Berlin Court Jails 3 for 100kg Gold Coin Theft

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Three men, on Thursday were handed jail sentences for the spectacular March 2017 theft of a 100-kilogramme gold coin from the Bode Museum in the centre of Berlin.

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A fourth person was found not guilty by the court in the German capital.

Two of the men, who are now aged 23 and 21, received sentences under youth crime provisions of four and a half years.

The court found that they were both members of a well-known Arab criminal gang.

A 21-year-old museum security guard was handed a sentence of three years and four months.

Security footage showed that three people were using a ladder to enter a museum window, smashing a display case and then rolling the giant coin away in a wheelbarrow to a car.

The Bode Museum lies on Berlin’s famous Museum Island, along with many other landmark tourist attractions.

It is surrounded by water from the River Spree, and connected to the rest of the city by bridges/train tracks.

The coin, one of five such minted by Canada, each carrying an image of Queen Elizabeth II, went missing from Berlin’s Bode Museum on the night of March 27, 2017.

It has never been seen again and is believed to have been cut up and sold.

The coin, with the name, “Big Maple Leaf,” it was valued at 3.75 million euros (or 4.3 million dollars). It had a diameter of 53 centimetres and was 3 centimetres thick.

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