Geo Quiz

Missing Swedish banknotes

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download MP3
For today’s Geo Quiz we looking for some Swedish banknotes. We’re not the only ones … Swedish police are hot on the trail of some cash that went missing today.

Looters stole it from a security firm in an early morning heist in the neighborhood of Västberga. We want to know where this neighborhood is located. And we’ll tell you this much.

It’s in a major city on Sweden’s eastern coast near where Lake Mälaren meets the Baltic Sea. It’s made up of 14 islands that float in a bay called Riddarfjärden.

Do you know the city we’re talking about?

And if you know where that missing cash might be now, we’d be keen to hear from you…

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download MP3
Police in Sweden are scrambling to investigate a dramatic heist earlier today. It took place in the neighborhood of Västberga in Stockholm. So, Stockholm is the answer to our Geo Quiz.

As for how the heist went down, The World’s David Leveille has details.

Bank jobs often involve insiders, getaway cars, and lots of cunning. In the case of this spectacular early morning raid on a cash depot in Stockholm, there might have been insiders. A couple dozen people were working at the time of the heist – they’re all being interviewed by police.

The 20 minute job involved cunning.

Police say masked gunmen rapelled down from a hovering helicopter onto the rooftop of the cash storage building…. They smashed through a glass pyramid on the roof, and then apparently stuffed bags full of cash and fled by helicopter.

A Swedish police investigator, Anders Bjargard , says authorities are still trying to piece together the evidence:

ANDERS BJARGARD: “Right now we’re trying to figure out exactly what happened by questioning the staff and examining the building. When the alarm came in, witnesses told us that there was a helicopter which hoisted people down to the depot, the people got into the building; explosions where heard, and after a while the helicopter took off with the offenders. So we surmise that they tried to get away with something.”

The getaway scheme was well-plotted. The thieves placed fake bombs near the local police helicopters…that prevented police from launching a quick pursuit… And they scattered metal spikes in the road to stop police cruisers in their tracks. David Landes writes for an online newspaper based in Stockholm. He says the robbery was high drama:

“It was something right out of a hollywood film, all of the witnesses were left stunned. Police located the helicopter, but there are no leads or clues as to how this might have been carried out other than it was someone who was very competent and well organized.”

Stockholm is no stranger to spectacular heists. Three paintings by Renoir and Rembrandt worth $80 million were stolen in a daylight raid on the National Museum in Stockholm in 2000. They were recovered 5 year later during a sting operation in Copenhagen.

But in the case of the missing Swedish banknotes. So far there have been no arrests and there’s no word on the exact amount of loot the thieves managed to steal and stash away on their getaway chopper.