Dresden Green Vault theft (2019)

On November 25, 2019, around 5 a.m., a fire set in an electrical distribution box near Dresden Castle cuts the street lighting in the district. In the dark, two men climb through a window of the Green Vault whose bars had been cut in advance, smash a display case with an ax and take, within minutes, some twenty pieces of jewelry of the electors of Saxony, set with thousands of diamonds. The court would later put their value at about 113 million euros. The collection belongs to the State of Saxony, which did not insure it against theft: here again the public owner bears the risk itself. The investigation leads to members of a Berlin family clan. At the end of 2022, a deal between the defense and the prosecution allows most of the pieces to be returned, some damaged, others incomplete; five defendants are convicted in May 2023 with sentences reflecting that deal. The underwriter first sees preparation nobody noticed: bars sawn through and put back in place days earlier, which points to external patrols and the inspection of entry points, and an alarm that worked without preventing anything, the guards having called the police instead of stepping in, as their instructions required. Then comes a negotiated recovery that plays the part of a buy-back clause, with no insurer to fund it: the pieces come back, and the remaining loss shrinks to the damage and the missing elements, which then have to be priced piece by piece. Not to be confused with jewelry theft from a retail store, covered by a jeweler's policy or a jeweler's block, where the insurer indemnifies commercial stock at its selling value.