Police in western Germany have arrested two foreign suspects after 151 urn graves were damaged and looted at a cemetery in the city of Monheim am Rhein, with stolen metal items later recovered during a vehicle stop near the Dutch border.
According to a police statement, visitors to the Waldfriedhof cemetery on Knipprather Straße discovered widespread damage on the morning of March 7. Numerous urn graves and casket graves had been broken open, apparently by perpetrators searching for copper and bronze items.
Officers responding to the scene confirmed that a total of 151 graves had been damaged.
Later that afternoon, members of a cross-border policing unit operating between Germany and the Netherlands stopped a vehicle with German license plates at a border crossing in the nearby district of Viersen. During the inspection, officers discovered several urns and copper objects inside the car.
Investigators quickly suspected the items had been stolen from the Monheim cemetery earlier that day.
The two occupants of the vehicle, a 16-year-old Romanian national and a 23-year-old Romanian national, were taken into custody and transported to a police station in the town of Geldern. Police said both suspects have ties to Monheim am Rhein.
Authorities confiscated the vehicle and seized the recovered items as evidence.
Police have opened criminal proceedings against the pair on suspicion of aggravated theft and disturbing the peace of the dead. The investigation remains ongoing.
The incident follows another case of suspected metal theft at the cemetery earlier this year. In January, a large bronze statue depicting a nurse was stolen after perpetrators cut the figure from its base using an angle grinder, leaving only its feet.
As reported by Bild, police believe several individuals were involved in that theft due to the statue’s size and weight. The sculpture, which stood more than 2.8 meters tall, had an estimated material value of between €15,000 and €20,000, and investigators suspect it was melted down and sold for scrap metal.
