Former gardener jailed for theft of rare maps

A former landscape gardener who travelled Britain and Europe stealing rare maps from libraries has been jailed for 4 1/2 years.

Peter Bellwood, 52, was once on Scotland Yard's 10 most-wanted list. He posed as a naive academic to gain access to valuable maps, which he secretly cut from books and stuffed in his trousers and jumper.

Most recently he targeted the National Library of Wales, in Aberystwyth, where he stole at least 50 antique map prints, and sold them for £70,000 ($188,400).

With another British map thief, Bellwood is believed to have taken a large proportion of the 4500 maps missing from libraries across Europe.