Muslim Museum Guard, Muslim Family Arrested in Giant Gold Coin Theft From Berlin Museum

The BBC calls the perps, “Arab crime family.” Uh huh. The New York Times doesn’t mention their ethnicity — only saying, “Around 300 German police officers and members of the special forces, heavily armed and wearing masks, made the four arrests on Wednesday, mostly in the Neukölln neighborhood, which is populated with large communities of immigrants and hipsters.

Was it hipsters?

“We assume that the coin was sold, either complete or in parts,” Carsten Pfohl, a spokesman for the Berlin state criminal office, said at the news conference. “I unfortunately have relatively little hope that we will find the coin, even in pieces.”

Destroying art – a tenet of Islam. They were merely acting in accordance with the sharia.

Western museums are key targets in the jihad against the West.

Related: UK Museums Put on ISIS Alert: Report

Dr Warner explains:

“It is the purpose of Islam to destroy all art because it is Jahiliyyah” explains Dr. Bll Warner.  The attacker intended to damage or destroy some of the priceless works of art that are exhibited in the most renowned art museum in the world. His intent was to destroy the finest art of Western civilization.

Why art? Art that involves animals or humans is forbidden in the Sharia. Art is the work of Kafirs and is part of jahiliyya (civilization of ignorance). Islam annihilates a civilization piece by piece and leaves nothing of its native roots. Civilizational jihad destroys the very cultural history of every nation it comes into contact with.

We see the jihadist annihilation of museums and ancient architecture for the same reason. This civilizational war has been this way for 1400 years.

Four Are Arrested in Theft of Giant Gold Coin From Berlin Museum

By David Shimer, New York Times,  July 12, 2017

BERLIN — A giant gold coin that was stolen from a museum in the heart of Berlin this year was probably smashed or melted down and will most likely never be recovered, the authorities said on Wednesday, as they announced four arrests, including that of a museum security guard.

Early on the morning of March 27, burglars used a ladder to climb through a window from elevated railroad tracks outside the Bode Museum, famous for its collections of statues, coins, medals and Byzantine art. They “forcibly opened” the window, then “violently shattered” the bulletproof case surrounding the coin, according to a police spokesman, Winfrid Wenzel.

They carted their prize in a wheelbarrow to a car parked in Monbijou Park nearby, according to the police statement issued on Wednesday.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Wenzel added new details to a crime that has captured attention both in Germany and in Canada — where the coin, weighing about 221 pounds, was minted in 2007 — for its brazenness.

The nature of the burglary — executed in the dead of night, between 3:20 a.m. and 3:50 a.m. — suggests that it was an inside job, the authorities have said from the beginning.

Around 300 German police officers and members of the special forces, heavily armed and wearing masks, made the four arrests on Wednesday, mostly in the Neukölln neighborhood, which is populated with large communities of immigrants and hipsters.

The men arrested ranged in age from 18 to 20. They did not have criminal records, but three of them were associates of a crime ring, with the fourth a museum security guard who provided information instrumental to the theft, said Martin Steltner, a spokesman for Berlin’s public prosecutor’s office.
A photograph taken from a surveillance video at a train station in Berlin in March showed three suspects in the theft of the coin, the police in Berlin said.
Berlin Police, via European Pressphoto Agency

The guard started work at the museum only weeks before the burglary, Mr. Steltner added.

“We assume that the coin was sold, either complete or in parts,” Carsten Pfohl, a spokesman for the Berlin state criminal office, said at the news conference. “I unfortunately have relatively little hope that we will find the coin, even in pieces.”

Mr. Steltner said the coin had quite likely been divided into parts and sold within Germany, though he said it was possible the coin had been taken out of the country intact.

Investigators have spoken with German gold specialists, hoping that they had come into contact with the coin, Mr. Steltner said, but to no avail. The authorities also searched a neighborhood jewelry store that might have been involved in selling the gold.

“The crime was too professional for us to expect to find the coin,” he added.

In addition to the arrests, officers seized several vehicles, four shotguns and a six-figure sum of money. They also collected clothing and shoes that police said might contain traces of gold from the object.

Martina Lamb, a senior prosecutor who spoke at the news conference, said that the suspects came from an organized crime ring in Berlin.

Investigations into nine other individuals, most of them also members of the crime ring, are continuing, Mr. Steltner said.

The solid gold coin, known as the Big Maple Leaf and issued by the Canadian Mint, has a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on its face. The coin had a face value of 1 million Canadian dollars (about $775,000), but was worth as much as 4.5 million United States dollars.

“It is 100 kilos, made by the Canadian Mint, and is of high purity,” Bernhard Weisser, director of the museum’s coin department, said in an interview. He added that the museum’s management had been in contact with the police since March.

With suspects now in custody, museum staff members no longer have to view their colleagues with suspicion, Hans-Jürgen Harras, the head of security at the State Museums of Berlin, which includes the Bode Museum, told the DPA news agency. “The fact that the police was able to find evidence makes us happy and also eliminates our general mistrust against museum staff,” he said.