How a treasure hunt led to a £3m 'heritage stealing'

BBC, ' How a treasure hunt led to a £3m 'heritage stealing' 21st Nov 2019.

"It's not a victimless crime, it's depriving us all of our heritage." Those are the words used to describe the actions of two Welsh metal detectorists who have been found guilty of stealing one of the most valuable and historically significant treasure hoards in British history. George Powell, 38, and Layton Davies, 51, found £3m worth of Anglo-Saxon and Viking treasure in Herefordshire, close to the Welsh border. They should have declared the valuable coins but kept them for themselves. A coin trader and antique seller were also convicted of their roles in the crime.[...]

The report gives some more details:

Powell and Davies found the jewellery and 300 coins in fields in the Welsh Marches in June 2015. The court heard Davies was "amazed" and posted a picture of three of the coins on the web forum Detecting Wales [oops, picture inexplicably now gone -PMB]. Jurors heard he was an experienced detectorist, held a certificate for "best find in Wales" in 2014, and had been a member of various Welsh detecting clubs, including Detecting Wales, Gwent Detecting and Cardiff Scan Club. He had previously donated more than 100 items to the National Museum Wales in Cardiff. [...]

Which now raises questions about the legality of those finds. Has the NMW got protocols of assignation of title from the landowners for each of those items? If not, how do they know that the items are legally obtained? The hoard finders decided not to report them as the law requires.

The artefacts were taken back to Wales to coin trader Wells, who had a stall at the Pumping Station antiques centre in Cardiff. It was there it was agreed the coins would be taken to London, where antiqu[iti]es trader Wicks tried to sell them to the world renowned Mayfair auctioneers Dix Noonan and Webb. Wicks took two batches of coins to the auctioneers. Its expert said the coins were "extraordinary and very valuable", but was "suspicious". [...] Wicks admitted he sold several of the coins to his friend, who bought them in a deal at a service station, paying £28,000 in cash divided into three brown packets. Wells was later arrested after handing over five of the coins to a police officer that had been stitched into his leather glasses case. [...] The men did declare the gold ring, crystal pendant and gold arm-band with the National Museum of Wales.

It seems that monitoring of the antiquities market led museum officials to the crime:

British Museum treasure registrar, Ian Richardson, carried out his own inquiries into the coins after hearing of the discovery.[...] He said: "I've been doing this job since 2007 and the number of cases of people being convicted for theft, which essentially derives from them not reporting their finds of treasure, has increased. [...]  Wells told the court he was aware the men were in trouble when a global alert was issued online to coin collectors, warning them to stay away from undeclared treasure, "of extreme rarity", found in the Welsh Marches.

The detectorists' haul contained rare (and therefore characteristic) "double emperor" coins that feature Alfred the Great as a co-ruler with Coelwulf II of Mercia. These coins are worth about £75,000 each on the market. The convicted are:

Layton Davies of Cardiff Road, Pontypridd, was found guilty of theft, conspiring to conceal criminal property and converting criminal property by selling it
George Powell of Coulson Close, Newport, was found guilty of theft, conspiring to conceal criminal property and converting criminal property by selling it
Simon Wicks, 57, of Hawks Road, Hailsham, was convicted of conspiring to conceal criminal property and converting criminal property by selling it
Paul Wells, 60, of Newport Road, Cardiff, was found guilty of conspiring to conceal criminal property

Many of the coins have still not been recovered. I think the landowner should sue them  for compensation of lost Treasure award.