Officials have confirmed that thieves who broke into a museum in southern Germany and took hundreds of ancient Celtic gold coins left without sounding an alarm after nine minutes.
An international manhunt has been initiated by the police to find the thieves and their stolen goods, which included 483 Celtic coins and a lump of unmelted gold found in 1999 during an archaeological dig not far from the modern town of Manching.
Ancient Celtic Gold Coins Unfolded in Germany
That was said at 1:17 am by Guido Limmer, the deputy director of the State Criminal Police Office of Bavaria. Communications networks in the area were down on Tuesday after cables at a telecom center in Manching, which is a little over a mile from the Celtic and Roman Museum, were severed.
He claimed that at 1:26 in the morning, a door was forced open according to data from the museum’s security systems. and about 1:35 am, the burglars fled once more. He said that the thieves had to have broken open a display cabinet and scooped out the wealth during those nine minutes.
In recent years, Limmer claimed that there were parallels between the robbery in Manching, the loss of costly jewels in Dresden, and the loss of a sizable gold coin in Berlin. A crime family with headquarters in Berlin has been charged with the latter two incidents.
However, authorities confessed that there was no security on duty at the museum overnight. Rupert Gebhard, the director of the Bavarian State Archaeological Company, determined that an alarm system would provide enough security.
The loot, according to Gebhard, is extremely valuable to archaeologists around Europe as well as to the people of Manching. The bowl-shaped coins, which date to around 100 B.C. and were crafted from Bohemian river gold, demonstrate the connections that the Celtic community at Manching had with other parts of Europe, according to him.
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Missing Celtic Gold Coins Worth $1,65 Million
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Gebhard put the treasure’s worth around $1.65 million. The coins are extensively documented and would be difficult to sell, he continued, adding that archaeologists hope they stay in their original shape and turn up again at some point.
He pointed out that the material worth of the gold itself would only amount to roughly 250,000 euros at current market levels, adding that the worst option, the melting down, would result in a complete loss for us.
The largest such find was made during routine archaeological investigations in Germany in the 20th century, according to Gebhard, the size of the find suggested it may have been the war chest of a tribal chief. It was discovered inside a bag buried beneath building foundations.
The 20-person special investigations squad, code-named Oppidum after the Latin name for a Celtic village, has been established to find the thieves, as per Limmer, the deputy police chief. He claimed Interpol and Europol had already been notified about the theft of the coins.