After the museum was burgled and the gold stolen in Manching, Upper Bavaria, the finds secured in the area on Saturday had not yet revealed any new traces. “The colleagues have not yet evaluated everything, but at least as of the afternoon there is nothing new to report,” said a spokesman for the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office. On Sunday, an investigator was confident: “The weekend was definitely interesting, but I can’t report anything for tactical reasons.”
On Friday, the police had searched the area around the museum with a large number of forces, including metal probes, and secured several items that could be connected to the theft. According to the previous investigations, the unknown perpetrators entered the Celtic and Roman Museum early Tuesday morning in order to steal a more than 2,000-year-old gold treasure from the Celtic period.
The burglars escaped with almost 500 coins. They were discovered in 1999 during an archaeological dig in Manching. The pure material value of the 3.7-kilo treasure is estimated at around a quarter of a million euros, the commercial value of the historical coins is in the millions – but it is likely to be difficult to realize. Experts therefore fear that the perpetrators could simply melt down the gold and then sell it.