Six charged in €100m jewel and diamond robbery at German museum

Two of the suspects had previously been convicted for stealing a 100kg gold coin

Police vehicles outside the building that housed the Green Vault museum of treasures. Getty

Six men have been charged over a €113 million ($134.1m) heist at a German museum in which unique, historic jewels were stolen.

The gang escaped with more than a dozen diamond-encrusted artefacts, including a sword encrusted with nine large and 770 smaller diamonds, and a shoulder-piece that contained the famous 49-carat Dresden white diamond.

The suspects, all German nationals aged between 22 and 27, are accused of aggravated gang robbery and aggravated arson.

Prosecutors did not identify the suspects but in the hunt to catch the gang, police said they were members of the "Remmo clan", a family notorious for ties to organised crime.

Two of the suspects had been convicted for stealing a 100 kilogram gold coin from Berlin's Bode Museum, another robbery that shook Germany.

The gang started a fire to cut off the power supply for street lighting around the museum just before the burglary, prosecutors said.

Armed with a revolver and an automatic-loading gun with a silencer, the burglars broke into the Green Vault museum in Dresden in the early hours of November 25, 2019.

They escaped with 21 pieces of jewellery encrusted with more than 4,300 diamonds, and an insurance value of €113.8m.

As they made their getaway to Berlin, they allegedly set fire to an Audi S6 in an underground car park, damaging 61 vehicles.

Dresden's Royal Palace, which runs the museum, said none of the items were recovered.

Police have also found no trace of the Canadian coin taken in the March 2017 robbery at the Bode Museum, near Chancellor Angela Merkel's Berlin apartment.

The Big Maple Leaf, one of five minted in 2007, is considered the world's second-largest gold coin after the one-tonne Australian Kangaroo issued in 2012.