Autumn elsewhere is gold leaves and blue skies. Not here, not today: it’s misty at the Riverside Museum, with a drizzle so persistent it feels like a grudge. It’s Wednesday 22 October 2025 and staff at the Riverside are locking up and clocking off. The mist is still there when staff return the next morning at 9am for opening. Floors are buffed, surfaces wiped, and it’s not until 10am that staff notice anything untoward. Tucked away near some cafe seating, next to a model ship built for King Edward, one case is empty. The previous night, an 18-carat gold, 95-year-old, £490,000 trophy dripping with historical wealth stood there. Now there’s nothing. Overnight, someone came from the mist and stole the Lipton Cup. And all this just three days after the brazen heist at the Louvre.
Six months on, no arrests have been made. Police Scotland are now appealing for information. They want the cup found and returned to “the people of Glasgow”. They want anyone with any information, “no matter how small it may seem”, to contact them. It may help them “piece together what happened and find the trophy”.
To contact police, call 101 and quote reference number 0993 of Thursday, 23 October, 2025 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Unlike the Louvre, the museum has been noticeably quiet about the theft. At the time, Police Scotland chose not to release any information to the public to minimise the risk of the trophy being “destroyed or trafficked out of the country”. It wasn’t until word got to The Bell that there’d been a burglary that we could approach authorities to confirm the theft and make the information public.
Police Scotland wouldn’t be drawn on any further “operational details”. They won’t release CCTV of the heist yet, despite my asking and despite an “extensive CCTV review” forming part of the police’s investigation. Jane Rowlands, Head of Museums and Collections at Glasgow Life, described the “theft from the people of Glasgow” as “disgraceful”.
Yes, it’s disgraceful — the cup is enormously valuable. But the significance of the theft goes beyond pounds and pence: it’s an irreplaceable connection to this city’s past and one of its most colourful rags-to-riches poster boys, Sir Thomas Lipton. By leveraging colonial exploitation abroad and publicity stunts at home, Lipton grew an empire worth billions of today’s pounds. The greatest gift he ever received, given to him by the Mayor of New York, has vanished into the mist.
But why has recovering the Cup proven so elusive for police? And what are the thief’s (or thieves') next steps likely to be?
To read the full story about Thomas Lipton, why he was given the magnificent cup, and expert analysis on what the thieves might do next, you'll need to become a paid subscriber.
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