221-pound gold coin worth $4.5 million stolen from Berlin museum

A huge gold coin with an estimated value of $4.5 million was stolen from a museum in Berlin, Germany, early this week.

The giant coin, weighing 221-pounds and more than an inch thick, was taken from the Bode Museum early Monday morning.

It's called the Big Maple Leaf and was issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007, the museum said in a statement.

The monster coin features Queen Elizabeth II on one side and a maple leaf on the other side.

The coin was taken from a bullet-proof glass case that was “violently” smashed to gain access to the coin, officials said.

“We are all shocked that the burglars have overcome our security systems, which have been successfully protecting our objects for many years,” museum director Michael Eissenhauer said.

“We hope the perpetrators will be caught and the precious coin returned undamaged to the Coin Cabinet of the Bode Museum,” Eissenhauer said.

There were other valuable, much smaller coins on display that were not taken.

Police are still trying to figure out how the thieves got it out of the building, although they did find a ladder to a second-floor window behind the building, the museum said.

The coin was in the Guinness Book of World Records for its "unmatched" degree of purity, Reuters reported.

A Canadian gold coin named "Big Maple Leaf" which bears the image of Queen Elizabeth II was stolen in the early hours of Monday morning from Berlin's Bode Museum: http://reut.rs/2opZtYS

Posted by Reuters UK on Monday, March 27, 2017

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