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Wednesday 16 December 2020
Raid on Berlin’s jewelers
Confiscation of counterfeit gold coins
Researchers assume that the huge stolen “Big Maple Leaf” coin from the Bode Museum in Berlin was dismembered and put back into circulation. They have been investigating this suspicion for months. During a search in Berlin, something new comes to light.
At Sonnenallee in Berlin-Neukölln, jewelers advertise the purchase of gold in shop windows. On Wednesday morning, police officers raided there. Allegedly counterfeit gold coins and five-figure cash were seized. In Wedding and Reinickendorf, partially masked emergency services searched apartments and jewelry stores, a total of 14.
When it comes to gold and crime, many in Berlin still think of the spectacular theft of the 100 kilogram “Big Maple Leaf” gold coin in March 2017. At the time, the plate had a gold value of just under 3.75 million euros, but it has not been until today. he found. Investigators previously assumed that the valuable piece had been dismembered and sold, possibly overseas. If it were confirmed that the pieces that have now been confiscated were made from the stolen “Big Maple Leaf”, it would be a sensation.
Was it in Berlin of all places that, even after the sensational robbery, an equally blatant action followed? So far the prosecutor’s office has been covered. “Among other things, possible connections to the theft of the gold coin from the Bode Museum of March 27, 2017 are being examined,” the authority said. One researcher told “Spiegel-TV”: “The odds are 50:50 that we will find traces of the gold coin.”
Alleged stolen goods and counterfeits
The investigation is carried out against eight suspects of different nationalities between 14 and 51 years old who are said to belong to a family. The indictment: stolen commercial products and commercial counterfeiting. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, links with organized crime are suspected. Now there have been no arrest warrants, said the prosecution, Martin Steltner.
After months of investigations, the suspects were said to have allegedly obtained stolen gold to melt and use to make counterfeit investment coins. Then they themselves or family members should have circulated the pieces in their jewelers in Neukölln and Reinickendorf as genuine. Investment coins can be used as a financial investment and also to speculate on the value of precious metals.
In February, the regional court in the capital imposed a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence on a young man for stealing gold coins against two men from an extended family of Arab origin known to the police. A sanction is already legally effective. A former security guard who, according to the court, was exploring the museum, received three years and four months in prison. They didn’t say where the coin went. The researchers now heard the theory that the exploitation of the loot could have been entrusted to another family. You don’t put something like that in the hands of strangers, he said. It is also said that a smelting furnace on Hermannstrasse was seized.
Organized crime strike
In recent weeks, organized crime has been taking place in Berlin in rapid succession. Raids, arrests, controls, seizures. It has become less comfortable for criminals. “We remain vigilant, we press,” spokesman Steltner said. Therefore, the connections between different crimes and perpetrators are increasingly being examined.
It was only on Monday night that investigators captured a fourth suspect in the Dresden jewelry theft case in Berlin. He is now detained in Dresden with three other suspects from the clan of an extended Arab family. Members of this family were convicted of stealing gold coins. On November 25, 2019, perpetrators stole jewels of barely estimable value from the famous Grünes Gewölbe hoard in one of the most spectacular raids in decades. Guesses and traces quickly led to Berlin.
