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A year ago, a spectacular art theft at Dresden’s Green Vault caused a sensation. Strangers have stolen art treasures of barely measurable value. Now the researchers have apparently taken a big step further. Police arrested three suspects in Berlin on Tuesday morning. They must be presented to the investigating judge in the course of the day, the Dresden prosecutor said. The defendants were charged with grave robbery and arson in two cases. Two other 21-year-old suspects are still being sought. They are also charged with theft and arson.
According to coincident media reports, the arrested suspects are said to be members of the R-German-Arab clan family. The family is well known in Berlin: a large part of the investigation procedures in the field of clan crime is targeted Against them. The last name has appeared repeatedly in connection with spectacular crimes in recent years. During the robbery of a savings bank in Berlin-Marienfelde in 2014, for example, in which 300 lockers were broken into and ten million euros stolen, then the savings bank exploded. In March 2017, three young men broke into the Bode Museum through a window and stole a 100 kilogram gold coin worth almost four million euros. Two of them, as well as a family friend of the museum security guard, were sentenced to several years in prison for the theft in February. The coin has disappeared to this day.
Another business area for parts of the family is real estate. In 2018, 77 properties were seized and investigators suspect they were purchased with proceeds from criminal activities. Time and time again, family members are also associated with bloody turf wars, most recently a man was tried for murder. He was charged with ambushing and killing a competitor from another family with a baseball bat, but was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Berlin Interior Senator Andreas Geisel also sees the arrests as a warning sign for the clan scene in the capital. “No one should believe that they can break this state and its rules,” he said. “The rule of law is the measure of all things. He alone enforces order. He does it with more determination and intelligence than many criminals believe.” The Berlin police supported their Dresden colleagues with their investigative expertise from the beginning. He also participated in raids with special forces. “We are happy that we managed to solve an art theft,” he said.
The police have been searching 18 objects in Berlin since early morning, including ten apartments, as well as garages and vehicles. According to the authorities, there are almost 1,640 police officers on duty. The focus of the measures would be the search for stolen art treasures and possible evidence, such as storage media, clothing and tools.
The focus of the searches on Tuesday morning was in the Berlin district of Neukölln. Due to the police operation, considerable traffic restrictions can be expected throughout the day in Berlin. In addition to the Saxony emergency services, the special forces of the federal government and the states of Baden-Württemberg, Berlin, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia are also involved in the measures.
On the morning of November 25, 2019, strangers entered the famous museum in Dresden’s residential palace through one of the barred windows. In the jewelery room they smashed the display case with the most precious jewels with an ax, they looted historical and brilliant diamonds of inestimable value. The robbery only lasted a few minutes.
So far there has been no trace of both the thieves and the loot. Investigators assumed that at least seven perpetrators had planned the robbery for a long time. Among other things, the stolen getaway vehicle, which was later set ablaze in an underground parking lot in northwest Dresden, may have been repainted or wrapped.
Despite the arrests, investigators have little hope that the stolen items will return to Dresden. “You should be very lucky to be able to find him a year after the crime,” said a Dresden police spokesman. “Hope dies in the end,” he added. The real success is the arrest of the suspects.
