Mass arrests over $ 50 m Belgium diamond heist

BRUSSELS: Police in Belgium, France and Switzerland have arrested 33 people and recovered “a large quantity” of diamonds and cash in a joint probe into a spectacular $50-million diamond heist at Brussels airport.
The Belgian prosecutor’s office yesterday said a suspected member of the eight-man gang that staged the brazen robbery three months ago had been picked up in France on Tuesday, as Swiss police made eight arrests and seized some of the missing diamonds.
“The probe led to a big police operation yesterday,” spokesman Jean-Marc Meilleur told a news conference.
In early morning raids mainly in the Brussels area involving some 200 officers yesterday, police made 24 arrests and “recovered big amounts of cash” and luxury cars, Meilleur added.
The February 18 robbery at Zaventem airport at the time was described as “one of the biggest” ever by the Antwerp World Diamond Center (AWDC), the global dealers’ syndicate based in the Belgian port city.
A heavily-armed and hooded gang pulled up in a car on a runway at around 8:00 p.m. where a Brinks’ armored vehicle had just unloaded Antwerp diamonds into a Swiss passenger aircraft about to take off for Zurich.
In an operation that lasted barely 10 minutes and without a shot fired, the men forced open the hold of the plane and removed some 120 boxes of diamonds.
The gang, posing as police officers, had cut through the airport’s perimeter fence and made off with the haul of $ 50 million (38 million euros) in gems through the same breach.
Meilleur refused to say whether police suspected the gang had worked with insiders at the airport.
The suspect detained in France had a lengthy criminal record and Belgium had asked for his extradition, he said.
In Geneva, a statement from the Swiss prosecutor’s office said police there had seized “a large quantity of diamonds from the spectacular armed robbery in Brussels.” The statement went on to say “a big haul was seized, of 100,000 Swiss francs (80,000 euros) in cash and a large quantity of diamonds, the value of which is currently being estimated.” A businessman and a Geneva lawyer among the eight people being held were facing charges of dealing in stolen goods and obstructing the course of justice, the Swiss statement said.
“The arrests were made thanks to the excellent collaboration between the Brussels and Geneva authorities,” it added.
The Belgian authorities said a dozen of the suspects detained in Belgium, aged between 30 and 50, were “well known” to police, some for armed robbery. Some were suspected of receiving stolen goods.