Armed robbery at Brussels Airport

[teddybAIR]

When you do have a security breach like yesterday, you have to freeze everybody in and around the aircraft and anywhere the gangsters went through with their vehicle.
No one, pax or employees is allowed to leave their position and they have to remain within sight of other people or assemble to defined area's while security and police make sure that the gangsters did not leave any weapons behind to accomplices inside.

"Excuse me gentlemen, may I kindly invite you to put down your...er...8 (eight!) AK-47's, leave the 50 million in diamonds and join me to a security checkpoint. It is rather unacceptable that you delay a commercial airliner and we would like to fill in a report with you."

Flanker,

You need to understand that while security is critical, you can never ever guarantee 100% security without completely stopping the very thing you want to secure. The most safe way to fly is not to fly at all! But, like it or not, it is all about economics in our world and those 50million in diamonds were insured for sure. You could discuss about how to improve safety at BRU up to rediculous levels, but I guarantee you one thing: heists like this week will continue to happen as long as you organise such high value transports through public facilities like BRU. An airliner is NOT an appropriate means of transporting valuables that can easily be carried! How ridiculous is it that you transport 50 million $ worth of diamonds in an armored truck, only to put it in the cargo hold of a commercial airliner via one of the busiest places in the country?!

The only way to prevent such heists from happening at BRU is moving them to another location. The effect will not be a reduction in amount of heists, but the threat to public security will certainly improve. So, instead of imposing supposedly watertight security measures, I'm in favor of taking away the very reason/motivation for the heist, away from an airport like BRU and towards a more remote, easier to secure location or to transport it via road in the same armored trucks and with appropriate escort.

[Boavida]

You better learn to live with it.

Airport authorities should do ANYTHING to prevent such extremely EASY entry to the tarmac instead of "learning to live with it".

If a regional airport like Liège xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, why can't the national airport do the same? Certainly knowing there are dangerous/risky transports of money and diamonds on a daily(!) basis.

I'm a bit fed up with people trying to minimize this incident. This is no 'minor' incident, this is a scandal for BRU, period.

The best way to make any security measure useless is telling all about them to anyone.
Nice you are pointing out what to look for when trying to enter LGG but maybe it would be better to refrain yourself from doing that.

I was just repeating what was already been said in this topic.

[Passenger]

"Excuse me gentlemen, may I kindly invite you to put down your...er...8 (eight!) AK-47's, leave the 50 million in diamonds and join me to a security checkpoint. It is rather unacceptable that you delay a commercial airliner and we would like to fill in a report with you."

Newspaper Gazet Van Antwerpen has already designed a pictogram for these passengers:

[luchtzak]

Professionals

[JAF737]

Yes Bralo 20, I do think it would have been different in the States. Although Belgium tends to focus on useless details regarding security, they have just proven X times that they lack the big picture. Indeed, you passed through some places much easier in the US than in Belgium, but did you represent a risk? I don't think so. Neither did they. Here, you are a big risk anytime, which is completely ridiculous.

Furthermore, they dare to say the attack was short and well prepared. OK for well prepared, but short? Come on, it lasted 10 minutes. From the time they entered, the police should have acted!!! Not more than 10 minutes later. Again, don't tell me that in the US, police would have reacted so late. The result would have been much different, yes. They don't think twice there...

[tsv]

$50 000 000 EUR for a 5 minute heist?

Clearly it's time for a career change. Off to buy a mask and then BRU here I come!

[b720]

I find it incredible that no one at BRU has resigned, or offered to resign pending investigation??? Some one mucked up BIG time at BRU, and that person(s) is(are) failing to take responsibility.

[teddybAIR]

Do you realise that the feeling of blame actually decreases safety levels as people become less inclined to report safety breaches (some self-induced) when they think they might be punished for mistakes. That is exactly why accident investigations in aviation do not seek to appoint blame but rather investigate and remedy the root causes of a problem. THAT should be the focus: remedy the root cause. All the rest is simple irrational behaviour

[airazurxtror]

In "Le Soir", today, page15, interview of a "Bernard", ex-Sabena, who took part in two hold-ups at Zaventem : on 3 october 1995, with a Clio stolen from AA together with an engineer of the airport, on a Swissair aircraft on the runway about to take-off to Zurich (45 million francs) and on 17 february 1999 on a Virgin Express (75 million francs).
He says : it didn't take much preparation. Just a bit of spotting and locating. The airport guards used not to be very attentive. They were civil servants : somewhat dull-witted, drunkards, not very conscientious ... I don't know if it's different now. Anyway, when you see the fence, a cutting plier is all you need.

