Two diamonds stolen in TEFAF art fair heist recovered; New suspect identified
The police have recovered two diamonds stolen in a jewelry heist at The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) in Maastricht on 28 June 2022. Investigators have also identified a new suspect, a woman linked to the heist, the police said on Wednesday. All five suspects are still at large. They stole tens of millions of euros worth of jewelry during the heist.
The police previously reported that a piece of stolen jewelry had surfaced. It involved a diamond that was part of a necklace. The diamond surfaced in Israel. A second diamond from the same stolen necklace was traced to Hong Kong. The police have seized both diamonds for investigation.
Shortly after the robbery, the police released images of four suspects. The four men visited the fair on different days, wearing different disguises. At least two of them purchased entrance tickets for the events using aliases and false identities. “Some of them are also wanted for similar robberies in other European countries like Switzerland and the Czech Republic,” the police said. The police investigation has now linked a fifth suspect, a woman, to the robbery.
The suspects used two rental cars before and after the robbery, a Kia Ceed rented in Frankfurt on 5 June 2022 and an Opel Astra rented in Vienna on 22 June 2022. Both cars got speeding tickets in Germany before the robbery, the Kia on 6 June 2022 in Neustadt and the Opel on 26 June 2022 in Leverkusen. The camera images of the speeding tickets show the five suspects. Both cars were parked in the parking lot on Salernolaan in Maastricht, a few hundred meters away from where the art fair was held in the MECC, on the day of the robbery.
Two women returned the Kia Ceed to the dealership it was rented from near the airport in Frankfurt on 2 July 2022. The police don’t yet suspect these two women of involvement in the robbery but are investigating why they returned the car used in the heist. On 1 July 2022, a still unidentified person returned the Opel Astra to a car rental company in Vienna, Austria. “The rental cars were in use by the suspects during the entire rental period.”
The police previously reported that the suspects came from the Balkans. They have now narrowed it down to Nis in Serbia. Investigation showed that the suspects stayed in Liège and Verviers in Belgium before the robbery and fled to Serbia via Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Hungary afterward. The police think the suspects may be hiding in Serbia or Belgrade.
“We have taken major and important steps in the investigation,” the police said. “The international component of this investigation makes that everything takes a long time because we have to follow international procedures and regulations.”
The investigators asked anyone with relevant information to come forward. Charles Taylor Adjusting, the insurance company’s investigation agency, has offered a reward of 500,000 pounds. The Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM) offered a second reward of 20,000 euros for the person who provides information that leads to the indentification of the perpetrators.
