Famous Jewel and jewelry Cases

by Michael P. Ehline

Famous jewelry heists are the stuff of legends, not to mention movies. The largest heist of diamonds was the 2003 of $100 million theft in Antwerp, Belgium. The thieves turned out to be the gang known as the "School of Turin". One of them was called the "King of Thieves", another one was called
the "Magician with the Keys". The plot played out like a movie, with complex and detailed planning.The "School of Turin" rented the office space adjacent to the Antwerp Diamond Center Building. They bypassed the alarm system. They made fake tapes to play on the surveillance camera system. They somehow had keys they had copied to open the vault.
As amazingly talented as these guys were, they make fatal mistakes. One thief's DNA was extracted from a partially eaten sandwich he had carelessly tossed out with bags used to carry the diamonds. One guy had actually been acting as a diamond merchant at the Center and he left his DNA in the vault. They got into so many deposit boxes and had so many diamonds to carry away that they simply left many boxes unopened and left diamonds scattered around the floor of the vault.Another guy I saw in the news recently in the United States tried to steal a cache of gold chains as well gold bracelet, gold necklace, diamond earrings and so on but he accidentially left his mobile phone at the scene and was tracked that way.