‘Playboy’ dealer jailed over stolen Shakespeare first folio

AN unemployed antiques dealer with a taste for the high life was jailed for eight years after he was convicted of handling a stolen copy of a rare first collection of Shakespeare’s plays.

Raymond Scott, 53, who drove a yellow Ferrari and posed as an international playboy despite having huge debts, walked into one of the world’s leading Shakespeare research centres with the 17th century book.

Scott was arrested after presenting the badly damaged folio to staff at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC and asking for it to be verified as genuine. He claimed to have discovered the book in Cuba. Staff recognised it and called the police, the British Embassy and the FBI.