Philadelphia apologizes to the Chinese people for dude stealing Terracotta warrior’s thumb

The Chinese side has asked that the thumb thief be ‘severely punished’ for his crime

The city of Philadelphia has officially apologized to the Chinese people over an incident that could well go down as the caper of the century, in which some guy made off with the thumb of a Terracotta Warrior that was on display at a local museum during an “ugly sweater party.”

“On March 18, 2018, Philadelphia City Council unanimously passed a Resolution that I introduced to express the City’s apology to the People of China for the damage caused by a visitor to Philadelphia to a World Heritage Artifact loaned by the Shaanxi Cultural Heritage Promotion Center to the Franklin Institute,” reads the apology letter written by councilman David Oh.

“Please accept this resolution as an official apology for the damage that was caused to one of the most valued national treasures of China.”

The crime occurred back on December 21st at the Franklin Institute. At the time, the exhibit, called “Terracotta Warriors of the First Emperor,” was closed, however the door to the exhibit was open with only a black rope held up two stanchions separating 24-year-old Michael Rohana from 10 terracotta soldiers.

The soldiers were the real articles, made more than 2,000 years ago to guard China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang in the afterlife.

Once inside, Rohana used his smartphone camera’s flashlight to look around and snapped a selfie with his arm around one of the warriors. Before leaving, he pried off the $4.5 million statue’s left thumb and concealed it inside his pocket.

It took two weeks for someone to finally notice that the thumb had gone missing. A short time later, an FBI agent knocked on Rohana’s door in Bear, Delaware, asking about the thumb. Rohana then went to his bedroom and pulled out the artifact from the top right drawer of his desk.

Rohana has been charged with the theft of a major artwork from a museum, concealment of a major artwork stolen from a museum, and interstate transportation of stolen property. At the moment, he is out on bail.

If convicted, Rohana faces up to 30 years in jail.

Earlier this year, an unnamed official from the Shaanxi Cultural Heritage Promotion Center declared that Rohana should be “severely punished” for the theft and destruction of one of China’s national treasures.

However, in a reply to the city of Philadelphia’s apology letter, Zhang Qiyue, China’s Consul General in New York said that such an “isolated case” would not “affect the robust cultural and people-to-people exchanges between the two sides.”

[Images via Shine.cn]