Los Angeles - Police said yesterday they had solved the case of 55 stolen gold-plated Oscar statuettes and recovered most of them from a rubbish skip behind a supermarket in the Koreatown district of Los Angeles. Two employees of Roadway Express were arrested, police said. They were detained on Saturday and were being held on $100,000 bail.
They also said they had arrested the person or persons who stole the statuettes from a shipping company's loading platform. and would release details at press conference later on Monday.
The statuettes were found by a man rummaging through skips behind a "Food 4 Cheap" supermarket. The man, Mr Willie Fulgear (61), phoned KCBS News and boasted that even though he lived in only one room he now had more Oscars than anyone in Hollywood. "I'm going to buy me a house," he told Channel 2 News on the possibility of receiving the $50,000 reward for the Oscars' safe return and the arrest and conviction of the thieves.