More than two years after a daring museum burglary in Dresden, Germany, six suspects, members of the organized crime community, are on trial from Friday, January 28.
But the stolen diamonds and jewels remain untraceable.
This break-in in the Grünes Gewölbe museum, a high place of Saxon heritage, had struck the spirits at the end of 2019 with its sophistication and the amount of the loot, greater than 100 million euros.
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Six defendants, including two minors at the time of the facts, are tried for this theft in which some forty other people, still wanted, are said to have participated. The passivity of the four guards had intrigued the investigators at the start but they are not worried at this stage, for lack of convincing elements. Arrested in November 2020 in Berlin after months of videotapes and DNA analysis, the suspects belong to a criminal gang of Lebanese origin very active in Germany, known as the "Remmo clan". The security device was reinforced around the court during this trial. Defendants face up to ten years in prison.
On November 25, 2019, the burglars broke into the “Green Vault” museum at dawn in the baroque city of the former GDR, nicknamed the “Florence of the Elbe”.
They had committed their crime there in eight minutes.
The museum, one of the oldest in Europe, has an incomparable collection of treasures, made up of goldsmithery, precious stones, porcelain, ivory or amber sculptures, bronzes and containers set with precious stones.
“Immense harm to world culture”
The burglars had no hesitation in setting fire to an electrical terminal around 5:00 a.m. to cut off the alarms in the museum and the surrounding streetlights.
They had then entered the museum through a screened window, located in a blind spot of the video surveillance, whose iron bars had been sawed off a few days before and discreetly replaced until the day of the theft.
When the police arrived, the criminals had already left with their loot, after having broken with axes, in the strong room of Augustus the Strong, prince elector of Saxony and king of Poland in the 18th century, the windows where found jewelry and diamonds.
They had taken with them a dozen adornments from the 18th century, comprising jewels and precious stones, several "hundreds" of diamonds, including one of 49 carats, incorporated into an "epaulette", according to the police.
A sword whose hilt is encrusted with nine large diamonds and 770 small diamonds is also among the objects.
The stolen pieces also have
“priceless”
and unquantifiable historical and cultural value, according to the museum.
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The Minister of Culture of the Land of Saxony, Barbara Klepsch, lamented after the flight
“an immense damage for the world culture”
. No parts have been recovered to date, despite significant reward promises.
"We are doing everything humanly possible to find them
," says the Dresden prosecutor's office.
"So far, no indication of destruction or sale has been discovered
," notes Barbara Klepsch.
The "Remmo clan", a vast Kurdish family of Lebanese origin, has often had trouble with the police and the justice system in cases of violence, drug trafficking and theft.
Well established in the popular and bohemian Berlin district of Neukölln, the "clan" is already involved in the theft of a giant gold coin of 100 kilos, worth around 3.75 million euros, stolen in 2017 at the Bode-Museum in Berlin and probably melted.
Sentences have already been pronounced in this case, in particular against two defendants in the Dresden trial.
The “Remmo clan” are part of family groups that rule the underworld of Berlin and operate as powerful and wealthy criminal organizations, according to experts.
