#Jewel #thieves #brazenly #rob #Dutch #art #fair
Gunmen in flat caps carried out a brazen daytime attack on an international art fair in the Netherlands on Tuesday, smashing a jewelry box with a sledgehammer in front of terrified visitors.
Police said they stopped a car and arrested two Belgians in their 20s after the four smartly dressed thieves raided TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair) in the southern city of Maastricht.
Dramatic social media images showed the robbers threatening people with what appeared to be handguns before running away with an unknown amount of what police called “loot”.
The venue was evacuated, but visitors were eventually allowed back into the fair, which draws tens of thousands of people over several days. No one was injured, police said.
“A stall was searched, they fled and we started the search,” Wim Coenen, a spokesman for the Limburg Province Police, told AFP. “There were four suspects, two were arrested.”
According to Dutch media, the case contained diamond jewelery and other items from London jeweler Symbolic and Chase. There was no comment from the company.
Police confirmed in a statement that “Jewelry was stolen. Further details of the loot are not being shared at this time.”
– ‘car stopped’ –
Dutch police launched a major search using a helicopter and sniffer dogs and shortly afterwards arrested a 22-year-old and a 26-year-old man nearby, both from Belgium.
“These two people were driving a gray vehicle with Belgian registration plates. That car was stopped… your possible involvement is still under investigation,” it said.
The TEFAF fair is one of the largest in Europe and features hundreds of works, including a 17th-century Dutch Old Master drawing that is on sale for a million euros.
Videos on social media showed the four men – all wearing flat caps, glasses and smart blazers – amidst chaotic scenes at the art fair.
One banged the jewelry box at least 12 times while alarms blared.
Finally he smashed through the glass and reached inside to pick something up before putting it in a pocket.
Two of the men appeared to point guns at a passerby who attempted to intervene with a large glass vase filled with flowers before retreating.
The men then ran past a confused elderly man who had been sitting on a bench nearby throughout the drama.
– ‘Still shaking’ –
Visitor Jos Stassen told Dutch public broadcaster NOS that he went to the exhibition on Tuesday to take a look at the art at leisure.
“I suddenly heard a lot of noise and turned around and suddenly I saw these men,” he said.
“One started hitting and the others kept people away, scaring everyone. I also saw a gun.
“It happened very quickly and lasted very little, but I’m still shaking a little.”
Fair managing director Bart Drenth said the owners of the destroyed stand were “very shocked”, reported the Dutch news agency ANP.
He said the fair’s security protocol worked well, although the armed robbers were able to walk inside, adding: “The police were on the scene within minutes.”
A TEFAF spokesman added in a statement to AFP that its “security teams worked quickly to disarm a perpetrator… No one was injured during the incident.”
The phrase “Peaky Blinders” was trending on social media in the Netherlands after the raid because the suspects’ hats resemble those in the British crime drama of the same name.
It’s not the first time the fair has been attacked by criminals.
In 2011, a ring and diamond necklace valued at 860,000 euros ($1.2 million at the time) belonging to a London jeweler were stolen at the exhibition.
The Netherlands has also seen a spate of art thefts, with paintings by Van Gogh and Frans Hals being snatched in burglaries in 2020.
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#Jewel #thieves #brazenly #rob #Dutch #art #fair
