THIEVES STEAL PRICELESS TREASURES WORTH UP TO €1 BILLION

By Karthik Kalaiarasan 

Thieves have broken into one of Europe’s largest collections of art and have escaped with three sets of “priceless” treasures. It is said that the stolen treasures could reach up to one billion euros and is described as the biggest robbery since World War II. They broke into the Green vault, in Dresden museum. The Dresden museum was founded in 1723 by Augustus II - the King of Poland and is one of the oldest museums in Europe.

On 25th November at 4a.m., a small fire started on Augustus Bridge and destroyed the power box. This disabled the museum’s alarms and left the museum in complete darkness but fortunately the CCTV cameras continued to operate. The thieves went to the museum during the distraction caused by the power outage and cut through some iron bars around a window to break into the museum’s Jewel Room. According to the police, the thieves must have been very small to be able to fit through the hole. The CCTV footage shows two men within the vault, breaking the glass displays with an axe. The thieves stole three 18th-century jewellery sets that included 37 parts each, including diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires.

The thieves left through the same window and replaced the bars in the same order to delay the inspection. A burning car found in Dresden early in the morning is thought to have been the getaway vehicle and the police has put several road blocks in the motorway to try and stop the suspects from leaving. However, the museum was quite close to the autobahn (a German, Austrian or Swiss motorway) and might have helped the suspects have a speedy escape.

The museum is made up of two sections, one historic part and one more modern part. The historic section contains around three-quarters of the museum’s treasures and that was the part that the thieves broke into on Monday. To go to the historic vault, you must reserve in advance, and only a certain number visitors are allowed daily. Displays have to be arranged into nine room. There is an ivory room, a silver gilt room and the central Hall of Treasures.

Michael Kretschmer, the Minister President of Saxony (Dresden is its capital) said he was devastated by the losses after the robbery. “Not only has the gallery been robbed, but also the Saxonians,” he said. “You cannot understand the history of our country, or the free state of Saxony, without the Grünes Gewölbe and the state art collections of Saxony.” Many are emotionally affected by the robbery and it is a tragic moment for the local inhabitants. Nearly 7  months later and the jewels are still missing.