Image copyright AFP PHOTO /ANNE FRANK FONDS Image caption Anne Frank's diary has provided new hints about how and why her hiding place was uncovered 
 
 World-famous wartime diarist Anne Frank may have been discovered by chance and not because her hiding place was betrayed, a new theory suggests. 
 
 The Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam believes the address could have been raided over ration fraud. 
 
 Researchers say the police who found the secret annexe may not have been looking for the eight Jews there. 
 
 The raid on Prinsengracht 263 saw all of those in hiding transported to the Auschwitz death camps. 
 
 Summarising its findings, the Anne Frank House said: "The question has always been: Who betrayed Anne Frank and the others in hiding? This explicit focus on betrayal, however, limits the perspective on the arrest." 
 
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 Shortly before the raid, an anonymous caller supposedly revealed details of the secret annexe to the Sicherheitsdienst or SD (German Security Service) - but the study's authors have questioned this account. 
 
 Using Anne's diary entries from March 1944, researchers found that ration coupon fraud and illegal working activities may have triggered the fateful raid. 
 
 'We have no coupons' 
 
 From 10 March 1944, Anne repeatedly wrote about the arrest of two men who dealt in illegal ration cards. She called the pair "B" and "D" - which stood for Martin Brouwer and Pieter Daatzelaar. 
 
 The pair were salesmen for a firm based at Prinsengracht 263, where Anne's father Otto Frank also had his business - and where the family went into hiding. 
 
 Anne writes on March 14: "B and D have been caught, so we have no coupons..." 
 
 This shows that the Frank family got at least some of their food coupons clandestinely from these salesmen. 
 
 Image caption The Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam is located in the house where Anne and her family hid from the Nazis 
 
 Analysing police reports and judicial documents, the researchers also found that the police who discovered Anne and her companions were not generally employed to hunt down Jews in hiding. 
 
 Instead, they had worked on cases involving cash, securities and jewellery. 
 
 The study also notes that the police spent over two hours at the property - longer than it should have taken to arrest those cornered in the annexe. 
 
 Other evidence shows that people linked to Prinsengracht 263 had been punished by the Netherlands' Nazi occupiers for evading work. 
 
 "A company where people were working illegally and two sales representatives were arrested for dealing in ration coupons obviously ran the risk of attracting the attention of the authorities," the researchers wrote. 
 
 No firm conclusions have ever been drawn about who betrayed Anne Frank and her family to the Nazis. 
 
 The young writer ultimately died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, aged 15, just weeks before its liberation. Her father Otto was the only one of the annexe's eight occupants to survive World War Two. ||||| FILE - This June 12, 2009 file photo, shows a photo of Anne Frank at the opening of the exhibition: "Anne Frank, a History for Today", at the Westerbork Remembrance Centre in Hooghalen, northeast Netherlands.... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - This June 12, 2009 file photo, shows a photo of Anne Frank at the opening of the exhibition: "Anne Frank, a History for Today", at the Westerbork Remembrance Centre in Hooghalen, northeast Netherlands.... (Associated Press) 
 
 THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Anne Frank may not have been betrayed to Nazi occupiers, but captured by chance. 
 
 A new study published Friday by the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam says that despite decades of research there is no conclusive evidence that the Jewish diarist and her family were betrayed to the Netherlands' German occupiers during World War II, leading to their arrest and deportation. 
 
 Ronald Leopold, Executive Director of the Anne Frank House museum, said in a statement Friday that new research by the museum "illustrates that other scenarios should also be considered." 
 
 One possible theory is that the Aug. 4, 1944, raid that led to Anne's arrest could have been part of an investigation into illegal labor or falsified ration coupons at the canal-side house where she and other Jews hid for just over two years. 
 
 Anne kept a diary during her time in hiding that was published after the war and turned her into a globally recognized symbol of Holocaust victims. She died in the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp at age 15, shortly before it was liberated by Allied forces. 
 
 The new research points to two men who worked in the building on Amsterdam's Prinsengracht canal and dealt in illegal ration cards. They were arrested earlier in 1944 and subsequently released, Dutch records show. The arrests also are mentioned in Anne's diary. 
 
 Such arrests were reported to an investigation division based in The Hague and the report says that, "During their day-to-day activities, investigators from this department often came across Jews in hiding by chance." 
 
 Another possibility raised by the report is that the raid was part of an investigation into people being allowed to work to prevent them being called up as forced labor and sent to Germany. 
 
 "A company where people were working illegally and two sales representatives were arrested for dealing in ration coupons obviously ran the risk of attracting the attention of the authorities," the report says. 
 
 It adds that, "The possibility of betrayal has of course not been entirely ruled out by this, nor has any relationship between the ration coupon fraud and the arrest been proven," and says further research is necessary. 
 
 "Clearly, the last word about that fateful summer day in 1944 has not yet been said," it adds. ||||| Another Perspective 
 
 To tell Anne Frank's story as completely as possible, it is also important to take a close look at the raid that brought the hiding period to an end. The question asked has always been Who betrayed Anne Frank and the people in hiding? This explicit focus on betrayal , however, has limited the perspective on the arrest. Scenarios based on other premises have never been examined at length. In this new study conducted by the Anne Frank House , the focus is not on betrayal but on the raid itself: Why did the raid on the Secret Annexe take place, and on what information was it based? The arrest was examined, from this starting point, using already known sources and newly discovered information. Anne Frank's diary entries from March 1944, not previously used as a primary source, led to police and judicial documents from different parts of the Netherlands.
– The answer to the question "Who betrayed Anne Frank" may be "Nobody," according to new research. A study released by the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam says that the hiding place of the Jewish teenager and her family may instead have been found by chance when Nazi security forces raided the building to investigate fraudulent food-ration cards or illegal employment, the BBC reports. The study, which counts police documents and Anne's famous diary among its sources, found that the German "Sicherheitsdienst" police that discovered the family usually investigated cases involving cash and securities, not hidden Jews, and they spent much longer at the Amsterdam building during the Aug. 4, 1944, raid than usually happened in cases like the arrest of the Frank family. "During their day-to-day activities, investigators from this department often came across Jews in hiding by chance," according to the study, which notes that there is no evidence that an anonymous phone call long thought to have betrayed the family actually happened. The study notes that two men who worked in the building were arrested earlier in 1944 for dealing in illegal ration cards, and Anne wrote about the arrest in her diary, the AP reports. There is also evidence that the German occupiers had been investigating people working at the address when they should have been sent for forced labor elsewhere. It is still possible that Anne, who died in the Bergen-Belsen camp in 1945, was betrayed, but the study "illustrates that other scenarios should also be considered," says Ronald Leopold, the museum's director. (The winning bid for this Anne Frank poem stunned auctioneers.)