While it is common to hear about famous paintings being robbed from top museums around the world, many don’t realize that there is a fairly sized black market that trades important paper, letters and documents as well. The National Archives is one of America’s most prestigious institutions, its mission is to save, store and protect some of the most important documents that range from papers from our founding fathers, documents from presidents and even letters from soldiers fighting wars. Throughout a large part of our country’s history, the National Archives has been doing a fine job of keeping these documents safe so that the public can view them and research our past. While there are plenty of policies in place to ensure these documents are not damaged or stolen, in certain situations, documents from the National Archive have been stolen and sold on the black market. This is one such story of a mysterious crime that recently involved the National Archives, EBay, the FBI and two brothers.
Shopping on EBay for a Gift Uncovers Something Strange
Innocently enough, this crime caper starts with Jim Thomas, searching for a gift for his Civil War buff brother. As he searched EBay, he came across an exciting find. One seller was offering documents that seemed to belong to the National Archives, following his suspicions, he dug deeper into this mystery.
Jim Thomas searching for a gift for his brother Dean came across Civil War letters found on EBay. As he was about to spend a considerable amount of money on the purchase, he wanted to make sure that Dean was sure to like them. As Jim talked to Dean about the letters, Dean felt a little strange as he never heard of these letters before and thought it could be a scam. As Dean began to look deeper into the origin of these letters and started to research the sellers offering, he did find a letter he recognized, it was a letter that Dean made a photocopy of several years ago- Suspiciously, it was a photocopy made while looking at historical documents in the National Archives.
Read More About How this Crime was Eventually Solved
To Read more about the incredible crime that took place at the National Archives and how good police work, technology and the passion of two Civil War buffs caught a thief, please visit the Smithsonian Magazines main website at the following link: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/
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