The Brazen Heist of a Massive Gold Coin in Germany

Around 10 years ago, the Royal Canadian Mint, which produces both coins for regular use as currency and some designed especially for collectors, produced a very large coin, nearly two feet in diameter and over an inch thick, with a legal value of one million Canadian dollars. 

The coin, like some others produced by the mint, was made of pure gold—at least 99.999 percent pure, the highest of any bullion coin in the world. It wasn’t meant to be spent so much as to be looked at, and at 221 pounds, it’s not exactly pocket change. 

Since 2010, the coin has been on display at the Bode Museum in Berlin until, early Monday morning, it went missing. Thieves—likely more than one for reasons that should be apparent—snuck in through a window and made off with the prize around 3:30 a.m., apparently with the assistance of a ladder later found near some railroad tracks, according to the Associated Press. 

Police didn’t say much about who they think pulled off the heist, or if they had surveillance footage or other evidence, but it’s safe to assume that whoever took the coin didn’t take it at face value. The gold alone, at current market rates, is worth $4.5 million.