'Gigantic' diamond heist at Brussels airport

Armed men held up security van as gems worth tens of millions of pounds were being loaded on to Swiss plane.

Police are looking for eight men who made a hole in a security fence at Brussels international airport, drove on to the tarmac and stole diamonds worth tens of millions of pounds from the hold of a Switzerland-bound plane.

The armed and masked men used two vehicles in their raid on Monday evening and within minutes made their way to the plane, took the cache of gems and drove off into the darkness, said the Brussels prosecutor.

Police found a burnt-out vehicle close to the airport on Monday night but said they were still looking for clues.

The heist is estimated at some £30m ($50m) in diamonds, said Caroline De Wolf of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre.

"What we are talking about is obviously a gigantic sum," De Wolf told Belgian state broadcaster VRT.

An airport spokesperson said the robbers made a hole in the perimeter fence, and drove right up to the Swiss passenger plane, which was ready to leave. The robbers got out of the car, flashed their weapons and took the loot from the hold, said spokesman Jan Van Der Crujsse. Without firing a shot they drove off through the same hole in the fence, completing the theft within minutes, he said.

Van Der Crujsse could not explain how the area could be so vulnerable to theft. "We abide by the most stringent rules," he said.

The Swiss flight, operated by Helvetic Airways, was cancelled after the robbery. The insurance for air transport, handled sometimes by airlines themselves or external insurance companies, is usually relatively cheap because it's considered to be the safest way of transporting small high-value items, logistics experts say. guardian