Brussels Airport security personnel hold gates open for a security vehicle at the airport in Zaventem near Brussels. A group of thieves made off with diamonds worth tens of millions of dollars as they were being loaded onto a plane at the Brussels airport, Belgian media reported yesterday.


AFP/Brussels

Heavily-armed robbers disguised as police made off with $50mn worth of diamonds in a spectacular heist on the tarmac at Brussels airport, prosecutors and diamond dealers said yesterday.
The Monday night robbery at Zaventem airport just before 8pm (1900 GMT) was “one of the biggest” ever, said a spokeswoman for the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC), the global dealers’ syndicate.
The Brussels raid saw a gang of eight hooded thieves pull up on the runway in two black vehicles with blue police-like markings, Brussels prosecutors’ spokeswoman Anja Bijnens told a press conference.
They forced their way through security barriers and sped towards a Swiss passenger aircraft about to take off, forcing open the cargo hold to reach gems – rough and cut – that had already been loaded, she said.
Bijnens said that the thieves were wearing police uniforms and carrying machine guns, adding: “They wanted to pass themselves off as cops.”
They seized at least 120 packages, which was only part of the shipment, she said.
The pilot, co-pilot and staff from a Brink’s armoured car that transported the gems were held up but “no shots were fired and no-one was injured”, Bijnens said of a robbery that was over “within minutes”.
She said that the thieves made off at high speed through the same gap in the security cordon they had opened in front of unsuspecting ground staff and travellers, adding that the passengers on board the plane “saw nothing” and that the aircraft, bound for Zurich, did not leave Brussels.
The Swiss air company said that the flight was a regular route operated by its partner Helvetic Airways.
According to the AWDC, the global diamond business is worth more than $60bn each year.
Some $200mn worth of stones move in and out of Antwerp everyday, the spokeswoman added.
The diamond community was “shocked by the brutal heist”, said Caroline De Wolf of the AWDC in a subsequent statement.
She said traders want “additional security measures” implemented at the airport.
In February 2005, some 75mn euros worth of diamonds and jewels being shipped to Antwerp were stolen in a KLM vehicle at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.
But the record for a theft of diamonds was in Belgium, in February 2003, when 100mn euros worth of stones were nabbed from the vault of the Antwerp Diamond Centre.
Asked to comment, Brussels airport spokesman Jan Van der Cruysse said: “There are very clear and very strict international security standards and we stick strictly to them.”
Neither the prosecutor’s office nor the AWDC official would give any details as to whom the shipment belonged. The prosecutor’s office said the packages contained mainly diamonds.  
The AWDC said the haul was worth $50mn.
One of the vehicles was found afterwards completely burnt out near the airport, the spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office said.
A specialist Belgian prosecutors unit dealing with organised crime is “pursuing all lines of enquiry”, Bijnens said, and is collaborating also with Swiss authorities.
“This was not a random robbery,” she stressed. “It was well-prepared – these were professionals.”
Belgian Justice Minister Annemie Turtelboom was on hand at the airport as the investigation gathered pace.
There are more than 4,500 diamond dealers in Antwerp, the hub for a worldwide industry going back at least 500 years, and more than twice as many jobs dependent on the trade, the AWDC said.
Eight in 10 of all rough and half of all polished diamonds are traded in Antwerp, they added.

Sensational robberies in recent history
Some of the most spectacular heists in recent history:
* December 2008, France: Armed men, some disguised as women, storm the Paris store of luxury retailer Harry Winston, scooping up rings, necklaces and watches worth 85mn euros ($113mn). The store was also the scene of a multi-million dollar heist in 2007.
* March 2007, Belgium: Gemstones amounting to around 21mn euros are stolen from a bank in the Antwerp diamond district.
* February 2006, Britain: Six thieves make off with just under 78mn euros in cash during a robbery at a depot for valuables in the south-eastern city of Tonbridge.
* August 2005, Brazil: A bank robbery in the city of Fortaleza nets the equivalent of around 57mn euros. The burglars had dug an 80m-long tunnel to reach the vault.
* February 2005, The Netherlands: Jewellery and diamonds with a value of 80mn euros are stolen during a heist at the heavily-guarded cargo area of the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam.
* December 2004, Northern Ireland: A group of robbers nets 38mn euros in the biggest bank robbery in Northern Ireland’s history, after taking hostage the families of two top employees.
* February 2003, Belgium: Burglars manage to get themselves locked into the Antwerp Diamond Centre over the weekend. They break into 120 safe deposit boxes, making off with some 100mn euros in diamonds and jewellery.
* May 1990, Britain: A messenger for a London broker is robbed of approximately $440mn in bonds, most of which surfaces a few month later. – DPA