12 hours ago

Katie Razzall Culture and Media Editor

BBC/Adam Walker

Dr Ittai Gradel, former academic, made his living buying and selling gems and other antiquities

Dr Ittai Gradel, the academic turned antiquities dealer who exposed the theft of many hundreds of artefacts from the British Museum, has died of cancer, aged 61.

In his final days he received a rarely-presented medal from the museum in recognition of what its director called his "very significant contribution".

A police investigation is still ongoing more than three years after the British Museum finally reported the thefts to Scotland Yard, following pressure from Gradel.

Before his death in a Danish hospice, he told me, with his typical understatement, that it was "a bit annoying" he wouldn't live to see the resolution of the case.

Ittai Gradel

Dr Ittai Gradel received the British Museum medal in a Danish hospital

In 2023, after it did its own investigation, the museum announced that 2,000 items from its collection were stolen, missing…