$50,000,000 Diamond Heist Pulled Off At Airport

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**WarOne**

3 minutes of work for 8 men to get $50 million in pretty rocks.

That's a little over $2 million a minute for each guy involved in the heist.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/19/world/europe/belgium-diamond-heist/index.html

Eight masked thieves stole $50 million in rough and polished diamonds in a lightning-fast heist Monday at Brussels Airport, the Antwerp World Diamond Centre said Tuesday.

The stones were en route from Antwerp, Belgium, to Zurich, Switzerland, a spokesman for the diamond center said, citing police.

Police told the diamond center that the robbers, who used two vehicles, breached a security gate when the goods were already on an aircraft.

Jan Van der Cruysse, a spokesman for Brussels Airport, told CNN that it took the thieves only three minutes to rob the cargo hold and that they left the scene minutes later.

He said the robbers, who arrived in two cars, breached the airport periphery and sped to the airplane. They then removed items from the hold before leaping back into their vehicles to escape through the same breach.

They were heavily armed, but no shots were fired, he said.

At the time, there were about 20 passengers on board the aircraft, which was a regular passenger flight from Brussels to Zurich operated by Helvetic Airways on behalf of Swiss, Van der Cruysse said.

"This was a very precise, almost military-organized and well-executed robbery," he said.

"We are an airport that is, as all international airports are, subject to very strict aviation security and safety regulations," he said.

The airport, which is governed by Belgian and European regulations, generally has an excellent reputation, he said.

"It comes as a big surprise that something like this is possible. But of course, this is rather connected to banditism and organized crime rather than aviation security," he said.

The spokesman for the Antwerp World Diamond Centre said it was aware of reports that gold and platinum were stolen along with the diamonds, but he said he could not confirm that information.

On average, the Antwerp World Diamond Centre has $200 million in stones coming in and out daily, and it takes security very seriously, he added.

**juraigamer**

The good crooks are the ones that don't get caught. Remember that.

**Grey Templar**

Of course unless they have a buyer lined up it could be difficult to unload the goods. Thats a problem with many valuables these days, its much easier to track where the stuff is from.

Kinda like that Maple Syrup heist a few months ago. Where are you going to unload several thousand gallons of the good stuff?

**Mattman154**

Grey Templar wrote:
Of course unless they have a buyer lined up it could be difficult to unload the goods. Thats a problem with many valuables these days, its much easier to track where the stuff is from.

Kinda like that Maple Syrup heist a few months ago. Where are you going to unload several thousand gallons of the good stuff?

I think diamons are a bit easier to offload on the black market than syrup

**AlmightyWalrus**

Why wasn't such a ridiculous amount of diamonds protected by orbital lasers, nuclear-powered chainsaw bears and at least semi-auto wiener dogs? I mean, did they just go "oh, it's just 50 million, what could go wrong?" or something?

**thenoobbomb**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Why wasn't such a ridiculous amount of diamonds protected by orbital lasers, nuclear-powered chainsaw bears and at least semi-auto wiener dogs? I mean, did they just go "oh, it's just 50 million, what could go wrong?" or something?

It's called 'Faith in Humanity'. I, personally, don't do it.

**Sasori**

Grey Templar wrote:
Of course unless they have a buyer lined up it could be difficult to unload the goods. Thats a problem with many valuables these days, its much easier to track where the stuff is from.

Kinda like that Maple Syrup heist a few months ago. Where are you going to unload several thousand gallons of the good stuff?

The Article I read about the heist, mentioned that the diamonds are uncut. This would make them significantly easier to unload.

**rubiksnoob**

Well, there's eight guys who're never going to have to work a day in their lives again.

**thenoobbomb**

rubiksnoob wrote:
Well, there's eight guys who're never going to have to work a day in their lives again.

And who can actually buy Forge World stuff!

**azazel the cat**

Grey Templar wrote:Of course unless they have a buyer lined up it could be difficult to unload the goods. Thats a problem with many valuables these days, its much easier to track where the stuff is from.

Kinda like that Maple Syrup heist a few months ago. Where are you going to unload several thousand gallons of the good stuff?

