Four arrested over €1.6m Celtic coin theft

Four radical person been arrested successful Germany implicit the theft of a hoard of Celtic golden coins worthy astir €1.6m (£1.4m).

Hundreds of coins were taken from a depository successful Manching, Bavaria, during a nighttime raid successful November.

Many of them dated from astir the 1st Century BC.

The authorities accidental determination is "overwhelming evidence" successful the lawsuit and that investigations are continuing. More details are expected connected Thursday.

That includes whether portion of the horde of coins has been recovered.

The arrests were made connected Tuesday during a hunt cognition successful the bluish authorities of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Bavaria's interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, said the suspects were "professional burglars".

"The ngo continues," Ch Insp Ludwig Waldinger from the Bavarian constabulary told the Bild newspaper.

"We are searching properties successful respective national states."

The coins were unearthed during a 1999 archaeological excavation adjacent Manching - considered to beryllium the biggest find of Celtic golden successful the 20th Century. They had been connected show since 2006.

Police astatine the clip of their theft suspected that those progressive sabotaged the museum's alarm system. Just earlier the break-in, adjacent net cables were cut, causing wide outages.

This meant the alarm strategy was not triggered erstwhile a doorway was pried open, though it was capable to grounds erstwhile the robbery, which lasted little than 10 minutes, took place.

The authorities had been exploring whether the theft progressive organised transgression and was linked to erstwhile raids.

The nonaccomplishment of the coins devastated the depository and the wider community.

Rupert Gebhard, caput of collections astatine the State Archaeological Collection successful Munich, said it felt "like losing an aged friend".