I Guess If You Are Going To Steal Something,

the items should be extremely valuable, 

because they are unique, historic, and irreplaceable, for instance things like rare books including first editions by Galileo Galilei, Sir Isaac Newton, and Francisco Goya, plus 16th-century editions of works by Copernicus, Euripides, Aesop, and Manutius, sounds like a good haul, but therein lies the problem, as they are all extremely valuable because they are unique, historic, and irreplaceable, they are impossible to sell! the trove of books, all neatly wrapped and buried in a cement pit were found beneath a house in Neamț, a county in eastern Romania, last Wednesday. The individuals responsible for the burglary appear to be connected to a network of Romanian families involved with the notorious Clamparu crime group, you can read about the three years of coordinated efforts by the MPS, the Romanian National Police, the Italian Carabinieri, Europol and Eurojust, at the Smithsonian, where it details the heist and the recovery of the treasures, I guess the crooks just did not think it through, not that I condone this sort of thing, but I thought with items like these always have a buyer lined up first!