Interestingly, all of the coins were minted before the Roman conquest, when Britain became occupied by Roman forces starting in A.D. A senior official said Wednesday that organized crime groups were likely behind the theft of a huge horde of ancient gold coins stolen from a museum in southern Germany this week.Marsden dated the "exceptional" bounty of gold coins to sometime between the first century B.C. Limmer, the deputy police chief, said Interpol and Europol have already been alerted to the coins’ theft and a 20-strong special investigations unit, codenamed ‘Oppidum’ after the Latin term for a Celtic settlement, has been established to track down the culprits.įILE - Coins of the Celtic Treasure are on display at the local Celtic and Roman Museum in Manching, Germany, May 31, 2006. Gebhard said the size of the trove suggested it might have been “the war chest of a tribal chief.” It was found inside a sack buried beneath building foundations, and was the biggest such discovery made during regular archaeological excavations in Germany in the 20th century. “The worst option, the melting down, would mean a total loss for us,” he said, noting that the material value of the gold itself would only run to about 250,000 euros at current market prices. “The archaeologists hope that the coins remain in their original state and reappear again at some point,” he said, adding that they are well documented and would be hard to sell. Gebhard estimated the value of the treasure at about 1.6 million euros ($1.65 million). The bowl-shaped coins, dating back to about 100 B.C., were made from Bohemian river gold and show how the Celtic settlement at Manching had links across Europe, he said.
Gebhard said the hoard was of great value both for the local community in Manching and for archaeologists across Europe. Officials acknowledged, however, that there was no guard at the museum overnight.Īn alarm system was deemed to provide sufficient security, said Rupert Gebhard, who heads the Bavarian State Archaeological Collection in Munich. “It’s highly secured and as such there’s a suspicion that we’re rather dealing with a case of organized crime.” “It’s clear that you don’t simply march into a museum and take this treasure with you,” he told public broadcaster BR. “Only this much: we are in touch with colleagues to investigate all possible angles.”īavaria’s minister of science and arts, Markus Blume, said evidence pointed to the work of professionals. “Whether there’s a link we can’t say,” he added. Both have been blamed on a Berlin-based crime family. Limmer said there were “parallels” between the heist in Manching and the theft of priceless jewels in Dresden and a large gold coin in Berlin in recent years. It was in those nine minutes that the culprits must have smashed open a display cabinet and scooped out the treasure.
and then how the thieves left again at 1:35 a.m., Limmer said. Security systems at the museum recorded that a door was pried open at 1:26 a.m. (0017 GMT) on Tuesday cables were cut at a telecoms hub about one kilometer (less than a mile) from the Celtic and Roman Museum in Manchning, knocking out communications networks in the region. Guido Limmer, the deputy head of Bavaria’s State Criminal Police Office, described how at 1:17 a.m. READ MORE: Stolen Mesopotamian tablet acquired by Hobby Lobby finally going back to Iraq Police have launched an international hunt for the thieves and their loot, consisting of 483 Celtic coins and a lump of unworked gold that were discovered during an archeological dig near the present-day town of Manching in 1999. BERLIN (AP) - Thieves who broke into a southern German museum and stole hundreds of ancient gold coins got in and out in nine minutes without raising the alarm, officials said Wednesday, in a further sign that the heist was the work of organized criminals.
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