Three Suspects Arrested for Stealing Trillion-Won Worth of Jewelry from Dresden Museum

Interior of the Gr?nes Gew?lbe exhibition room in Dresden, Germany. Photo by AFP Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Hyun-ui] Suspects in the notorious museum jewelry theft that occurred a year ago in Dresden, Germany, have been apprehended by the police.

According to local media on the 17th, German police raided 10 apartments, garages, and 18 assets including cars in Berlin, arresting three suspects.

The police mobilized about 1,600 personnel in the raid, focusing on recovering the stolen jewelry and finding evidence of the theft. However, there has been no update yet on whether the stolen items have been recovered.

Previously, on November 25 last year, three sets of jewelry crafts collected by the Electors of the Kingdom of Saxony in the 18th century were stolen from the 'Gr?nes Gew?lbe' museum in Dresden, Germany.

Each craft piece is decorated with dozens to hundreds of diamonds. Among them was a 49-carat diamond valued at 12 million dollars (13.27 billion won).

Experts and local media estimate the value of the stolen crafts to be up to around 1 trillion won. The theft is considered the worst art theft case since World War II.

The 'Gr?nes Gew?lbe' is an exhibition space on the first floor of the west wing of the Zwinger Palace, a representative building of Dresden built by August the Strong.

At the time, two suspects broke a window to enter the museum. They then smashed the display cases multiple times with an axe, took the treasures, and fled using a vehicle parked outside. During the theft, two fires also broke out in nearby buildings.

During the investigation, German police offered a reward of 500,000 euros (650 million won) for information leading to the case. Authorities have been concerned that the thieves might have separated and sold the gems from the crafts.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.