That was blatant theft of Empire property. It's gone too far, and the punishment will be severe.
This is going somewhat beyond RP and into breach of etiquette rules. Some things we've done for the sake of running a good RP. Think about it - a guy with a swag bag wont be running off with a large solid gold column. It's one thing to steal from peoples' homes and smash in their windows. Another entirely to take apart buildings.
And quadrupling the prices is going to do the city no good, nobody will bother to buy anything.
Or in other words, game is on hold until we sort this out.