[liege-bierset]

If all that is correct, no need to be an expert in rockets science to win the Euromillons:-)
http://www.dhnet.be/infos/faits-divers/ ... soire.html

[Boavida]

If all that is correct, no need to be an expert in rockets science to win the Euromillons:-)
http://www.dhnet.be/infos/faits-divers/ ... soire.html

Unbelievable. "Security" at BRU is a joke.

[teddybAIR]

I repeat: simply take away the motivator for breaking in to the airport: the valuable transport. You could have a 24/7 watch at all points around the perimeter, but what are you going to do when you face 8 AK-47's?! Make it a live version of Die Hard 2 at an operational airport?

Do the people that wrote the report dream that an 18m wall will solve the entire problem? We live in a country where inmates escape from prisons by helicopter and an 18m wall is gonna solve a 50m heist? Yeah right!

[Squelsh]

I could be wrong on this one, but after previous heists at the airport, didn't 2 cars of the fed police escort Brinks to the airplane position, guard & wait until pushback?

Last year or something I noticed the evening diamond transport comming into brucargo with the usual 1 or 2 escorting vehicles with 4 fed police officers in each of them with P90's on their laps.

The escort just waits at the old Sabena vault in the FCB outbuilding, while Brinks is sorting everything in the vault.

When the armoured van with tens of millions of euros of valuables drives out of the vault to go the apron position, the fed police their job is done and they drive out of brucargo, assuming that nothing can go wrong anymore behind that point.

So now only 2-3 guards armed with pistol/revolver are the only ones protecting the HUGE astronomical-valued load. IMHO, this is not enough and is almost asking to be targeted when weighing risk/reward factors. With 8 gangsters (dressed in police uniforms) and as many automatic assault rifles, it is easy to baffle them first seconds and intimidate them at gun point before they realise what is really happening.

I read in some interview with police union that fed police has been faced with decreased budgets for the security of these transports. Sorry to say, but if the load is worth tens of millions of euros, these extra guards are needed. IMHO, this is the weak point in the story, combined with a pair of pliers

[b720]

Eliminating the "attractive' bait for robbers will eliminate the risks??? we can ground all flights since we're at it BRU can become a high speed train terminal to AMS or CDG this way it will certainly not be attractive to bombers and other criminals.. This is an absurd reasoning. It is even more absurd, as suggested above , that blame is counter productive. What happened proves that those in charge are incompetent. They must be removed, and place be made for those who can do the job. Simple as that.

[Passenger]

I could be wrong on this one, but after previous heists at the airport, didn't 2 cars of the fed police escort Brinks to the airplane position, guard & wait until pushback?

Last year or something I noticed the evening diamond transport comming into brucargo with the usual 1 or 2 escorting vehicles with 4 fed police officers in each of them with P90's on their laps.

The escort just waits at the old Sabena vault in the FCB outbuilding, while Brinks is sorting everything in the vault.

When the armoured van with tens of millions of euros of valuables drives out of the vault to go the apron position, the fed police their job is done and they drive out of brucargo, assuming that nothing can go wrong anymore behind that point.

So now only 2-3 guards armed with pistol/revolver are the only ones protecting the HUGE astronomical-valued load. IMHO, this is not enough and is almost asking to be targeted when weighing risk/reward factors. With 8 gangsters (dressed in police uniforms) and as many automatic assault rifles, it is easy to baffle them first seconds and intimidate them at gun point before they realise what is really happening.

I read in some interview with police union that fed police has been faced with decreased budgets for the security of these transports. Sorry to say, but if the load is worth tens of millions of euros, these extra guards are needed. IMHO, this is the weak point in the story, combined with a pair of pliers

Finally someone who says that the main cause for this heist being successfull, was the lack of security from transporter Brinks. Because uptill now, this topic was just a play toy for the anti-BRU guys.

The extremely accurate execution from the robbery also suggests that the men knew that this transport was worth it and that they exactly knew how to execute it. So it's obvious that they had an excellent inside leak: someone within Swiss, Brussels Airport or Brinks.

[andorra-airport]

It will be interesting to find out what the insurance company thinks about all this. They will not pay back that amount of money so easily. What were the conditions? Were they all met? Was just 1 security transport truck enough?

They'll pay, but at the same time try their best to track the robbers down and recoup their loss.

http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/942/Economie/a ... roof.dhtml

If it turns out that it is the security (measurements) of the airport who it is to blame, then the insurance company will try to get back the money from the airport.

