Dresden museum heist: police release dramatic CCTV footage of suspect
Police in Germany have released dramatic CCTV footage of one of two suspects in the Dresden jewellery heist using an axe to smash a display case in the state museum’s Green Vault.
Two robbers snatched priceless 18th-century jewellery in an astonishing smash-and-grab raid from the Grünes Gewölbe’s jewel room at the Royal Palace in the east German city on Monday morning.
Police have called for witnesses to step forward and released images of the stolen items, which were taken from a collection of jewellery that once belonged to the ruler of Saxony, Augustus the Strong.
CCTV footage of the two men has also been released by investigators. In a black-and-white clip, one of the two suspects was seen using an axe to smash a display case.
They launched their raid after setting off a fire at an electrical panel near the museum in the early hours of Monday, deactivating its alarm as well as street lighting, police said.
Despite the power cut, a surveillance camera kept working and filmed two men breaking in. “The whole act lasted only a few minutes,” said police in a statement.
The suspects then fled in an Audi A6 and remain on the run. The apparent getaway car was found on fire later elsewhere in the city, said police, adding that the vehicle was being examined for clues.
Dresden museum officials on Tuesday
said the thieves had stolen less than originally feared and had only been able to take what they could reach through holes smashed into the display case.
The items included a large diamond brooch and a diamond epaulette, said the Green Vault director, Dirk Syndram, but he did not give a complete list and has only said the losses were culturally priceless.
Treasures left behind included diamond-encrusted shoe buckles and a diamond-studded sword.
Dresden police said they were also in contact with colleagues in Berlin to explore possible connections to a similar heist in the capital two years ago.
In 2017, a 100kg (220lb), 24-carat giant gold coin was stolen from Berlin’s Bode Museum. Four men with links to a notorious Berlin gang were later arrested and put on trial. The coin has never been recovered.
Fears are growing that the latest haul will also remain lost forever.
With speculation mounting that the robbers would extract the diamonds from individual pieces for sale separately, Syndram, warned it would be “stupid to do that”.
“They’re all 18-century cuts. You can’t just turn these stones into cash,” he told the DPA news agency, adding that breaking up the diamonds would lower their value.