it was one of the biggest jewel heists
in decades now a possible breakthrough
in the case
of the break-in at dresden's greenvault
one of germany's most famous museums
berlin police flooded the district of
neucon in a
massive early morning raid in connection
with the art theft the
three suspects arrested in the raid are
due to appear in court later
on suspicion of organized robbery and
arson
last november thieves broke into the
dresden museum and
stole jewry estimated to be worth around
one
billion dollars
for more of these latest developments
i'm now joined by chief political
correspondent melinda crane melinda
what else do we know about the raid
well in fact more than 1600 police
officers
took part in this massive raid
from states beyond berlin from six
other federal states as well and
apparently they
searched at least 18 properties that
ranged from apartments to
cellars to car garages
many of these were in the neighborhood
that's known as
noicon here in berlin and that
neighborhood
is known for organized criminal gangs
there is no confirmation
yet that the three people who were
arrested were in fact members of
organized criminal gangs
but some german media are reporting that
there are indications that will prove to
be
the case and as you said uh the three
who were arrested
uh are being charged with theft and with
arson arson because at the time of the
robbery
uh an electricity box uh that
that conveys electric wires was in fact
cut
causing a fire and the suspects will be
arraigned
later on this afternoon and we're also
expecting to hear
more from authorities melinda crane
thank you for
this update
and for more on the background of this
story let's bring in scott roxborough
from our arts and culture department
scott um
that that theft was spectacular what
more can you tell us about it
yeah i know it was uh incredible i mean
it's the biggest uh jewelry robbery uh
in in germany in the federal republic of
germany uh um it happened
early in the morning uh almost exactly a
year ago um in
in november in dresden um and what the
thieves did was
initially they set a fire at an
electricity electricity junction box to
cut power to the area so the
streets were dark um then they went to a
first floor window at the museum
tore off the the bars that were there
smashed their way through the glass
went straight to a display case a
jewelry display case
smashed their way through there with an
axe grabbed the jewels and took off the
police were there very quickly there was
an alarm sounded the police were there
within five or six minutes
but they were already gone and the
getaway car that they used was found
burnt out uh a short time later
i mean we already heard that the um
jewelry that was stolen was intensely
precious
what else can you tell us about this
jewelry the pieces that were actually
stolen yeah i mean the whole collection
in the green uh vault this is a
unique uh within with a journey really
unique in the world it's the collection
of augustus the strong
18th century ruler of saxony um it could
be maybe
compared to the crown jewels of london
it's this incredibly
unique uh um set of pieces
the pieces that were stolen included uh
diamond crested swords
uh brooches and so forth they some put
the value at a billion euros or more but
really they're
they're priceless i mean this is a
unique piece of of german and saxon
cultural history
well this is not the first uh heist in
germa
in a german museum um have
museums become soft targets for for
criminals yeah uh i think i think you
can really say that i mean um
just a couple of years ago 2017 we had a
similar um
very spectacular robbery here in germany
in the bottom museum where a huge gold
coin
worth about 4 million euros was also was
also taken uh
in a very dramatic uh robbery and and
these aren't um
you know ocean's 11 complicated geniuses
that are
pulling these off these are smash and
grab operations they're just rushing in
grabbing what they can and taking and
going out um and i think i think
criminals are looking at
germ museums very soft targets
incredibly valuable material in these
museums um that's protected by
really um low end security that they
find very easy to
to break through um but i don't really
know what museums can do about it
because museums are public spaces
uh people need to have access to this
this culture
um i'm not sure how you can turn public
spaces into properly secure areas
unless you want to turn them into bank
vaults and i don't think anybody wants
that
will any of this jewelry appear on on
markets black markets
what are the chances of of getting it
back i think almost
uh almost nil i mean the uh right after
robbery uh art experts said
these pieces are so well known uh
there's uh internationally that it'd be
impossible
to sell them even on a black market be
impossible to sell them and they assume
that the criminals uh broke them down
and then sold off the jewelry the the
valuable medal
similar to the gold coin that was stolen
they actually have found the people who
did it they're now serving
jail time but the coin itself was not
recovered they assumed police assumed it
was
it was broken down melted down for its
gold and sold on
what a shame thank you very much scott
roxborough from our arts and culture
department
you