Police in Switzerland, Belgium and France have detained more than 30 people in connection with a spectacular €40 million (CHF50 million) diamond theft at Brussels airport in February.
The Geneva prosecutor’s office said in a statement on Wednesday that eight individuals were arrested late Tuesday in Switzerland, including a businessman and a Geneva lawyer. These two are accused of receiving stolen goods as well as obstruction of justice and remain in detention.
The police also recovered more than CHF100,000 ($106,000) in cash and a large number of diamonds whose value is still being estimated.
According to the investigators, the jewels were among those stolen in Brussels. The Geneva judicial authorities were tipped off by the arrival of an organised crime figure in the city not long after the heist.
The arrests were coordinated in the different countries to ensure that the jewels were recovered and those involved in the theft – as well the storage and resale of the diamonds, detained.
Belgian prosecutor Anja Bijnens said in Brussels that one other person was arrested in France, and 24 in Belgium early on Wednesday in connection with the robbery on February 19. The Frenchman is believed to have taken part in the attack himself.
Bijnens added that money connected with the theft had been recovered in Belgium. She did not specify the amounts. Luxury vehicles were also seized.
Among the people arrested in Belgium are a number of criminals known for taking part in violent robberies.
The diamonds had been loaded on a plane bound for Zurich when robbers, dressed in dark police clothing and hoods, drove through a hole they had cut in the airport fence in two black cars with blue police lights flashing.
They drove onto the tarmac, approached the plane, brandished machine guns, offloaded the diamonds, then made what seemed at the time to be a clean getaway. At the time, Bijnens reckoned that the entire operation took five minutes.
Airports and aircraft are rarely targeted by criminals. But in 1995, for example, robbers managed to access the tarmac at Brussels airport in a car and open the hold of a Swissair aircraft, stealing a package containing six bank pouches with an estimated CHF2 million inside. The money was never recovered.