BERLIN (AP) — Berlin police raided properties and jewellery outlets Wednesday on suspicion they might perhaps perhaps also merely be related to efforts to fence a huge 100-kilogram (220-pound) Canadian gold coin — fragment by fragment — that modified into as soon as stolen from a museum within the German capital.
The coin, with an estimated fee of 3.75 million euros ($4.45 million) modified into as soon as stolen from Berlin’s Bode Museum in 2017 and has no longer yet been recovered.
The morning raids had been focused on eight suspects, gentle between 14 and 51, of a amount of nationalities, police acknowledged.
They are presupposed to contain been section of a ring that obtained stolen gold to melt it down and forge collector coins, then promote them as true by design of jewellery stores operated by them or their family. One of the most counterfeits are already circulating, police acknowledged.
The searches resulted in the invention of fraudulent coins, forgery instruments and a “5-digit” sum of cash, police acknowledged.
“The evaluate of the evidence is ongoing,” police acknowledged. “Among other issues, a seemingly connection to the theft of the gold coin from the Bode Museum is being be examined.”
Berlin prosecutors acknowledged there contain been no arrests but that the investigation modified into as soon as continuing.
The searches came lawful two days after the arrest of a key suspect within the spectacular theft of 18th-century jewels from a Dresden museum closing year, who is from against the law family linked to the Canadian gold coin theft.
Mohamed Remmo, 21, modified into as soon as arrested by Berlin authorities in a automobile within the Neukoelln district of the metropolis on Monday night. His twin brother, Abdul Majed Remmo, stays on the lam.
Police and prosecutors wouldn’t comment on whether or no longer there modified into as soon as a connection between the arrest and the searches, but participants of the the same family had been convicted earlier this year for the Canadian gold coin theft.
Cousins Ahmed Remmo and Wissam Remmo, along with a buddy who worked as a security guard at the museum, had been all convicted of that Canadian gold coin heist and sentenced to a lot of years in penal advanced.
