Thieves steal ancient gold coins in German museum heist

German police are appealing for witnesses after thieves broke into a Bavarian museum on Tuesday night and made off with a horde of nearly 500 ancient gold coins worth several million euros.

The coins, dating from around 100 BC, were discovered in 1999 during excavation work in the municipality of Manching north of Munich and are touted by the local museum as the largest Celtic gold find of the 20th century.

It’s the latest instance of museum theft in Germany after the looting in 2019 of a diamond-encrusted dagger, a pearl necklace and dozens of other artefacts estimated to be worth more than $1bn (R16.9bn) from Dresden’s Green Vault.

In 2020, a Berlin court convicted three men for stealing a 100-kilogram, gold coin worth $4m (R67.7m) from a museum in the centre of the German capital.

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