Armed robbery at Brussels Airport

[sn26567]

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.

Or a conspiracy by KLM and Schiphol to attract that lucrative cargo business in The Netherlands? They probably forgot what happened to a larger amount of diamonds in Schiphol in 2005!

[LJ]

Or a conspiracy by KLM and Schiphol to attract that lucrative cargo business in The Netherlands? They probably forgot what happened to a larger amount of diamonds in Schiphol in 2005!

I doubt they forgot and it was not a good idea to have 1 daily flight on weekdays of which everyone (including the entire spotting community) knew what the load was en when it would depart.... Doing these shipments ex AMS again will attract robbers again.

Why not send the cargo on a plane from ANR? Or would it be an easy target at ANR?

[Passenger]

The robbery was discussed during "question time" in the general assembly from the Belgian Parliament on Thursday 21 Febr:

html link (see item n° 7)
http://www.dekamer.be/doc/PCRI/html/53/ip132x.html

pdf link (see item n° 7)
http://www.dekamer.be/doc/PCRI/pdf/53/ip132.pdf

[Flanker2]

Why not send the cargo on a plane from ANR? Or would it be an easy target at ANR?

Sometimes it makes you wonder whether the owner of the diamonds isn't trying too hard to have his merchandise stolen After all, they would know their merchandise's itinerary better than anyone else, and as long as they get paid by the insurance/transporter AND still hold the merchandise...

If merchandise there was...

Who really knows if those were diamonds in there, it could have been anything, it's not like Brink's will check the contents to see what's in there. As long as it says that on the manifest, the owner can claim his money from the transporter.

[Squelsh]

'De Beers' used to do LHR-ANR flights with their own aircraft and crew.

Crew were all ex-RAF pilots with perfect records. Again, with this kind of loads, you have to think of every possible scenario. Don't know if they still do these flights..

Found a DeBeers cap emblem on a militaria some time ago..

[Passenger]

It's one of the three topics in VTM Telefacts tonight (VTM = Flemish commercial tv)

http://vtm.be/telefacts/diamantroof-op-zaventem

there's a mention "Monday 17h20" on that site, but that was the time that the article was put online. Telefacts is scheduled for 21h30-22h10.

[Passenger]

Press reports: "Some arrests have been made, gang leader has been arrested, some of the diamonds have been recovered".

Belgian Police will give a press conference at 11h00.

[chornedsnorkack]

The robbers complain that they had hoped to get money. If they had, they would never have been caught, for they were caught attempting to sell diamonds.

[Boavida]

Glad to hear the gang is behind bars.

Good work of the police! :thumbup:

ps: does anybody knows if Brussels Airport has done (or is going to do) something to improve security on its grounds? Or is it business as usual without any lessons learned?...

[hvs89]

Yes they have:

[Boavida]

So more ugly concrete blocks are the answer? Looks quite amateuristic to me...

No replacement of the old (and tiny) fence? (Just look at the state of that fence on the picture. Appalling)

[hvs89]

Maybe a provisional answer?
Picture taken a couple of days after the armed robbery took place.

[Passenger]

So more ugly concrete blocks are the answer? Looks quite amateuristic to me... No replacement of the old (and tiny) fence? (Just look at the state of that fence on the picture. Appalling)

Useless costs indeed. They should have installed sensors on the fence. That keeps heavily armed gangs in stolen vehicles away, as you've advised us some time ago:

If a regional airport like Liège has sensors installed on their fence, why can't the national airport do the same?

But actually it was not a question, I guess, but just another anti BRU statement like this:

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.

No, let’s remain serious, shall we? The answer on your question was given weeks ago, by one of the policemen investigation the robbery, in the Telefacts broadcast on VTM: “if a gang of eight robbers with assault rifles, laser guns and stolen vehicles want to intrude a civilian airport with a fence of some 14.000 metres, they will. You cannot stop them, unless when you change the airport into a military bunker with armed police at every corner. But even that wouldn’t have stopped these guys”, the policeman said, “unless we had a shoutout with deadly victims at both sides”.