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Reported $1.1 billion worth of ‘priceless’ jewelry, artifacts stolen from German museum

Thieves made off with jewelry and artifacts worth a reported $1.1 billion after an early-morning burglary at a German museum.

FILE - This file image made available on Wednesday Aug. 1, 2018 by the Swedish Police, shows a collection of Swedish Crown jewels that were stolen from Strangnas cathedral. In a daring daytime heist, thieves in Sweden smashed glass show cases inside a cathedral and snatched 17th-century royal treasures estimated to be worth 65 million kronor ($7 million). A brazen burglary on Monday Nov. 25, 2019 from Dresden’s Green Vault, one of the world’s oldest museums, holding priceless treasures is another in a long history of daring European heists over the years. (Swedish Police via AP, File)
FILE - This file image made available on Wednesday Aug. 1, 2018 by the Swedish Police, shows a collection of Swedish Crown jewels that were stolen from Strangnas cathedral. In a daring daytime heist, thieves in Sweden smashed glass show cases inside a cathedral and snatched 17th-century royal treasures estimated to be worth 65 million kronor ($7 million). A brazen burglary on Monday Nov. 25, 2019 from Dresden’s Green Vault, one of the world’s oldest museums, holding priceless treasures is another in a long history of daring European heists over the years. (Swedish Police via AP, File)Read more/ AP
    by Stefan Nicola, Bloomberg
    Published 

Thieves made off with jewelry and artifacts worth a reported $1.1 billion after an early-morning burglary at a German museum.

The robbers stole three sets of jewelry from Dresden’s Grunes Gewolbe — or Green Vault — after entering through a window just before 5 a.m. local time Monday, Joerg Kubiessa, the head of Dresden’s police, told reporters. The thieves escaped and remain at large.

Germany has had its share of heists in recent years. In 2017, burglars stole a 100-kilogram (220-pound) solid gold coin worth $4 million from Berlin’s Bode Museum. The coin, which is as big as a car tire, is still missing.

The Grunes Gewolbe held 3,000 individual objects, including jewels and objects made of gold, crystal and diamonds collected by Augustus the Strong, a 17th-century ruler of the kingdom of Saxony, which included Dresden.

The stolen jewelry is “unique in Europe,” said Dirk Syndram, the director of the Grunes Gewolbe. “It’s a world cultural heritage.”

They include ensembles of diamonds that are of “priceless art-historic value,” said Marion Ackermann, the head of Dresden’s state art collection. She declined to give a financial value, saying that it was impossible to estimate.

Germany’s Bild newspaper reported that the antique jewelry was worth about 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) without saying where it got the estimate.