Police Seek Holy Grail in Welsh Pub

This turned out pretty much how one would expect from the headline. Welsh police are currently attempting to track down the Nanteos Cup, a religious relic that some believe to be the mythical Holy Grail. The cup was stolen a few weeks back. Yesterday they raided a pub based on "intelligence" that an object resembling the cup had been seen there. The sighting must have been a vision or something, though, because after an exhaustive search of the premises it was not found.

The team of 12 officers accused pub workers of hiding the stolen Nanteos Cup, claimed to be the cup Christ drank from at the Last Supper. Police and a dog handler locked all the staff inside while they searched every inch of the 15th century pub in their hunt for the stolen relic. But after an hour the only thing they found that looked like the missing mediaeval cup was a wooden bowl used to serve mixed salad to customers.

Landlady Di Franklyn said: "I was amazed to see so many police - they said they had been given information that this Holy Grail had been shown off by someone here. "But if somebody had stolen something as priceless as the Holy Grail I don't think it would be on show in my pub. But the police were taking the information very seriously because there were so many of them including a police dog handler."

Turning up nothing but an old salad bowl rather than the Holy Grail pretty much completes the "Keystone Cops" vibe of this raid. I realize that the police are just doing their job, and that they have to follow up on every lead, but it sounds like the informant is just trying to make trouble for the pub's owners. Clearly the police needed to do a better job of vetting their sources. Also, passing on a false tip like this suggests to me that the informant might be involved in the original theft. After all, what better way to distract the police from turning their attention to the real culprits?