Thieves That Melted Ancient Celtic Gold Hoard Sentenced In Germany
TomB
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I started a thread almost exactly two years ago in 2023 about an ancient hoard of 483 Celtic gold coins, along with a lump of unworked gold, stolen from a museum in Germany. The link is below and it has linked within it a news article from the time-
This afternoon CBS News reports that three people were convicted of the theft and sentenced from four years and nine months to eleven years in prison. The ancient coins appear to have been long ago destroyed, or at least some of them destroyed, as lumps of gold were found on one suspect that were determined to be from the ancient hoard having been melted. Shockingly, the museum had no overnight security and the theft occurred when a cable was cut at a nearby telecommunications hub. The group then pried open the museum doors, smashed the display case and took the gold. It took nine minutes for the entire theft to occur and no alarms were triggered.
Below is the CBS News link-
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/theft-ancient-celtic-gold-coins-german-museum-conviction/
Comments
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
This is worse than those who stole bronze statues for their copper scrap value. 🤦♂️
Was it an inside job?
The substantial truth doctrine is an important defense in defamation law that allows individuals to avoid liability if the gist of their statement was true.
Man that’s rough…
I'm BACK!!! Used to be Billet7 on the old forum.
The Isabella Gardner museum finally has a contemporary. Melting the coins makes this crime far worse though.
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Apparently not. The defendants were charged with twenty robberies in Germany and Austria going back to 2014. It looks like they did their homework on the museum and took advantage of lax security and a weakness in the monitoring system.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
Another image from the museum before they were stolen.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
The historic value outweighs the metal value and most of it was melted down, forever gone. Can someone explain the range of sentences -- 4 yrs 9 months vs 11 years? Maybe one of them participated in "only" ten heists instead of all twenty.
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The German government, instead of placing 10 of those coins
with the museum and selling the rest to collectors, place the
entire find in a small city museum whose cappuccino machine
is worth more than their security system. Happened here in the
U.S. with Yogi Berra's World Series rings and other awards.