Diamonds are incredibly easy to sell, as the industry itself rarely wants to know where the diamonds come from. All that's required is a middle man. It's how the large firms circumvent embargoes against conflict diamonds.

**Grey Templar**

A it turns out they are uncut it is much easier to sell them. So yeah, not as hard as I thought.

**Ahtman**

Wasn't this a David Mamet film with Gene Hackman?

**Frazzled**

rubiksnoob wrote:
Well, there's eight guys who're never going to have to work a day in their lives again.

You're not thinking ahead. Eight guys now but with a little creative bookkeeping they could knock that down to two or three...

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ahtman wrote:
Wasn't this a David Mamet film with Gene Hackman?

or Snatch.

**Ahtman**

Frazzled wrote:

Ahtman wrote:
Wasn't this a David Mamet film with Gene Hackman?

or Snatch.

Well Snatch was about a robbery, but Heist (I had to look it up) was about a group that plans to rob a shipment of uncut diamonds from an airport while they are still on the plane.

**Frazzled**

Ahtman wrote:
Frazzled wrote:

Ahtman wrote:
Wasn't this a David Mamet film with Gene Hackman?

or Snatch.

Well Snatch was about a robbery, but Heist (I had to look it up) was about a group that plans to rob a shipment of uncut diamonds from an airport while they are still on the plane.

Gotcha. Snatch was funny though.

**SilverMK2**

I flew to Germany last week and had to be sectioned off from the other passangers in the queue because the detectors decided that I was armed with a highly dangerous... wooden necklace!!!!

If only I had driven in with weapons I could have made off with a whole load of valuable loot... not to mention duty free...

**Hordini**

Grey Templar wrote:
Of course unless they have a buyer lined up it could be difficult to unload the goods. Thats a problem with many valuables these days, its much easier to track where the stuff is from.

Kinda like that Maple Syrup heist a few months ago. Where are you going to unload several thousand gallons of the good stuff?

I think if the guys are good enough to have actually pulled this thing off, they're probably good enough to either have a buyer lined up or have an idea how they're going to get rid of them. As you noted, the gems being uncut makes it easier, but I would still guess they already have some kind of plan.

**d-usa**

Of course this whole event just shows how stupid our anti-terrorist security theater really is. If these would have been terrorists they wouldn't even have to plan a getaway. Bust in with 2-3 vehicles loaded to the top and boom.

**xole**

d-usa wrote:
Of course this whole event just shows how stupid our anti-terrorist security theater really is. If these would have been terrorists they wouldn't even have to plan a getaway. Bust in with 2-3 vehicles loaded to the top and boom.

We are really lucky terrorists are as dumb as they are.

**sebster**

It's interesting how little money criminals end up with from these operations. You see two million each and think holy gak, but there's often been a load of money staked by someone upfront, so they take a whole chunk, and then the fence price of the loot is a fraction of the market value (which is often way overstated in the first place). It honestly wouldn't surprise me if the average final split is under $50,000. Not that $50,000 is anything to sneeze at, of course.

d-usa wrote:
Of course this whole event just shows how stupid our anti-terrorist security theater really is. If these would have been terrorists they wouldn't even have to plan a getaway. Bust in with 2-3 vehicles loaded to the top and boom.

I guess if you're just gonna blow a plane up while it's sitting on the runway then you might as well blow up a shopping centre or anywhere else with people. The appeal of the plane is that once it's in the air you're likely to kill everyone on-board.

**d-usa**

sebster wrote:

d-usa wrote:
Of course this whole event just shows how stupid our anti-terrorist security theater really is. If these would have been terrorists they wouldn't even have to plan a getaway. Bust in with 2-3 vehicles loaded to the top and boom.

I guess if you're just gonna blow a plane up while it's sitting on the runway then you might as well blow up a shopping centre or anywhere else with people. The appeal of the plane is that once it's in the air you're likely to kill everyone on-board.

Take your car, ram it below a plane, take it out and a good section of the terminal. Repeat with however many cars you have. Of course with terrorism the body count doesn't matter all that much.

But I realize it's off-topic, so sorry about that.

**Ahtman**

Mea Culpa. I just remembered it was gold in Heist, not diamonds.

**Squidbot**

Anyone else suddenly have a mental image of Ray Liotta?