German police: Thieves stole huge gold coin with wheelbarrow
By Associated Press
Mar 28, 2017 10:45 AM CDT
Visitors stand in the room where a 100 kilogram-heavy gold coin was displayed in the Bode Museum, in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday March 28, 2017. Thieves broke into the German capital's Bode Museum before dawn Monday and made off with a massive 100-kilogram (221-pound) gold coin worth millions of dollars,...   (Associated Press)

BERLIN (AP) — Berlin police say suspects used a wheelbarrow to make off with a 100-kilogram (221-pound) gold coin worth millions.

Police said Tuesday at least two burglars broke into the Bode Museum early Monday morning using a ladder to climb up to a window from elevated railway tracks running alongside the building.

The thieves grabbed the "Big Maple Leaf" coin, on loan to the museum's coin collection, loaded it onto the wheelbarrow, then carted it out of the building and along the tracks across the Spree river before descending into a park on a rope and fleeing in a getaway car.

Police say the three-centimeter (1.2-inch) thick coin, with a diameter of 53 centimeters (20.9 inches) and worth some $4.5 million for the gold alone, was likely damaged in the theft.

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