BRUSSELS — When the armored car set off for the Brussels airport carrying $50 million worth of precious stones from Antwerp’s diamond district, eight gunmen knew all about it.

One of the biggest diamond heists in recent memory was about to go down.

The thieves surely knew it would be too risky to make their move in Antwerp, which is the world capital of diamond-cutting, 27 miles from the airport. The city’s diamond industry has some 2,000 surveillance cameras, police monitoring and countless identity controls to protect its $200 million daily trade of rough and polished gems.

“We are just about the safest place in Belgium,” said Antwerp World Diamond Center spokeswoman Caroline De Wolf.

And the thieves no doubt realized that once Swiss Flight LX789 was airborne Monday night on its way to Zurich, it would be too late to get their hands on the gems.

But the airport’s 15-mile fence and the transfer of the diamonds from the armored car on the tarmac to the hold of the Fokker 100 twin-engine jet – now that held potential.

Advertisement

About 20 minutes before the flight’s scheduled 8:05 p.m. departure, the robbers hid in a construction site outside the airport fence. Then they apparently cut through the fence and, in two black cars with blue police lights flashing, sped straight to pier A, where the armored car had just finished transferring the diamonds to the Fokker.

Dressed in dark police clothing and hoods, the thieves whipped out machine guns and stopped the pilots and the transport security crew.

The 29 passengers?

“They saw nothing,” Anja Bijnens of the Brussels prosecutor’s office said Tuesday. The thieves “never fired a shot. They never injured anyone.”

The thieves opened the plane’s hold, picked out 120 parcels and loaded them into the cars.

“Afterward, they made a high-speed getaway,” Bijnens said, estimating the whole operation took five minutes.

Advertisement

By late Tuesday, investigators had found a charred van most likely used in the heist, but little else.

Because of the heist’s clockwork precision, there was speculation the thieves had help from the inside. But Bijnens said only that the investigation is ongoing.

Embarrassed airport officials were left to explain how thieves could so smoothly get in, stage a robbery and make a clean getaway. Diamond industry officials who pride themselves on security were equally mortified.

Airport spokesman Jan Van Der Cruijsse could not explain how the area could be so vulnerable. “We abide by the most stringent rules,” he said, noting the same apply to other European airports.

Philip Baum, an aviation security consultant in Britain, called the robbery unsettling – not just because the fence was breached, but because the response did not appear to have been immediate. That, he said, raised questions of whether alarms were ringing in the right places.

“It does seem very worrying that someone can actually have the time to drive two vehicles onto the airport, effect the robbery and drive out without being intercepted,” Baum said, raising the specter of terrorists exploiting such lapses as well.

Advertisement

Air transport is considered the safest way of transporting small, high-value items, logistics experts say. Unlike a car or a truck, an airplane is unlikely to be waylaid by robbers once it is in motion. It’s also considered highly secure before departure and after arrival because the aircraft is always within an airport.

The stolen parcels contained rough and polished stones bound for Switzerland.

“What we are talking about is obviously a gigantic sum,” De Wolf said, giving an estimate of $50 million.

A decade ago, Antwerp was hit by one of the biggest diamond heists in history. Robbers disabled an alarm system and took precious stones, jewels, gold and securities from 123 of the 160 high-security vaults at Antwerp’s Diamond Center. There was so much loot the thieves had to leave some behind, police said, estimating the 2003 robbery to be worth about $100 million at the time.

Monday’s heist was a fresh blow to Antwerp’s major industry.

“It was incredible how easily it all went,” De Wolf said. This is worrying in terms of competitiveness, since other diamond centers are ready to pounce and take over our position.”

 


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.