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Coins of the Celtic Treasure are connected show astatine the section Celtic and Roman Museum successful Manching, Germany, May 31, 2006. A elder authoritative said Wednesday that organized transgression groups were apt down the theft of a immense horde of past golden coins stolen from a depository successful confederate Germany this week. (Frank Maechler, dpa via AP)
Estimated work time: 3-4 minutes
BERLIN — Thieves who broke into a confederate German depository and stole hundreds of past golden coins got successful and retired successful 9 minutes without raising the alarm, officials said Wednesday, successful a further motion that the heist was the enactment of organized criminals.
Police person launched an planetary hunt for the thieves and their loot, consisting of 483 Celtic coins and a lump of unworked golden that were discovered during an archeological excavation adjacent the present-day municipality of Manching successful 1999.
Guido Limmer, the lawman caput of Bavaria's State Criminal Police Office, described however astatine 1:17 a.m. (0017 GMT) connected Tuesday cables were chopped astatine a telecoms hub astir 1 kilometer (less than a mile) from the Celtic and Roman Museum successful Manchning, knocking retired communications networks successful the region.
Security systems astatine the depository recorded that a doorway was pried unfastened astatine 1:26 a.m. and past however the thieves near again astatine 1:35 a.m., Limmer said. It was successful those 9 minutes that the culprits indispensable person smashed unfastened a show furniture and scooped retired the treasure.
Limmer said determination were "parallels" betwixt the heist successful Manching and the theft of priceless jewels successful Dresden and a ample golden coin successful Berlin successful caller years. Both person been blamed connected a Berlin-based transgression family.
"Whether there's a nexus we can't say," helium added. "Only this much: We are successful interaction with colleagues to analyse each imaginable angles."
Bavaria's curate of subject and arts, Markus Blume, said grounds pointed to the enactment of professionals.
"It's wide that you don't simply march into a depository and instrumentality this treasure with you," helium told nationalist broadcaster BR. "It's highly secured and arsenic specified there's a suspicion that we're alternatively dealing with a lawsuit of organized crime."
It's wide that you don't simply march into a depository and instrumentality this treasure with you. ... It's highly secured and arsenic specified there's a suspicion that we're alternatively dealing with a lawsuit of organized crime.
–Bavaria's curate of subject and arts, Markus Blume
Officials acknowledged, however, that determination was nary defender astatine the depository overnight.
An alarm strategy was deemed to supply capable security, said Rupert Gebhard, who heads the Bavarian State Archaeological Collection successful Munich.
Gebhard said the hoard was of large worth some for the section assemblage successful Manching and for archaeologists crossed Europe.
The bowl-shaped coins, dating backmost to astir 100 B.C., were made from Bohemian stream golden and amusement however the Celtic colony astatine Manching had links crossed Europe, helium said.
Gebhard estimated the worth of the treasure astatine astir 1.6 cardinal euros ($1.65 million).
"The archaeologists anticipation that the coins stay successful their archetypal authorities and reappear again astatine immoderate point," helium said, adding that they are good documented and would beryllium hard to sell.
"The worst option, the melting down, would mean a full nonaccomplishment for us," helium said, noting that the worldly worth of the golden itself would lone tally to astir 250,000 euros astatine existent marketplace prices.
Gebhard said the size of the trove suggested it mightiness person been "the warfare thorax of a tribal chief." It was recovered wrong a sack buried beneath gathering foundations and was the biggest specified find made during regular archaeological excavations successful Germany successful the 20th century.
Limmer, the lawman constabulary chief, said Interpol and Europol person already been alerted to the coins' theft and a 20-strong peculiar investigations unit, codenamed 'Oppidum' aft the Latin word for a Celtic settlement, has been established to way down the culprits.
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