A museum in the Niigata city of Sado was broken into and robbed on early Monday morning (Apr. 17), however, rather than stealing any of the real gold and silver items on display at the museum the unknown perpetrator(s) took only five gold plate replicas.

According to Sado City officials, at about 12:35 a.m. on April 17, at least one unknown perpetrator set off an alarm at the Aikawa Folk Museum by breaking one of the museum’s windows in order to gain entry.

Security guards arrived on the scene 28 minutes after the alarm had gone off. Inside the museum they found that someone had opened an arm-sized hole in the wooden back door of a display case and taken the five gold plate replaicas that had been on display in the case.

Displayed on either side of the gold plate replicas were three 30 kilogram silver ingots and a 1 kilogram piece of gold ore, which the perpetrator(s) left untouched. The three silver ingots alone are valued at about 6.3 million JPY (57,837 USD).

The label for the stolen replicas said that they were made from the “last gold” obtained from the famous Sado gold mines. The label did not mention that they were replicas.

Due to the real gold plates being valued almost 25 million JPY (229,300

USD) the museum had decided to display gold plated replicas of the plates instead. These replicas are said to have no resale

value.

Police are investigating this as theft.

If you would like to see a CG recreation of this story, you can watch the TomoNews Japan video below.

If you would like to learn more about the city of Sado and its famous gold mines, then you may want to take a look at the article below.

Niigata City Uses Heavy Metal To Promote Tourism (Video)

Sources: ANN News, Asahi Shinbun, Sankei News, TomoNews Japan