Schiphol Airport Armored Car Heist: Suspects, Some Jewels Back, Some Not

Summary: The Schiphol airport armored car heist Feb. 25, 2005, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, is seven suspects closer to being solved in its 13th anniversary year.

Michael Einhorn, co-founder in 1999 of London-based Cool Diamonds (showroom at 16 Greville Street, Hatton Garden, northern London), tells The Guardian that his company's losses in the February 2005 Schiphol Airport heist amounted to £1.2 million of loose, Arges-cut diamonds, weighing from half a carat to five carats: Cool Diamonds @cooldiamonds, via Facebook March 5, 2012

The Schiphol airport armored car heist Feb. 25, 2005, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, accounts for one of the world's biggest, most high-valued unsolved diamond theft mysteries even though 2018 appears to augur answers.

The Koninklijke Marechaussee police brought in suspected perpetrators midway through the month before the 12th anniversary of the Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (Royal Dutch Airlines, KLM) incident. The Dutch Royal Military Police cluster airport security among their gendarmerie-style concerns and conducted two-city raids Jan. 20 and 21, 2017, on the basis of tip-offs. Online news describe the detentions of seven Dutch nationals as deriving from last year's discovery of new information that detected relevant, unspecified activities, locales and perpetrators.

Amy R. Connolly for UPI online Jan. 21, 2018, equates armed extractions that entail insider information and no violence with enlisting inside help that eludes evidence.

Finding five male and two female suspects January 2017 follows up on failure to furnish evidence against five detainees two to three months after the robbery.

Online sources give two to four men as getting a car into, and a truck and €75 million ($80 million, £64 million) from, Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. Their news articles have no information as to whether January 2017's five male detainees harken back to the male quintet of suspected perpetrators 13 years ago. They include no information about whether investigations in Europe's Autonomous Region of Valencia identified the whereabouts of €32 million ($43 million, £22 million) in missing diamonds.

Scott Andrew Selby and Greg Campbell juggle €75 million, $99 million and £52 million into estimated cash values of the intact Schiphol Airport armored car heist.

The co-authors of Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History, about the Antwerp Diamond Center Feb. 15-16, 2003, keep the €1:$1.3194 rate in Schiphol-related notes.

Dutch police located some diamonds in a get-away vehicle and the KLM truck's torched remains in Diemen the month after the Schiphol airport armored car heist. Two to four KLM-uniformed men maneuvered their KLM company car through the boom gates after a truck and into the securest airside of the Schiphol airport. They nabbed KLM's unarmed security guard drivers and navigated KLM's unsecured truck away from the scheduled flight to Antwerp of its diamonds unprotected by theft-deterrent packaging.

De Volkskrant coverage offered the Schiphol airport armored car heist as occurring like a kidnapping, not a robbery, with KLM protocol observing non-intervention for employee safety.

A spokesman at the time presented the company position, despite preventative protocols, that "KLM security staff were threatened during the heist, but no one was injured."

A fuel-stop system unimplemented, and non-functioning, despite guards on the ground and thieves at the wheel qualified among the last preventative protocols to quash the robbery. CCTV highway footage retraced the robbers' route from Schiphol to Diemen even though nothing revealed the reasons why the robbers rode in and out without resistance. No online sources say whether the thieves showed special passes, or sidled past without scrutiny, when speeding in by car and out by car and truck.

Who or what told the Schiphil airport armored car heist thieves how, when and where to take company transportation and uniforms in time for in-transit diamonds?

Cool Diamonds' co-founder Michael Einhorn explains in The Guardian's Feb. 25, 2005, article that a laser inscription, not removable by recutting, identifies each of his company's diamonds for legitimate dealers: Cool Diamonds @cooldiamonds, via Facebook Nov. 3, 2010

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Michael Einhorn, co-founder in 1999 of London-based Cool Diamonds (showroom at 16 Greville Street, Hatton Garden, northern London), tells The Guardian that his company's losses in the February 2005 Schiphol Airport heist amounted to £1.2 million of loose, Arges-cut diamonds, weighing from half a carat to five carats: Cool Diamonds @cooldiamonds, via Facebook March 5, 2012, @ https://www.facebook.com/cooldiamonds/photos/a.10150846732289768.521550.173880524767/10150846883829768/

Cool Diamonds' co-founder Michael Einhorn explains in The Guardian's Feb. 25, 2005, article that, despite losses of £1.2 million, his company is "100% insured so we will not be losing any sleep." Also, a laser inscription, not removable by recutting, identifies each of his company's diamonds for legitimate dealers: Cool Diamonds @cooldiamonds, via Facebook Nov. 3, 2010, @ https://www.facebook.com/cooldiamonds/photos/a.10150113441839768.330846.173880524767/10150113441919768/

For further information:

"Amsterdam Diamond Theft: Seven Arrested." BBC > News > World > Europe > 21 Jan. 2017.
Available @ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38705870

Connolly, Amy R. 21 January 2017. "Seven Arrested in Decade-Old Amsterdam Diamond Heist." United Press International > Top News > World News.
Available @ https://www.upi.com/Seven-arrested-in-decade-old-Amsterdam-diamond-heist/5611485022912/

Cool Diamonds @cooldiamonds. 3 November 2010. "Round Brilliant Cut Diamond displaying the GIA Laser Inscription." Facebook.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/cooldiamonds/photos/a.10150113441839768.330846.173880524767/10150113441919768/

Cool Diamonds @cooldiamonds. 5 March 2012. "Updated their cover photo." Facebook.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/cooldiamonds/photos/a.10150846732289768.521550.173880524767/10150846883829768/

Cowan, Rosie; Owen Boycott. "Up to £52m in Gems Stolen in Airport Raid." The Guardian > News > World. Feb. 25, 2005.
Available @ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/feb/26/ukcrime.uk

"Police Detain Dutch Diamond Heist Suspects 12 Years After Robbery." Deutsche Welle > English > News > 21 January 2017.
Available @ http://www.dw.com/en/police-detain-dutch-diamond-heist-suspects-12-years-after-robbery/a-37222729

Selby, Scott Andrew; and Campbell, Greg. 2010. Flawless: Inside the Larggest Diamond Heist in History. New York NY: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

"Thieves Pull Big Diamond Heist in Holland." NBC News > 24 February 2005.
Available @ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7032778/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/thieves-pull-big-diamond-heist-holland/#.WoSUkKinGUn