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Masked robbers target Stockholm auction house

Prestigious auction house Stockholms Auktionsverk in central Stockholm was robbed around midday on Friday when two masked robbers ran in and ordering the shocked customers to lie down on the floor.

Published: 20 May 2011 15:18 CEST
Masked robbers target Stockholm auction house

“It was frightening. He shouted ‘I am going to shoot you. I am going to shoot you in the head’, “ one witness told news agency TT.

At the time of the robbery around fifty customers were on the premises, mostly elderly. When the robbers entered they yelled at them to drop to the ground.

“I heard agitated voices and then a guy comes running in and grabs hold of a guard and shouts ‘take me to the gold’ and points a gun at him,” said the witness to TT.

All witnesses agree that it was chaotic and that the robbers seemed highly agitated.

“They smashed the display cases and grabbed as much as they could carry,” a witness told daily Aftonbladet.

When the robbers left, the doors were barred automatically and the police subsequently let the shaken customers out the back way once they arrived on the scene.

No one was injured in the attack and according to Stockholm police it is not certain how much the robbers took.

“They were acting so clumsily that they didn’t get that much. The alarm went off more or less instantaneously, so that probably stressed them out,“ a witness told Aftonbladet.

According to the head of information at Stockholms Auktionsverk, Anna Hamilton, the robbers didn’t succeed in stealing anything really valuable.

“Nothing very costly was taken. But it was a shock to us all,“ Hamilton told daily Expressen.

Stockholm Auktionsverk is currently exhibiting a large amount of silver artefacts and jewellery, as well as paintings by scandinavian artists Anders Zorn, Bruno Liljefors, Carl Fredrik Hill and Carl Larsson ahead of the spring’s classical auction.

The police are now looking for the two individuals who fled the scene in a red car, which was later found abandoned not far from the auction house.

The surrounding area was cordoned off while explosive experts investigated a bag left by the robbers in front of the entrance to the house. According to police it’ only contained junk’.

Friday’s heist is the last in a series of robberies that have shaken Sweden, with a gold wholesaler in Stockholm robbed last week, a jewellers in Uppsala on Thursday, and a bank in Flen in eastern Sweden targeted the day before.

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COST OF LIVING

Switzerland searches for owner of 180,000 francs worth of gold bars left on train

Are you missing 180,000 francs (€168,000) worth of gold bars after a train journey through central Switzerland? If so, you might be in luck.

Published: 17 June 2020 11:53 CEST
Switzerland searches for owner of 180,000 francs worth of gold bars left on train
Photo: Pexels/Free to use

Swiss authorities have announced they are searching for the owner or owners of a set of gold bars worth 180,000 francs (€168,000/$US190,000). 

The bars were left on a train from St Gallen to Lucerne in October 2019. The bars were found unattended by a member of train staff and brought to lost property – upon which SBB officers realised the find.  

After an eight-month private search for the gold – including looking at surveillance cameras throughout the journey – Lucerne authorities have gone public to try and find the rightful owner. 

But if you’ve suddenly realised your gold cache is a little light, don’t fear. The Lucerne Prosecutors Office have given prospective gold seekers a five-year window in which they can claim ownership. 

In an interview with Swiss news organisation 20 Minutes, the Lucerne Prosecutors Office says they’ve already received several claims for ownership. 

Spokesperson Simon Kopp said: “We’ve received a lot of reports and we have to check them now.”

Kopp said authorities would go through all claims they believed to be legitimate – not including the hundreds of hopeful claimants on social media. 

We're unsure how hard the authorities are looking however – as Switzerland has a 'finders keepers' law which snaps into place after five years. 

Although possession of gold bars is relatively rare – even in Switzerland – Kopp said determining the original owner of the bars just by evaluating them is impossible. 

No loss or theft of gold bars has been recorded in Switzerland either, reports the Zürichsee newspaper. 

Switzerland's forgetful golden problem

Remarkably, it is not the first time a large cache of gold bars has been found in Switzerland. 

In 2012, 100,000 francs worth of gold was found in a field in Klingau, Aargau by employees of the village town council. 

After a five-year search with no luck, the gold became the property of the village – under the same finders keepers law. 

An investigation failed to find the owner, despite an initial lead pointing to a Bosnian man who was in prison when the treasure was discovered.

READ: Swiss village gets to keep abandoned gold bars 

But ownership was not proven, nor was there anything to connect the gold bars to a crime.

Shortly before the five year deadline, two people turned up to stake a claim on the treasure, but after a police investigation, their claims were judged unfounded, police said.

As reported at the time, the employees were entitled to 10 percent of the total value of the find. 

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