This undated photo provide by the State Art Collection in Dresden shows the Jewelry Room of the Green Vault before the 2019 robbery. Photo by David Brandt, courtesy of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
This undated photo provided by the State Art Collection in Dresden shows the Jewelry Room of the Green Vault before the 2019 robbery. Photo by David Brandt, courtesy of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.

Another arrest has been made in connection to the brazen heist of $1 billion worth of jewels at Dresden’s Green Vault in 2019.

On Thursday morning, a 23-year-old man was arrested in his apartment in the southern Berlin neighborhood of Treptow. The man, whose phone has been seized, stands accused of grand gang theft and arson. He is set to be presented before a judge in Dresden on Friday afternoon.

The suspect is the sixth to be taken into custody, with police now reporting that all prime suspects have now been detained for the heist that shocked the world.

Authorities have not yet been able to trace the jewels, which are so precious and expensive that they were uninsured.

On the night of the heist, five thieves lit a fire that damaged an electrical box near the Green Vault, turning off the lights around the palace and deactivating the institution’s security system.

This far, police have arrested six suspects they believe to be tied to the theft. Photo: Robert Michael/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa

They broke into the museum through a small window and within minutes had crashed through the security glass that held the priceless jewels, including rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. They eventually escaped in an Audi with gems that once belonged to monarch Augustus the Strong, and which date to the 17th and 18th centuries.

Between November 2020 and May 2021, five suspects were detained, including two 25-year-olds, a 28-year-old, and a 22-year-old, who are all now in custody awaiting trial.

To nab the first three, Berlin police executed one of the largest operations mounted since the Second World War in a maneuver that included more than a thousand officers.

All arrests, including the most recent, took place in Berlin, which is about two hours from Dresden.

Authorities think the crime stems from the Remmo crime family based in Berlin. The Remmos are thought to be behind the heist of the 220-pound Big Maple Leaf gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum in 2018. Gold shavings were found on some of the suspects in that crime, suggesting the gold coin, which has never been recovered, was damaged or destroyed.