ADVERTISEMENT Three men have been found guilty, and given jail terms of up to 11 years, for snatching hundreds of ancient gold coins during an daring night raid at a southern German museum in 2022.
The suspects from northern Germany were arrested months after the November heist at the Celtic and Roman Museum in the Bavarian town of Manching.
During the robbery, 483 Celtic coins were taken from the trouve, dating back to around 100 B.C.
Before the break-in, the thieves cut cables of a telecommunications hub to disable local networks which allowed them to get in and out of the building in nine minutes without triggering an alarm.
The horde of coins, was originally discovered during an 1999 archaeological dig along with a lump of unworked gold. Authorities have said they are considered the biggest trove of Celtic gold found in the 20th century.
Most of the stolen treasure is still missing, but the court in the city of Ingolstadt was told that lumps of gold were found on one of the suspects when he was arrested that appear to have resulted from part of the haul being melted down.
A fourth defendant was acquitted of involvement in the museum heist but convicted for other thefts carried out by the group.
The four defendants were accused of a total of 20 break-ins or attempted robberies in Germany and neighbouring Austria, starting in 2014. Other cases involved safes or cash machines being broken into.
The defendants didn’t address the charges during the roughly six-month trial, but their lawyers called for their acquittal.
