Illustrations by Shawn Martinbrough; Coloring by Christopher Sotomayor.

“Impossible,” said David Ward. The London Metropolitan Police constable looked up.

Some 50 feet above him, he saw that someone had carved a gaping hole through a skylight. Standing in the Frontier Forwarding warehouse in Feltham, West London, he could hear the howl of jets from neighboring Heathrow Airport as they roared overhead.

At Ward’s feet lay three open trunks, heavy-duty steel cases. They were empty. A few books lay strewn about. Those trunks had previously been full of books. Not just any books. The missing ones, 240 in all, included early versions of some of the most significant printed works of European history.

Source: Cracking the Case of London’s Elusive, Acrobatic Rare-Book Thieves | Vanity Fair