The golden heist

Andrew Duval
5 days ago
2 min read

By Melvin Najarian April 2, 2025

On September 14, 2019, a gang of burglars stole a fully functional 18-karat gold toilet from Blenheim Palace, birthplace of one of the most famous British prime ministers, Winston Churchill. The artwork, titled “America,” was meant to mock excessive wealth, but the raw gold alone is worth $3.5 million. The suspects are currently on trial, and evidence has revealed the sophisticated planning and execution behind the crime, while the extravagant toilet remains missing.

Over 100,000 people had previously lined up to use the toilet, and a security guard protected the sculpture. Purposefully molded to look like the other Kohler toilets in the house, the toilet proved one of the site’s most popular attractions.

The burglary at the Palace was premeditated; one of the defendants, Michael Jones, scouted the site two times before the heist. His first visit to Blenheim Palace was before the golden toilet was on display, in which he took photos of the windows that would be used as the entry points for the heist. His second visit, after the toilet was on display and fully functional, saw Jones taking photos of the locks on the toilet's stall door. His third and final return saw Jones’s gang of thieves bringing sledgehammers and crowbars, removing the toilet in five minutes and destroying a window.

Despite Jones and his co-defendants Fred Doe and Bora Guccuck denying any matter of involvement in the heist, James Sheen, the fourth man in this burglary, has pleaded guilty to transferring the toilet. Doe and Guccuck used the code word “car” to refer to the toilet throughout the planning of the heist.

“The thieves likely stole the golden toilet for its monetary value—after all, the artistic value of the piece was not worth the repercussions of stealing a toilet and damaging infrastructure in a historic location. Melting down and reselling gold is almost untraceable, so it is probable that the thieves saw the toilet as a valuable commodity that they could steal to make quick profit, rather than a work of art,” Junior Louis DeScioli said.

Upon the removal of the sculpture from its foundation, it caused a substantial amount of damage to the building by causing water to flood through the building.

As the trial continues and new evidence is uncovered, the golden toilet's fate remains unknown. According to the Oxford Crown Court, “America” was most likely dismantled and thus its recovery may be near impossible. While the burglars are facing justice for their heist, their actions have left a toilet-shaped hole in the history of the 18th-century building.

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