German police recover 31 items stolen in 2019 Dresden jewel heist

German authorities said they have found a “considerable portion” of items stolen in a spectacular 2019 robbery of priceless 18th-century jewels from a state museum.

The authorities retrieved 31 individual items in the capital, Berlin, the police and prosecutors said.

The discovery comes in the middle of the trial of six suspects over the brazen night-time raid on the Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vault) at Dresden’s Royal Palace in November 2019.

The thieves grabbed 21 pieces of jewellery and other valuables from the collection of the Saxon ruler Augustus the Strong, encrusted with more than 4,300 individual diamonds.

The jewels included a sword with a diamond-encrusted hilt and a shoulder piece which contains the famous 49-carat Dresden white diamond.

There had been no trace of the jewels.

But “exploratory talks” between the defence and the prosecution towards a possible settlement and the return of the stolen items led to a breakthrough, police and prosecutors said, without providing further details.

Special police have escorted the retrieved items from Berlin back to Dresden, they said.

Experts will now examine them to verify their authenticity.

The Grünes Gewölbe, which is one of the oldest museums in Europe, holds treasures including a 547.71-carat sapphire given by Tsar Peter I of Russia.

The Grünes Gewölbe consists of 10 rooms containing about 3,000 items of jewellery and other masterpieces.

The building was heavily damaged during the second world war but has been successfully restored. It reopened to great international fanfare in 2006 and has been a tourist magnet since 1724, when it first opened to the public.

The trial, which opened in January, is due to resume on Tuesday.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report