DRESDEN: Robbers made off with priceless 18th-century jewellery from a state museum in Dresden on Monday, police and museum directors said, in a major art heist that has shocked Germany. The thieves at dawn broke into the Green Vault at Dresden’s Royal Palace — home to around 4,000 precious objects of ivory, gold, silver and jewels — after a power cut deactivated the alarm. The stolen items included brilliant-cut diamonds that belonged to a collection of jewellery of 18th-century Saxony ruler Augustus the Strong.

AFP