Even in the era of cybercrime, methods more familiar to black-and-white heist movies never fall out of fashion.
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.
Bearing the head of Queen Elizabeth II, the “Big Maple Leaf” coin is one of only five one-off, pure gold commemorative pieces issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007. Weighing 100kg, with a diameter of 53cm and a thickness of 3cm, its value is estimated at almost €3.8m (£3.3m).
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from the private collection of a German property investor, the coin used to be the heaviest in the world until it was superseded by the “Australian Kangaroo One Tonne” gold coin in 2011.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.
Posters on the outside of the neo-baroque building currently advertise a show called Muse macht Moneten (roughly: “Be creative and get rich”), which may well have served as inspiration for the spectacular heist.
