Thieves who broke into a Southern German museum and stole hundreds of ancient gold coins got in and out of an alarmed room in about five minutes without triggering the alarm, officials said.

Police have launched an international hunt for the thieves and the stolen treasures, consisting of 483 Celtic coins and a lump of unworked gold that were discovered during an archaeological dig near the present-day town of Manching in 1999.

A huge horde of ancient gold coins dating back to 100 BC was stolen from the Celtic and Roman Museum in Manching, 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Munich, early Tuesday.

Bavarian state police said employees discovered on Tuesday that a “window was broken” and the collection of 483 coins had been stolen.

Bavarian state police said investigators did not provide any additional information about the heist’s circumstances, but local officials highlighted a disruption in phone and internet service.

Authorities did not provide any additional information about the heist’s circumstances. However, local officials pointed out a disruption in phone and internet service during the heist.

Investigations did not prove any evidence about the heist’s motives, but local officials highlighted a disruption in phone and internet service.

The 483 coins were discovered in 1999 during excavations of an ancient settlement in Manching and are considered part of the largest trove of Celtic gold found in the 20th century.

The Celtic-Roman Museum is pictured in the evening light, in Manching, Germany, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022. A hoard of ancient gold coins dating back to around 100 B.C. has been stolen from Manching museum in southern Germany, police said Tuesday. The loss of the Celtic treasures is a “disaster,” Bavaria’s minister of science and arts, Marion Kiechle, said. “As a testament to our history, the gold coins are irreplaceable.”

According to the police, thieves of the Manching gold treasure would likely have a hard time selling their Celtic coins. A spokesperson for the State Criminal Police Office said Wednesday that the sale of such cultural assets is “very difficult,” so it is feared that they will melt Celtic coins and sell them for their gold value.

The coin theft is the latest in a series of high-profile museum heists in Germany.

The Big Maple Leaf.

The “Big Maple Leaf,” which is regarded as the second-largest gold coin in the world, was taken from Berlin’s Bode Museum in 2017 in an audacious numismatic robbery.

The Big Maple Leaf (BML) is a 100-kilogram (220-lb) gold coin that costs $1 million (CAD) (3,215 troy ounces). The first BML manufacture is still in storage, but the Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) produced a set of six of these coins in 2007. A single Big Maple Leaf had a market value of about $4 million as of March 2017. One of the coins was stolen from the Bode Museum on March 27, 2017.

Police are looking for witnesses who may have seen suspicious people near the museum or who may have information that could lead to the treasure’s recovery.