INVESTIGATIONS are ongoing after thieves carried out a heist – the cost of which could run into hundreds of millions – at Dresden’s Green Vault, one of the world’s oldest museums containing priceless treasures and jewels.
The treasury of Augustus the Strong of Saxony was established in 1723 and today contains around 4000 objects of gold, precious stones and other materials on display in the historic palace.
German police said it was too early to estimate the value of the items stolen. The governor of Saxony, where Dresden is located, said the vault contained items collected over many hundreds of years.
“It’s not just the State Art Collections that was robbed, but us Saxons,” Michael Kretschmer tweeted.
Exhibition rooms at the museum include a focus on treasures featuring jewels, ivory, silver and amber among other objects.
One of its most famous and precious treasures, the Dresden Green Diamond, is currently on loan with other valuable pieces to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for an exhibit.
The 41-carat green diamond was acquired by Augustus III, the son of Augustus the Strong, in 1742, according to the museum.
The museum did not put a current value on the piece but said at the time of its purchase it cost 400,000 thalers, compared to the 288,000 thalers it cost to build Dresden’s lavish Frauenkirche church at around the same time.
With that in mind, below we take a look at five of the most infamous heists in history.
The theft of the Crown Jewels
IN 1671, the ominously named Colonel Thomas Blood became known as the man who stole the Crown Jewels after the Anglo-Irish schmoozed his way into favour with the Master of the Jewel House in the Tower of London. After gaining his trust, Blood and his associates clubbed and bound the Master after he’d granted them access to the jewels.
Millennium Dome heist
NO, not the financial mismanagement of the biggest white elephant and one of the most controversial public works project in modern UK history but an actual heist that took place at the venue in 2000. Among its displays was an exhibition of diamonds, including a 203-carat gem worth $250 million called the Millennium Star.
In what sounds like a Grand Theft Auto V scenario, the thieves attempted to escape on a speedboat after carrying out the raid. However, they were arrested before they could make their escape by police who had already been monitoring them.
Boston Museum
TWO thieves dressed as police officers entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist pretending to respond to a disturbance call. They eventually made off with 13 works of art – including a Rembrandt, a Manet and a few by Degas – estimated to be valued at a total of $500m. The paintings’ whereabouts remain unsolved.
Pink Panthers
THE infamous group carried out a series of heists, though their most well-known came in 2009 when four of them, dressed as women, forced their way into a Harry Winston’s exclusive jewellery store in the French capital before herding staff and customers and making off with around £85m.
The group was also suspected to when an estimated £110m was stolen from an exhibition of the Leviev diamond house in the Carlton Hotel in Cannes in 2013.
Scotland’s oil
WAY back at the start of this long and tumultuous year, The National printed in full the McCrone Report on the Scottish economy, written in 1974 but kept secret until 2005.
It was the first time Gavin McCrone’s report had been reproduced in full for public consumption and highlighted an independent Scotland’s potential for a “chronic surplus to a quite embarrassing degree” when it comes to oil.
McCrone was a Scotland Office employee and researched and wrote the document on behalf of the UK Government but the findings were hushed in order to prevent fuelling pro-independence sentiment.
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