Buckingham Palace catering assistant Adamo Canto pled guilty this week to siphoning off a “significant quantity” of items from the royal estate and attempting to re-sell the stolen goods on eBay.
Canto pled guilty at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday to three counts of theft that took place between November 11 2019 and August 7 2020, after police discovered the pilfered items in his quarters at the Royal Mews in Buckingham Palace. According to the BBC, the court was informed that Canto’s role at the Palace changed substantially during the pandemic to include more cleaning, which allowed him to enter offices and areas of the estate he otherwise wouldn’t have had access to. Prosecutor Simon Maughan said that 37 of the stolen goods, which are worth between £10,000 and £100,000, were resold on eBay for “well under” their true value, netting Canto a total of £7,741.
Among the items being sold was a royal state banquet photo album of Donald Trump‘s visit to the U.K. worth £1,500, some official signed photographs of the Duke of Sussex and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and a Companion of Bath medal belonging to the Master of the Household, which was sold online for £350. Canto also confessed to stealing a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order medal from the locker of former British Army officer Maj Gen Richard Sykes, as well as around 77 items from the Palace gift shop, the Queen’s Gallery shop, and the Duke of York‘s storeroom. Vice Admiral Master Tony Johnstone-Burt said in a statement that he first realized the Companion of Bath medal was missing when he needed to wear it for Queen Elizabeth‘s Trooping the Colour and was later told by staff that it, along with other stolen items, were for sale online.
District Judge Alexander Jacobs released Canto on conditional bail with the warning that he faces a possible jail sentence. He will be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court at a later date.
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