Five convicted in Dresden jewel heist: How thieves carried out 'audacious' 2019 robbery

On Tuesday, five men in Germany were convicted for pulling off the biggest art heist in modern history.

The audacious robbery at one of the world’s oldest museums over the span of just a few minutes saw the thieves – members of the “Remmo clan”, an extended family mostly based in Berlin and known for a web of ties to organised crime – make off with a haul worth more than $123 million.

Let’s take a look at the Dresden jewel heist:

The crime

The thieves told the court in January that the idea for the Dresden job was hatched after a younger acquaintance “came back from a field trip to the Green Vault… raving about the green diamonds on display there”.

The Green Vault is one of Europe’s oldest museums, founded by Augustus, Elector of Saxony, in 1723.

It is part of Dresden’s Royal Palace, which suffered severe damage in World War II. After being closed for decades, the Vault was restored and reopened in 2006, becoming a major tourist draw.

It contains the treasury of Augustus the Strong of Saxony, comprising around 4,000 objects of gold, precious stones, and other materials.

According to BBC, the gang went to the museum several times to prepare for the heist.

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They cut through the bars of a protective window covering using a hydraulic cutting machine and then taped them back.

In the early hours of 25 November, 2019, the gang caused a fire to cut the power supply to street lights outside the Green Vault Museum.

Members of the gang, aged 24 to 29, then slipped into the museum through previously damaged bars on a window.

CCTV footage shows masked men with axes entering the Green Vault, as per BBC.

They smashed a display case with an axe and grabbed 21 pieces decorated with 4,300 jewels in less than five minutes. 

Before leaving, they hosed the room down with a foam fire extinguisher, as per BBC.

The thieves were able to escape in a getaway car they later torched in an underground car park.

According to CNN, a motion sensor that should have gone off during the crime but it didn’t.

The alarm went off the day before the crime and security guards did not reactive it.

The police initially looked at four security guards at the museum on suspicion of being involved in the heist, but the inquiry was a dead end, as per BBC.

The stolen artifacts included a 1780s hat clasp containing 15 big and 100 small diamonds, and a 96-centimeter sword and a scabbard which had more than 800 diamonds, as per CNN.

Professor Marion Ackermann, general director of Dresden’s State Art Collections, told BBC, “There are people who steal artworks out of passion for art, but this was really the opposite.”

“They had no idea of what they had taken.”

Security consultant Roy Ramm told CNN such crimes are increasingly rare.

Ramm, a former commander of specialist operations at New Scotland Yard in London, added, “Technical security has improved over the years with CCTV alarm systems and all kinds of high-tech protections, so [there is a high] risk of early detection and being actually caught in the act … you need some inside information and a very, very detailed plan.”

Some artifacts recovered

Authorities long thought the haul was lost for good, with detectives scouring Europe’s shadowy stolen goods markets for signs of the Saxon royal artifacts.

But in December 2022, police recovered a “considerable portion” of the items – valued at 60 million euros – following “exploratory talks” with the suspects.

Many of the pieces were badly damaged and some are still missing, including a brooch that belonged to Queen Amalie Auguste of Saxony.

Another missing artifact is the White Stone of Saxony, as per BBC.

The trial, which began in January 2022, shed some light on the audacious heist but left key questions unanswered.

In January, four of the defendants confessed, leading to the deal for lighter sentences. A fifth said he stole tools to penetrate the building but denied taking part in the heist itself.

The court convicted them of particularly aggravated arson in combination with dangerous bodily injury, theft with weapons, damage to property and intentional arson.

The judges who heard the case observed that some of the men had acted with “considerable criminal energy,” dpa reported. The aim was “to get rich,” the judges said.

More than 100 witnesses and 11 experts gave testimony during the trial’s main proceedings,

Around 40 people believed to have been involved in planning the robbery are still wanted.

Two of the defendants, Wissam and Mohamed Remmo, were already serving time for the daring 2017 theft of a massive gold coin from a Berlin museum.

Although many of the historic pieces were recovered, some are feared lost forever in what presiding judge Andreas Ziegel called an act of “remarkable criminal drive” by the thieves at “one of the oldest and richest treasure collections in the world”.

Ziegel defended the plea deal, saying that without it “the jewels which have been classed as irreplaceable would never have returned to the Green Vault”.

He also said he believed the thieves’ apologies to be sincere.

The returned pieces do not erase the fact that the museum’s collection of complete jewellery sets “is probably destroyed forever,” Ziegel added.

In his remarks Tuesday, Ziegel directly addressed the defendants, saying it is up to them to decide whether to continue committing crimes.

“There are things in your life that are worth living a different life for,” the judge said, according to dpa. “It’s your choice what you do with your life.”

The trial revealed major security failings at the Green Vault, a state institution.

Ackerman told BBC, “Many aspects come together in a security system. The building, the organisation, and also technical aspects. And, like in a chain, every aspect must work and, in this case, many things didn’t work.”

Stolen art investigator Arthur Brand told CBS such pieces are impossible to get rid of on the open market.

“Art can be money. But you cannot sell it; once it’s in the criminal underworld, it stays there,” Brand added.

But museum director Marius Winzeler has said he is “optimistic” the remaining missing pieces will one day return to Dresden, given that they “cannot be legally sold”.

With inputs from agencies

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