Strangnas, Sweden
Crown heist: In a brazen daylight robbery, two men smashed a glass case in Strangnas Cathedral, grabbed Sweden’s crown jewels, and made off in a speedboat across nearby Lake Malaren. The church dean said the stolen items—two gold crowns and a jewel-bedecked orb—belonged to King Charles IX and Queen Christina, who ruled Sweden in the 17th century. Strangnas, 40 miles west of Stockholm, is in a part of Sweden crisscrossed by lakes and rivers, and the thieves could have traveled far, or even to another country, by boat. “It’s too difficult to translate these things into some kind of value,” police spokesman Thomas Agnevik said of the treasures. “They are such unique objects.”