Four suspects were acquitted on appeal Wednesday, nearly 10 years after an “Ocean’s Eleven”-style diamond heist took place at Brussels Airport.
The newly absolved individuals join 18 additional former suspects in the $50 million heist who were acquitted in 2018, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
In the 2013 crime, eight robbers dressed as police and waited in a construction area near Brussels international airport. They cut through the security fence surrounding the property and approached a Switzerland-bound plane with machine guns pointed at security guards and pilots, according to AP. The thieves accessed the plane, which had just been loaded with diamonds transported from Antwerp, and made off with 120 packets of jewels.
The entire heist took place in under five minutes, without any of the plane’s 29 passengers being alerted to the crime. The heist went over so smoothly and without any reported injuries that it has been compared to the film “Ocean’s Eleven,” according to the outlet.
Authorities found the burnt remains of a vehicle used in the crime during an ensuing search, according to US News.
Though investigators previously thought they had a lead when they recovered a small fraction of the stolen diamonds and made several arrests in a three-country sweep, the courts overturned the convictions due to a lack of solid evidence, AP reported. The majority of the haul is still at large.
Antwerp, a global diamond hub, is no stranger to high-profile thievery. In 2003, a gang of Italian thieves known as the School of Turin breached the city and made off with $50 million worth of diamonds, jewelry, gold, cash and other precious stones. In 2005, thieves tracked a shipment from Antwerp to Amsterdam, where they robbed an estimated $99 million worth of diamonds from an armored car at the Amsterdam airport.