The case of the stolen Nobels

Social activist and Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi's South Delhi house was burgled late Monday night. Along with other belongings, Satyarthi's coveted Nobel Peace Prize citation and a replica of the medallion were also stolen. Satyarthi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for his social welfare activities among underprivileged children in India.

While this could have come as a shocking piece of news, what is even more intriguing is that this is not the first time the invaluable Nobel Prize has been stolen. The prestigious medallion has been an object of fancy for burglars around the world for long. The Nobel medals, when auctioned are worth tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes even millions. Stolen medals, however, may not fetch that kind of money. It is highly likely that these stolen medals are dissolved and sold for the value of the gold. Until 1980, the Swedish medals, each weighing approximately 200gm, were made of 23 carat gold. Since then, they have been made of 18 carat recycled gold, with a coating of 24 carat gold. Now the medals weigh about 175gm, except the medal in Economic Sciences which weighs 185gm.

Take a look at Nobel prize medals that have been stolen through history:

Rabindranath Tagore: Looks like history is repeating itself, not in a good way, though. India's first Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel Prize citation was stolen in 2004 from the museum of the Visva Bharthi University at Shantiniketan, in Kolkata. It has still not been found even after repeated attempts by the CBI. Soon after the theft, the CBI had taken over the case, but failed to recover the medal and closed the case in 2007. However, under political pressure, the case was reopened in 2008, only to close it again in 2009. The case was back in news again in November 2016 when a Special Investigating Team arrested Pradip Bauri who was accused of providing shelter to the culprits and helping them flee the state with the stolen materials.

Ernest O. Lawrence: In March 2007, employees at the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California discovered to utter shock that the gold Nobel medallion won by physicist Ernest Lawrence was missing from a locked glass cabinet. A few days after the theft, the medal was recovered from 22-year-old Ian Michael Sanchez, a student who was working at the premises. The 1939 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Professor Ernest O. Lawrence for his invention of the cyclotron, an accelerator of sub-atomic particles. Cyclotron is one the first crucial devices that made possible a nuclear era.

Arthur Henderson: The Nobel Peace Prize medal won by Arthur Henderson, one of the founding fathers of the Britain's Labour Party, was stolen from the Lord Mayor's office in Newcastle in April 2013. Henderson, fondly known as 'Uncle Arthur' was Labour Party's first ever cabinet minister. He won the prize in 1934, just an year before his death, for massive yet unsuccessful efforts for international disarmament before the World War II. Though several arrests were made, the medal has not yet been recovered.

Kay Miller: The 1985 Nobel Peace Prize was shared by Kay Miller and her colleagues at the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. The medal is believed to have been stolen in October 2006 from her home. In a bizarre turn of events in January 2007, when Salt Lake City police were searching for a gun in the car of a man wanted for domestic violence charges, they found dozens of driver's licenses, and Miller's Nobel Prize. The man had previously stayed in Miller's basement.