The U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit has recovered a rare book of Charles Darwin's that was stolen from Mount Saint Vincent University Library in Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada.
John Mark Tillman, of Fall River, Nova Scotia--a convicted antiquities smuggler--apparently stole Darwin's "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life" (such a pithy title!) and two other Darwin books from a glass case at the university back in 2012. I know, it's difficult to believe that books worth tens of thousands of dollars in a glass case without an alarm system were somehow stolen. I'm as shocked as you.
Tillman, ever the entrepreneur, then sold "On the Origin of Species" to a collector, who turned around and auctioned it off through Sotheby's in New York for $42,500.
But the good times were fleeting for Tillman. Authorities caught up to him. He was arrested, and pleaded guilty on eighty counts of theft. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.
No word on whether Mount Saint Vincent University Library is going to just hand over the book to a thief next time and cut out the middle man.
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