Dresden jewellery heist 'prepared act': Police

BERLIN - German investigators are convinced that the theft of jewels from the historic Green Vault in Dresden early on Nov 25 was "a target-oriented and prepared act", the police in Saxony said on Tuesday.

German police set up a special task force to investigate the burglary in which treasure worth millions of euros were stolen. Work at the crime scene is continuing, according to the police.

The thieves had fled the scene of the crime in an Audi A6. A short time after the burglary, the vehicle was set on fire in an underground parking lot. According to the investigators, "traces of the crime scene" were found in the wreckage of the vehicle.

Early Monday morning local time, at least two thieves entered the museum through a window, destroyed a display case with an axe and stole numerous pieces of jewelry with diamonds.

At the time of the burglary, a power supply box was "deliberately set on fire, causing the street lighting around the scene to fail," according to the investigators.

Meanwhile, the Dresden police published pictures of some of the jewelry stolen from the museum, but a final inventory of the missing pieces has not yet been published due to ongoing police work at the crime scene.

Marion Ackermann, director general of the Dresden State Art Collections, said on Tuesday that considerable parts of the treasure were not stolen as the thieves did not manage to take as many jewel sets as originally feared.

Following a call for potential witnesses of the crime, the Dresden police have received 91 tips from the population to date.