[MSN] ONE of New Zealand's leading experts on the lives of its Victoria Cross-winning soldiers has warned there is a black market ready to receive a haul of nine VCs stolen from a museum south of Auckland.

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

Black market exists for stolen VCs 

Simon Kearney | December 05, 2007 

ONE of New Zealand's leading experts on the lives of its Victoria
Cross-winning soldiers has warned there is a black market ready to receive a
haul of nine VCs stolen from a museum south of Auckland.

Glyn Harper, the director of the Centre for Defence Studies at Massey
University, said markets did exist for stolen medals. 

"There are people whose life revolves around collecting these things and
they do come up for auction," he said. 

"These medals, however, will never be sold publicly. There is still a black
market." 

The world's biggest collector of VCs, English lord Michael Ashcroft, has
offered a $NZ200,000 ($174,500) reward for the return of the medals as
police begin to interview every resident of the army town of Waiouru, where
the stolen medals were housed. 

Lord Ashcroft - who has 140 VCs in his collection - estimated the prize
medal among those stolen, the Captain Charles Upham cross and bar, was worth
about $2.5million, with the other VCs worth more than $5million. 

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark has speculated the four-minute theft
on Sunday morning was a professional operation to fill an order. 

She said the theft had been "surgically executed". 

Australian War Memorial heraldry curator Nick Fletcher, who is responsible
for Australia's national collection of 61 VCs, said the Upham VC was one of
only three in existence with a bar, which means the medal has been awarded
twice. 

He said it was particularly noteworthy because the other two were awarded to
medics and Captain Upham was the only fighting soldier to receive the
bravery award twice. 

Captain Upham was awarded his first VC in 1941 and his second in 1942. Lord
Ashcroft described it during a radio interview yesterday as the "Holy Grail"
of Victoria Crosses. 

The thieves stole as many as 100 medals during the raid. 

Police, who were yesterday still inspecting security camera footage, said
they planned to interview all 500 residents of Waiouru. Interpol and the
country's border security agencies have been alerted. 

Mr Fletcher said the thefts had put medal collectors on guard about the
security of their collections. 

Victoria Crosses rarely surface at auction in Australia. Two VCs auctioned
last year, including the final VC from Gallipoli which was purchased by
Seven Network owner Kerry Stokes for about $1.2million and donated to the
Australian War Memorial. 

Additional reporting: NZPA

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/