There have also been a number of criminal incidents in which individuals or groups steal large numbers of garden gnomes without the intention of returning, often with the purported mission of "freeing" gnomes and "returning them to the wild".
In 2008, a 53-year-old man, who law enforcement officials believed acted alone, was arrested on suspicion of stealing as many as 170 garden gnomes in the Brittany region of France [REF].