Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Stole a $3 Million Dollar Toilet // The Golden Toilet Heist

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

In the early morning hours of September 14, 2019, a bizarre art heist took place at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England, when a gang of thieves stole a fully functional, 18-karat solid gold toilet worth millions. Titled America, the 216-pound sculpture was created by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan as a satirical commentary on excessive wealth and had only been on display for two days. Armed with sledgehammers and crowbars, the burglars rammed through the palace gates, smashed a window, and ripped the toilet directly out of the floorboards in just over five minutes.

So in 2016, a man becomes inspired and he creates a solid gold toilet. And he allows people to poop in it. And what happens to this toilet is insane. So the guy's name is Maurizio. And Marizio is 55 and he wants to create a fancy art installation that's supposed to represent the United States. You know, something that'll get people talking. And one day, around 2015, he finally comes up with something. What better way to represent America than a toilet made of gold?

So he makes this toilet art piece. Here's actually a picture of it. And this thing isn't fake gold, it's not gold plated, it's a toilet made of 18-carat, solid gold. And he named it America. Anyway, so he makes this art piece, and in 2016 they put it on display at the Guggenheim in New York. And this isn't like a decorative, work. It's actually installed into the plumbing. So you can use it. You can drop a deuce in it and flush it if you want. And people do. Patrons are encouraged to come and use it like they would a normal toilet. I mean,

that's part of the art experience. But anyway, after being on display for about a year, the toilet is scheduled to be moved to Blenham Palace in Oxfordshire, England. And there, it'll go on display again. So I guess the Brits can poop in it for a while. And that is where this guy comes in. Sheen. Sheen is about 35 during this time, living in Wellingsboro, and the guy is a career criminal. He's been in and out of jail for years for burglaries and theft and fraud and all kinds of stuff. And in 2019, he finds out that this golden toilet is about to be on display at Blenheim Palace, and he becomes very interested in it. Because the gold in this art piece is worth about $3.5 million at the time. So Sheen starts thinking he'd like to steal this thing. Now, he can't

pull off a toilet heist alone. No, no, no, no. He teams up with another guy, Michael. Michael is also a career criminal with a history of burglaries and thefts. So these two guys get together and they bring in three more people and so now they have a crew. So Michael goes to the palace, pretending to be a regular tourist. But he's really the... They're scoping the place out, looking at the gates, the security cameras, the security guards, looking for any potential blind spots. And he notices right away that the palace, it just isn't a very well-guarded place. So from here, they wait. And a few weeks later, the golden toilet finally arrives.

And it's installed inside the palace, and it's hooked up to the plumbing and everything. Then the palace holds an exhibition, where visitors can come and book a three-minute appointment to use it. So I guess you gotta poop fast. And so Michael, he uses this opportunity to go back in and scope the place out one last time. And once he has the info he needs, he meets back up with the rest of the gang and they finalize their plans. Then the big day comes, the day of the toilet heist. So these two guys go and they steal two cars to use in this scheme, an Asuzu pickup truck and a VW golf. And when it's around 5 a.m., they make their move. Sheen and the others, they put on ski masks, and they get into the cars, and they drive toward Blenheim Palace. Once they get there, kaboom, they smash right

through the front gates, and they drive onto the grounds. Then they jump out of the cars, and they grab their tools, and they run inside. You're looking at actual security footage here. After that, they smash through a window, and they go inside, and the place is closed, so there's no one there. But this triggers the alarm, and so it's going off. Then the goons break open the door to the room where the golden toilet is, and they get to work using sledgehammers and crowbars they brought to smash the floor around it. A few minutes later, they finally managed to rip it loose. Now, because the toilet is connected to the plumbing, as soon as they tear it out, water starts rushing out from the pipes. And within like a few seconds, the entire room starts flooding, and the water starts

flooding into other parts of the palace. You know, the sections with like valuable art and furniture and stuff. Because remember, the palace is actually a museum. Anyway, these goons don't care about any of that. They got what they came for. So two of them grab it, because it weighs like 216 pounds. And they carry it out of the place, and they load it into one of the cars. You can actually see security footage of them loading it into the car here.

Then they flee the scene. And the entire heist only takes them like five and a half minutes, so it's really quick. Here's the thing, though. From here, we don't know exactly what they do next. I mean, we know they abandon both the stolen vehicles. We assume they take the toilet to a secure location and they break it apart and they have it melted down. And any profit they make from selling it, I'm sure they divide it up between them and they then go their separate ways. Regardless, back at the palace, police have arrived.

And they got there within like a minute of the thieves leaving, so it was pretty good response time. And so they start investigating and looking over everything. And that is when they find one of the sledgehammers that one of the guys had left behind. So they send it off to have it tested for DNA. They also find the stolen Asuzu truck that the guys abandoned, and they find DNA in it belonging to Sheen. Plus, the DNA on the sledgehammer comes back, and they find that it's linked to Sheen as well. And also, they're able to use automatic number plate recognition and CCTV networks to reconstruct the route that the truck drove,

so they know this truck was involved in the toilet heist. And so, bam, they arrest Sheen, here's his mugshot. Also, they somehow connect this crime to Michael, so bam, they arrest him too. Here's his mugshot. However, at this point, the case is still ongoing. and Sheen and Michael get released on bail. Now, from here, you would think that Sheen would, I don't know, maybe chill out and stay out of trouble. But nope, his dumb ass goes right back to his life of crime.

And he starts looting ATMs and defrauding people. He pulls another heist at the National Horse Racing Museum. So in 2020, bam, he gets arrested again. And eventually, he's convicted of those crimes, and he gets sent. to about 19 years in prison. However, at this point, he still hasn't been convicted for stealing the golden toilet, and neither have any of the other members of the crew. Until.

Until a few years pass, and it's now 2023. And by now, police have searched Sheen's phone, and they can see that he actually reached out to a guy looking for a way to liquidate the gold he stole. They also discover that Sheen ended up selling his own share of the gold, about one-fifth of the whole toilet, and he sold it to a different guy for about $650,000. He even took pictures of the cash that he made from the sale, and they're on his phone. And so in 2024, they finally are able to charge him for the toilet heist, and he takes a plea deal, and he gets four years in prison on top of the 19 years he was already serving.

As for Michael, police have now gone through all the surveillance footage from the palace, and the surveillance footage shows him scoping out the place just before the robbery. And because of that, he's found guilty of burglary, and he gets sentenced to about two years in prison. As for the other members of the crew, police never managed to catch any of them. So they all get away with this. And as far as the toilet goes, it's never actually found. It was likely melted down and lost forever