[teddybAIR]

Eliminating the "attractive' bait for robbers will eliminate the risks??? we can ground all flights since we're at it BRU can become a high speed train terminal to AMS or CDG this way it will certainly not be attractive to bombers and other criminals.. This is an absurd reasoning. It is even more absurd, as suggested above , that blame is counter productive. What happened proves that those in charge are incompetent. They must be removed, and place be made for those who can do the job. Simple as that.

Do you have a better alternative? Or will firing management and replacing them magically solve the matter? Will a new management be able to magically find the funding to build an 18m concrete wall around a 25km circumfence, equiping it with camera's and ensuring 24/7 safety patrol by adequately equipped (a simple pistol will not stop 8 assault riffle-equiped and motivated thieves) personel. Or is it somewhat conceiveable that even a new management will be subjected to the same budget constraints and that they too will have to deal with a lack of resources? Is it possible that simply locating activities that tend to atract violence farther away from a public instalation, reduces the risk exposure to that installation? No? If not, I'll simply stop arguing, but I sincerely think there is an inverse relationship between distance and induced risk. If not, I'd be living in a warzone, cause house prices are far lower than where I live currently

[liege-bierset]

It is clear that security process has to be reviewed and improved. Now if that means that federal police has to be more involved, with sufficient maning and equipment, I would tend to beleive that extra costs have to be charged to the "customer". ( diamants traders ?). As said in the article, it's not enough to say : insurance Cie will pay...
http://www.lessentiel.lu/fr/news/europe ... s-12699505

[Squelsh]

The extremely accurate execution from the robbery also suggests that the men knew that this transport was worth it and that they exactly knew how to execute it. So it's obvious that they had an excellent inside leak: someone within Swiss, Brussels Airport or Brinks.

Or the handler, or maybe somebody from customs in Antwerp, or somebody from an agency that sells VAL Airwaybills? The possibilities are huge.. Important is that it were -from what I read- almost all unpolished unmarked diamonds, so they didn't face 800kgs of gold bars to unload plus they can easily sell off the goods. It's waiting for a leak/rumour in the criminal 'milieu' now I guess.

Val shipments always speak to the imagination, whether it is 1000kgs gold, diamonds, palladium, viagra, rolexes, etc.. they even inspire moviemakers like the LH JFK heist. They make great stories. As mentioned before in this topic, yes, I also heard many times the story of the lost gold bar that was recovered on BRU tarmac, all black and dusty and scratched, but serial number counted for afterwards.. I heard stories of the old Panam vault in BRU, in the eighties, that one of the bluecollars ripped a package open by accident and all diamonds fell on the floor, loads... I was once working evening shift on the routing dept at Flightcare cgo, say 6-7 yrs ago, and while pulling my manifests, suddenly 2 import-bluecollars come in with 2 packages. Packages were marked in big handwriting with their airwaybill number, and then: "Containing: Diamonds worth 850000 USD", with seal and everything. Hup, they placed the boxes in front of the dispatch desk, saying they found it in trolley that the driver brought into the warehouse for tallying. Apparently Brinks was not at the plane for pickup, because the pre-alert for VAL cargo was not sent by station of origin.
Since it was late in the evening, Brinks was already closed, so we placed it in a vault of the tracing dept, but I remember not feeling OK with that. But thank god for honest unloaders and honest warehouse staff.

Every working day of the week, the LX has these valuables in huge quantities, many people in the cargo world from BRU know this. In the morning valuables come in from ZRH, and go under armed police escort to Antwerp, and in the evening vice versa. As routing agent, doing all the paperwork and the manifest notoc etc.. for these flights, I can say that about one hour before STD the real details of the load were given to me, how many kilos of polished/unpolished diamonds -always-, valuable papers, gold, whatever...

We're not talking a few golden cartier watches here, this daily traffic has to be protected much more severely. On NGC saw this doc about the Federal Reserve underground vault in NYC, containing loads of gold bars. The protection was incredible, at all times I saw at least 6-7 heavily armed-to-the-teeth guards whenever a gold cart was moved. The value of this diamond shipment is similar in value.. the protection something else, bit more, let's say Belgian.

[andorra-airport]

@ Squelsh . Thank you for giving us so much information.... and to the rest of the world
Ah well, I can tell you things as well, but I better don't go into detail. Many many years ago, Ogden platform staff + Cathay Pacific at Schiphol. It should ring a bell, to some people who read this, because it was serious shit what happened there.

De Telegraaf , dutch newspaper today had some "news" that "Antwerp" does not want to send the diamonds via BRU anymore. Probably a journalist who wants promotion.