Moment art thief swipes 350-year-old map from London museum

Police are still looking for a rare map after a prolific art thief cut it out of a book and smuggled it out of a London museum.

Melvin West, 73, was caught on camera slicing up an antique atlas and pocketing a map after asking to view it at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich on February 26 last year.

Staff raised the alarm after finding a knife left on the ground in the room West had been reading the 350-year-old book containing 12 historic maps.

The missing page was a celebrated example of a double hemisphere world map, printed in 1684 and called Nova Orbis Tabula, by seventeenth-century Dutch cartographer Frederick de Wit.

The map is famous for its elaborate artwork, zodiac signs, and cherubs and portraying California as an island, which explorers thought at the time.

After reviewing more CCTV footage, detectives found that West had visited the library three times to case out security.

He even registered for a library reader’s card under the name Melville West.

Detectives identified West, a thief with multiple convictions in Europe for stealing pages from valuable antique books.

Officers obtained a search warrant and arrested West at an address in Chingford, where he was then living, on 4 March 2025.

He answered no comment to questions asking where the map was now or whether he sold it.

The map remains missing.

DC Sophie Hayes, of the Met’s Art and Antiques Unit, said: ‘We are appealing to anyone who has knowledge of the map’s whereabouts to do the right thing and contact the Metropolitan Police so that it can be returned to the library.

‘The Caird Library is an internationally important resource, used by scholars the world over. Thefts like this mean the only people who profit from these beautiful artefacts are the thieves themselves.

‘This case demonstrates our determination to bring offenders to justice.’

A Royal Museums Greenwich spokesperson said: ‘We are pleased the criminal case, on which we co-operated closely with the Metropolitan Police’s Art and Antiques Unit, has been brought to a close.’

West, of Old Church Road, Chingford was charged on 23 February 2025 with theft, criminal damage and possession of a bladed article.

He was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment at Woolwich Crown Court on Thursday, 22 October after pleading guilty at Bromley Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, 19 May to theft, criminal damage and possession of a bladed article.

The judge also imposed a 10-year Criminal Behaviour Order preventing West from being alone in any reading room of a museum or library in England and Wales.