More book theft

The Guardian points to another article about book theft:

Smiley, a 50-year-old US dealer in rare maps and known for his impeccable blazers and scholarly demeanour, pleaded guilty in a US federal court this year to stealing 97 rare maps, worth £1.6m, including the Apian, from the British Library and leading US institutions. He had been armed only with a razor blade. Now the British Library is demanding that US authorities throw the book at Smiley, saying he stole three other maps, worth in total £47,000, from the library and that by razoring the rare 1520 Apian map from a volume owned by Cranmer - a key Turdor figure - he was guilty of "ripping at the heart" of a public institution.

If you find this story interesting, you might want to take a look at Miles Harvey's The Island of Lost Maps: a True Story of Cartographic Crime. The book / map thief detailed in this book was actually involved in thefts in Vancouver.