One of Europe's largest museum heists, the 2019 Green Vault burglary removed priceless Saxon royal jewels valued at up to €1 billion.
Key Facts
- Date of theft
- 25 November 2019
- Dresden White Diamond weight
- 62 carats carats
- Estimated total value
- ~€113 million (revised from €1 billion)
- Items recovered in 2022
- 31 items
- Suspects on trial
- 6 men
- Location
- Green Vault, Dresden Castle, Saxony
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
The Green Vault museum within Dresden Castle housed one of Europe's foremost collections of royal jewellery, including priceless Saxon and Polish royal artefacts. Its holdings, accumulated by the Electors of Saxony and Kings of Poland, represented centuries of court wealth and made the museum a target for theft.
On 25 November 2019, burglars broke into the Green Vault and stole a set of royal jewels including the 62-carat Dresden White Diamond, a diamond-encrusted breast star of the Polish Order of the White Eagle, a hat clasp, a diamond epaulette, and a diamond-studded sword hilt with over 770 smaller diamonds and a matching scabbard.
German authorities pursued the case over subsequent years, leading to the trial of six men. In 2022, following negotiations with the defendants' lawyers, thirty-one of the stolen items were recovered in Berlin, though the full circumstances of their disappearance and recovery remained subjects of legal proceedings.