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The Guardian

Even in the era of cybercrime, methods more familiar to black-and-white heist movies never fall out of fashion.
On Monday morning, thieves in Berlin used a rope, a foldout ladder and a wheelbarrow to steal the world’s second-largest gold coin from a museum, all within earshot of Angela Merkel’s inner-city apartment.
The Canadian coin, known as the “Big Maple Leaf”, weighs 100kg, with a diameter of 53cm and a thickness of 3cm. It has a face value of C$1 million (US$750,000). The value of the gold, however, is closer to US$4.5 million.
Bearing the head of Queen Elizabeth II, the stolen coin is one of only five one-off, pure gold commemorative pieces issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007.
On loan to the Bode Museum from the private collection of a German property investor, the coin used to be the heaviest in the world until it was superseded by the “Australian Kangaroo One Tonne” gold coin in 2011.



Since December 2010, the Big Maple Leaf has been displayed in a bulletproof cabinet at the museum on Berlin’s museum island, located in the part of the Spree river running through the Mitte district.
According to the Berlin police, at least two thieves entered the museum via a third-floor window at the rear of the 113-year-old building between 3.20am and 3.45am.
They accessed the window by propping up a ladder on the elevated tracks of the S1 railway between Hackescher Markt and Friedrichstrasse stations, making use of a three-hour window between the last train of the Sunday service at 1.21am and the first for Monday at 4.13 am.
The window led the thieves into the security guards’ changing room, from where they walked about 100metres to a corner of the building, smashed through the bulletproof cabinet with a heavy-duty tool, possibly a sledgehammer, and made their way back via the same route with the heavy gold coin in tow – all without being noticed by security personnel or activating the alarm system.
Having left the museum, the thieves used a wheelbarrow to push their loot 100 metres down the tracks and across a bridge over the river to nearby Monbijou Park, where they dropped and most likely damaged the coin while abseiling from the elevated tracks to the ground.
A getaway car was used to escape from the site. Police cannot yet confirm whether a burnt-out Mercedes found in a multi-storey carpark in the Steglitz district on Tuesday evening is related to the theft.
A member of the Bode Museum’s security staff raised alarm at 4am on Monday after finding the smashed, empty cabinet.
Police said it was hard to imagine anyone executing a heist so smoothly without inside information: “Some elements of this story raise questions, and we are currently asking those questions,” police spokesperson Winfried Wenzel said.
Even though Chancellor Angela Merkel’s apartment lies only a stone’s throw from where the thieves entered the museum, police said they had decided against interviewing her, her husband or their security guards since their view would have been obscured by a railway bridge.
While CCTV cameras inside the museum may have been disabled along with the building’s alarm system, police said they were analysing footage from security cameras at nearby stations and municipal buildings.
The chances of the Giant Maple Leaf ever returning to the Bode Museum are slim. The coin’s material value is likely to be higher than any price a collector would pay for the piece. “An art historian would certainly have picked something different,” said Wenzel.
It is therefore feasible that the thieves have already melted down the coin, a challenge which police say is “hardly insurmountable in technical and logistical terms”.
Professional goldsmiths use ovens with a temperature of at least 1,063C to melt gold, but amateurs can potentially do the same with a humble propane torch.
“We are shocked that the burglars have overcome our security systems, which have been successfully protecting our objects for many years,” museum director Michael Eissenhauer said in a statement. “The perpetrators have done a great deal of violence, and we are glad that no personal injury has occurred.”
Additional reporting by Tribune News Service


Low-tech tools for stealing a US$4.5m gold coin weighing 100kg: rope, ladder and wheelbarrow

An enormous 100kg Canadian gold coin known as the Big Maple Leaf, one of only five struck in 2007. An identical coin was stolen from Berlin's Bode Museum on Monday. Photo: Reuters

Visitors stand in the room where a 100 kilogram-heavy gold coin was displayed in the Bode Museum, in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday March 28, 2017. Thieves broke into the German capital's Bode Museum before dawn Monday and made off with a massive 100-kilogram (221-pound) gold coin worth millions of dollars, police said. Police spokesman Stefen Petersen said thieves apparently entered through a window about 3:30 a.m. Monday, broke into a cabinet where the "Big Maple Leaf" coin was kept, and escaped with it before police arrived. (Silas Stein/dpa via AP)

epa05873707 A general view on the Bode Museum on the Museum Island in Berlin, Germany, 27 March 2017. According to media reports citing a police speaker, the giant golden coin 'Big Maple Leaf', a commemorative piece issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007, with a value of one million dollars, was stolen in the early morning on 27 March 2017. The coin depicts a portrait of British Queen Elizabeth II. EPA/CLEMENS BILAN

epa05873766 An undated handout picture made available by 'Staatliche Muessen zu Berlin' shows the reverse of the golden 'Big Maple Leaf' coin in Berlin, Germany. According to media reports citing a police speaker, the giant golden coin 'Big Maple Leaf', a commemorative piece issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007, with a value of one million dollars, was stolen in the early morning on 27 March 2017. The coin depicts a portrait of British Queen Elizabeth II on front side and a maple leaf on back side. EPA/REINHARD SACZEWSKI / BODE MUSEUM / HANDOUT HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES

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