Copper thieves stealing sculptures

It says that sculptures stolen from the Johannesburg Art Gallery are worth about $16 000 but thieves are probably getting just a fraction of that price by selling bits of the metal to scrap dealers for no more than $250.

Thieves recently stole a figure of a woman in mourning from the Johannesburg Art Gallery. The sculpture by Sydney Kumalo is one of four bronzes taken in robberies in January and September this year.

And in Cape Town, a small bronze entitled A chair, a boat and a vase by well-known South African sculptor Barend De Wet was wrenched from the façade of the National Art Museum in May.

Bernard Maguire of the Metal Recyclers' Association says all scrap dealers are alerted when a theft of copper or a bronze statue is reported and warns that if any scrap dealer is caught with pieces of a sculpture they can't say they didn't know about it.

Read the full article on www.timeslive.co.za.