On Monday, March 27 at 3:30 in the morning, a 100kg Canadian coin worth $4 million was stolen from the Bode Museum in Berlin, Germany. This coin, affectionately nicknamed the “Big Maple Leaf”, bears an image of the queen and is made of pure, 24-karat gold, and is about a half meter in diameter.  Police are baffled at how this coin was stolen, given the enormous size of the coin, the complex alarm system, and the brute weight.

All the police have at this point are suspicions on how the theft was carried out. They assume that there were multiple thieves in order to carry the large coin out; they also think a window was broken as well in the back of the museum next to a railroad so the thieves headed straight for the coin exhibition. There was also a ladder found by the tracks, which they think was used to get to the window. But it still remains a mystery as to how the thieves avoided the security system, got through the bulletproof glass, managed to get the coin out, and why they only stole that coin, even though the coin’s exhibit is home to over 540,000 other valuable objects.

The coin itself is 3 centimeters thick, 53 centimeters in diameter, solid 24-karat gold, and on one side of the coin is the image of Queen Elizabeth II with the other side as the Canadian national symbol, the maple leaf. Transporting, hiding, and selling this object will be very difficult for the thieves because of the size and how recognizable it is. Hopefully because of this, the police will be able to find it soon.