The thieves negotiate their return with the prosecutor’s office while they are processed
The German police have recovered this Saturday in Berlin a good part of the priceless treasure stolen three years ago in the Green Vault of the Residenzschloss, the royal palace of Dresden. The Dresden public prosecutor’s office and the Saxony Criminal Investigation Office announced in a statement that an operation carried out this morning has made it possible to recover a total of 31 pieces, including several complete ones, from the so-called Wettin House treasure, the jewels of the Saxon monarchs with an impressive collection of large diamonds. In November 2019, a group of thieves managed to enter the palace at night, access its treasure chamber, the well-known Green Vault, and take a good part of its most precious jewels.
The Dresden prosecutor’s office stressed that not all of the treasure has been recovered, although most of it has been recovered and that this has been possible after contacts with the lawyers of the alleged robbers, when they are currently being prosecuted for that robbery. The searches that have made it possible to recover the jewels and of which no details have been given took place “after probing conversations between the defense and the prosecution, including the court, for a possible procedural understanding with the return of the part of the loot still available », They explained from the prosecutor’s office. Six men have been on trial as a criminal gang for felony robbery by a court in the Saxon capital since the beginning of this year. He added that the recovered jewels have already been transferred with a large police escort to Dresden, where they will be thoroughly analyzed to check their condition and verify what pieces are missing to be recovered.
In the robbery three years ago, the thieves took a total of 21 jewels, adorned with a total of 4,300 diamonds, valued then only for their material value at more than 110 million euros. The thieves also caused material damage of more than a million euros. Among the most outstanding pieces that disappeared at the time are the diamond necklace of Queen Amalia Augusta, a dagger with a diamond hilt, a large diamond star with the Polish Order of the White Eagle and several costume pieces filled with diamonds as buckles for the shoes or buttons for a jacket. The jewels in the Wettin Treasure are so unique that selling them on the black market, even by disassembling them and offering the loose stones, is almost impossible. Any expert would recognize its origin.
six defendants
The six accused of the robbery are between the ages of 23 and 28 and are all members of a Berlin family clan of Lebanese origin to which numerous crimes are attributed. Several of the young people previously participated in the robbery at the Bode Museum in Berlin of a gold coin valued at 3.75 million euros. In March 2017, several thieves entered the museum through a window and managed to remove from it, with the complicity of a security guard, a 100-kilogram solid gold coin, a Big Maple Leaf issued by Canada with the effigy of Elizabeth II and of which only six copies were minted. The one stolen in Berlin was never recovered and given its purity it is assumed that it was melted down and the gold sold by weight. Two Lebanese clan members, ages 18 and 20, were sentenced to four and a half years in jail for that robbery after being prosecuted under juvenile criminal law. The watchman to three years and four months in prison for complicity
Local Berlin media comment that the revelation of the place where part of the loot from the robbery in Dresden was found until now comes as the trial against its alleged perpetrators is coming to an end. The Bild tabloid affirms that the defendants seek at all costs to reduce their sentence. As they are historical jewels, the authorities are apparently willing to make concessions in order to recover them. The Prime Minister of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, celebrated the return of a good part of the stolen jewels. “The valuable works of art in the Green Vault are part of our state’s cultural heritage. Only the determined and professional work of the police and the prosecution have made it possible to identify and arrest the perpetrators and clarify the facts,” said the Saxon prime minister.
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