St. Valentine's Day is a
special day in a year soaked with love and romance. Being in amorous
mood no one expected anything bad to happen, not now as well as ten
years ago. But things tend to repeat. Thus Valentine's Day $50
million diamond heist in Brussels airport made everyone speechless
and showed again that you should never let down your guard when
diamonds are concerned.
Preceding heist: In
2003 a group of professional robbers broke into the Diamond Museum in
Antwerp by unlocking a vault door and took away a very rich loot
estimated at up to $500 million. Stunned everybody were when they
found it out on a day after celebration, even the heavy security
couldn't stop the robbers. How did they manage to trick it out? But
everybody makes mistakes, even robbers, so in a while they were
caught and imprisoned. Nevertheless, that heist was called flawless
and later became the basis for Flawless movie, where the detailed
Antwerp case is thoroughly investigated.
Our days heist:
While the previous robbery was calm and noiseless, this one was
pompously remarkable. It's hard to imagine but this time the gang
dressed in police officers, took guns and drove on armored truck.
They paraded through the main Airport entrance, reached the airplane
aimed to deliver diamonds and cash to Switzeland and took 12 parcels
of diamonds from the plane in a couple of minutes, then they
disappeared.
On the one hand, it may
sound like a plot to a gangster movie, but it's a part of real life
though; on the other, it revealed the weakness of (again) security
system. It takes much time to professional thieves to find the hole
(sometimes ten years), but when they succeed the plunderage is worth
the efforts.
By the way, Notarbartolo,
the leader of the Italian gang arrested and accused for diamond
heist in 2003, got out of prison on parole four years ago. None of
the robbers told where the diamonds are. On Valentine's Day
Notabartolo appeared to be in Brussels, odd coincidence you may
think? But the heist is pretty different: while the previous one was
invisible and very quiet, this one was all action. Either the
talented gangster changed his style or it was another professional
police is hoping to discover soon.
As you see, where there
are diamonds involved, there is always a conflict. They are desired
not only by women but by robbers as well. The thing is, unlike cash
they are impossible to be traced. It's easy to sell and resell them
for a good sum of money. With diamonds you only get a benefit, at
least thieves got it.
If you have got any
thoughts about this diamond heist, feel free to share them in the
comments below.
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