No jewelry found on suspects arrested for Tefaf armed robbery: report

The police found no jewelry in the car of two men arrested in connection with an armed robbery of the Tefaf art fair in Maastricht on Tuesday, various sources told 1Limburg. They also said that the two Belgian suspects do not appear to have been at the art fair when the robbery happened.

Four armed men robbed the Tefaf on Tuesday morning. According to 1Limburg, they targeted English jeweler Symbolic & Chase, breaking open display cases and running off with the loot. A bystander managed to record the robbery.

The police have only said that they stole jewelry, but nothing about its value. According to a witness, the robbers made off with a necklace worth 27 million euros.

Later in the day, the police arrested two French-speaking Belgians at the Koning Willem-Alexander tunnel in Maastricht. Sources told 1Limburg that the men, 22 and 26 years old, were behaving suspiciously, parking their car along the road and getting out.

The police arrested the two men and took them in for questioning.

Serge Weening and Stijn van Merm, the lawyers representing the two suspects, think there’s been a misunderstanding. “We do not recognize our clients as one of the people who can be seen in those images,” the lawyers said to 1Limburg. “I really think there’s a misunderstanding here,” Weening added.

A police spokesperson would not comment on the matter. “We are investigating the possible involvement of these individuals.” If the suspects weren’t at the art fair for the robbery, they might have played a different role, the spokesperson said to the regional news. “That is the subject of investigation. It is not the case that we see four people in the images, and therefore there are only four suspects. We are keeping all scenarios open.”