Palace Museum burglar reveals how he got away

The man accused of stealing nine valuable artefacts from the Palace Museum in Beijing purportedly made his way out of the highly secure Forbidden City by jumping from a 10-metre-high palace wall.

The Beijing Times yesterday quoted Shi Baikui, a 28-year-old Shandong native arrested 58 hours after the theft early last Monday, as saying that he hid and waited in a tiny room within the restricted area until he was sure that all of the Forbidden City staff members had left. By 10pm all were gone.

He then allegedly broke into an adjacent exhibition hall through a decorative artificial wall, smashed some showcases and grabbed the nine artefacts.

Shi said he fled when he came across a security guard on a routine patrol after midnight.

'Under the protection of darkness, I succeeded in climbing up to the roof of a building, before I jumped to the top of the 10-metre-high palace wall,' Shi said. In order to get away, he had little choice but to jump to the ground from the top of the wall.

Despite new details, questions remain about his alleged escape, as Shi did not say how he managed to avoid 1,600 anti-theft alarms, 3,700 smoke detectors, 400 surveillance cameras and more than 100 dogs.

'I was so scared at that time,' Shi said. During his escape, he discovered that he 'had lost five of the nine valuables I got from the Forbidden City'.