Arrests in cemetery bronze vases heist

LONDON, Ontario, June 18 (UPI) -- Two arrests were made days after a Canadian cemetery in a southwestern Ontario cemetery was plundered of 170 bronze vases for scrap.

The weekend theft of the graveside vases from the Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens in London made international news and put area recyclers on the defensive, the London (Ontario) Free Press reported.

Tuesday, police in Brantford, about 50 miles east of London, reported the arrests of two men, ages 22 and 39, after an unidentified scrap dealer reported the attempted sale of 135 vases.

The value of the stolen vases was downgraded to $20,000 from earlier reports, and police said the full haul would have weighed about 1 ton, the report said. Some 35 of the vases remained missing Wednesday, the report said.

In recent months, bronze, aluminum and copper have reached record price levels and thefts worldwide have been reported, the newspaper said.