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The Robbery of the Century: How the biggest jewelry theft in history was solved

They named her “Robbery of the Century” because what was stolen two years ago from the Museum green Vault [ή Green Vault] of Dresden they had such a value that the aggressive designation “uncalculated” pales in giving the magnitude of the total loss.

The treasures stolen in November 2019 from his jewelry room “Green Dome”, One of the world’s oldest museums, built in the 18th century and featuring jewels and treasures of Saxon and Polish aristocracy and history, has made both the German authorities and the country’s Art Historians speak of a economic, but mainly in terms of Art and History “.

The desperate search of the police authorities to locate those responsible lasted for two years. After all, Last May, Berlin police arrested Lebanese Abdul Majid Remo, the fifth and last suspect linked to the robbery. The 22-year-old man is the twin brother of the suspect Mohamed Remo, who has been in custody since last November.

The German Federal Police cooperated with the Berlin Authorities, the Dresden police and the special forces to arrest the five suspects, who are not accidental at all and are certainly not… thieves, nor anything poor.

The Remo family is widely known as one of Germany’s most notorious criminal families, hence the nickname “the German Sopranos”, as they are involved in a myriad of scams and scams, from money laundering to drug trafficking and white meat and, of course, grandiose “projects” like the one in Dresden.

But let us slowly unravel the tangle of theft that was to go down in history as “the robbery of the century.”

When time stopped at the “Green Dome”

At 5 a.m. on Monday, November 25, 2019, the Royal Palace of Dresden and the “Green Dome” were plunged into total darkness as at 4:30 a.m. an explosion had occurred at an adjacent low voltage substation, disabling the museum’s alarms and the lighting of the surrounding streets. The only thing that still works is a security camera inside the museum, which records some of those who will played in less than 5 minutes.

At 5:02, two men break the metal beams of a window and enter the jewelry room of the “Green Dome” and then go to the “Green Treasury” of Augustus the Almighty, elector of Saxony and king of Poland in the 18th century.

The museum security guards are awake and stand by and watch them break with a huge tool, a sledgehammer or an ax as not well visible, the glass cover of a showcase and put in bags jewelry and various kinds of treasures.

The security guards send a signal to the local police in order to intervene. At 5:07 The police are outside the museum, however the two robbers have made wings “evacuating” the room from its contents.

And these were many – and extremely valuable: among other things, diamond jewelry from the House of Vetin, the kings of Poland, gems of incalculable value, such as the “White Diamond of Dresden” and the world’s largest blue sapphire, a diamond necklace with the emblem of the White Eagle belonging to Frederick-August II, King of Poland and elector of Saxony and a sword adorned with nine large and 770 smaller diamonds. A total of 11 large items and a few more, scorpions, that they managed to put in their bags while leaving.

The robbers also remained unaccounted for, of course: no matter how much the police vehicles “combed” the streets of Dresden in search of an Audi A6, with which the robbers are believed to have escaped, they fell into a dead end. Until a little while later, the authorities were informed that the suspicious car had caught fire in an underground garage in the city. Traces, fingerprints and genetic material were also (very strategically) burned, making it even more difficult to locate the two suspects.

It took more than 72 hours for the museum officials to record and announce to the media the stolen treasures, the value of which exceeded 1 billion euros, while according to the Marion Ackerman, Director of the State Art Collections of Dresden, the value of the stolen items is indeed incalculable. Literally though.

“These are unique items that are impossible to sell even on the black market, as no one can safely calculate their true value,” she said, adding meaningfully that the jewelry was not insured as no insurance company he agreed to cover their possible loss financially “.

The first arrests

Exactly one year after the spectacular theft, in November 2020, police made the first arrests of three suspects.

Police and 1,600 undercover agents raided the Neukeln district in the heart of Berlin, arresting three German nationals for “distinguished theft” and “arson”.

And six months later, the case seems to close with the arrest of 22-year-old Abdul Majid Remo. What has definitely not closed definitively is what will happen to the stolen items. Where are they; Is there a case to be found?

Given, however, that the των German family Sopranos is already involved in the theft of a giant 100-kilogram gold coin, worth about 3.75 million euros, which was stolen in 2017 from the Bode Museum in Berlin and which was never found, with investigators estimating that they have melted it and the gold has sold or shipped abroad, hopes are not high.

“We must be very, very lucky to find these items again a year or two after the crime,” a Dresden police spokesman warned. Thomas Gaitne.

Unfortunately, and with the possibility that the majority of the stolen items may never be found, the Green Dome may be put into museum disrepute in the near future.

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