since revealing earlier this month that a number of treasures were reported "missing, stolen or damaged".[...] Mr Osborne - who was appointed as chair of the museum in June 2021 - told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that "we have already started to recover some of the stolen items". "We believe we have been the victim of thefts over a long period of time and frankly more could have been done to prevent them," he said. Asked where the missing items were located, he said "some members of the antiquarian community are actively cooperating with us" and that recoveries so far were a "silver lining to a dark cloud". He said he was confident that "honest people" will return items found to have been stolen, but acknowledged that "others may not".