Posted December 23, 2004.

International Map Thief Goes to Prison

A professional map thief, who has admitted to stealing some 50 rare prints from the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth to support an addiction to betting on horse races, began a four-and-a-half-year jail term December 22. Former landscape gardener Peter Bellwood, 52, pleaded guilty to six counts of theft in crown court at Swansea, Wales, and said he used a craft knife to cut maps from rare atlases on six visits to the library in 2000.

Bellwood was first identified as a library thief in 2001 when he was identified on a security camera in Copenhagen’s Royal Library cutting maps from 16th- and 17th-century atlases. Staff at the Welsh library recognized him after the image was circulated on the internet; they checked their holdings and discovered more than 105 maps missing.

The London Times reported December 22 that the Danish government expects Bellwood to stand trial for the Copenhagen thefts after he serves his current sentence. He is accused of stealing 16th-century world maps by Petrus Plancius and Abraham Ortelius, as well as John Speed’s 1627 map of North and South America, alone worth some $192,000, according to the December 23 Cardiff Western Mail.

Prosecutor Creighton Harvey said that Bellwood gave himself up last January after seeing himself identified on the BBC-TV show CrimeWatch. He has already served a four-year sentence from 1996 to 1999 for stealing hundreds of rare Victorian sporting prints and maps from libraries in London and the north of England.

Posted December 23, 2004.