Thieves steal $4 million diamond necklace in brazen smash-and-grab heist

By Oscar Holland, CNN

(CNN) — Unmasked thieves smashed open a glass display case with a hammer before stealing a diamond-encrusted necklace worth more than $4 million during a brazen daylight museum heist in Vienna, Austria on Thursday.

Austrian police say a manhunt is now underway for the two men, who posed as visitors to a jewelry exhibition at the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) where the platinum necklace — featuring 673 diamonds and once owned by Egyptian royalty — was on display.

Police have released photos of the two suspects, who were captured by CCTV cameras before entering the exhibition. The pair is believed to have fled the scene on foot toward a neighboring park. Police said that no one was injured during the incident, although one of the suspects is thought to have been carrying a firearm.

In a statement, police added that “extensive search operations” are in progress, including the use of dog units. Interpol said that Austrian authorities have added the artifact to its database of stolen artworks.

The necklace was on loan from Van Cleef & Arpels, the French jewelry house that designed it for Egypt’s Queen Nazli in the 1930s. It was on show as part of an exhibition pairing items from the museum’s own collection with more than 300 of the maison’s designs.

The exhibition closed briefly on Thursday, before reportedly reopening later that day. By Friday, a blue panel had been installed to cover the damaged display case.

Comprising diamonds with a combined weight of more than 200 carats, the missing necklace features a six-carat central stone surrounded by lines of baguette diamonds and hundreds of smaller gems arranged in a sunburst motif. It was commissioned alongside a matching tiara by Queen Nazli, the wife of Egypt’s King Fuad I, for their daughter Fawzia’s wedding in 1939.

In 1950, Nazli and another of her daughters, Fathia, were stripped of their royal titles by her son (and King Fuad’s successor), Farouk I, over his opposition to Fathia’s marriage to a Coptic Christian diplomat and commoner. The queen lived the rest of her life in the US where, amid mounting debt, she sold the necklace and tiara in the 1970s.

The necklace reappeared at a Sotheby’s auction in 2015, when it sold for almost $4.3 million. The auction catalog described its construction as “truly masterful,” noting that the distribution of diamonds made it “surprisingly comfortable to wear.”

In a Facebook post, Queen Nazli’s great-granddaughter, Fawzia Farouk, expressed her “profound sorrow” at the theft, describing the necklace as an “irreplaceable part of our family’s history and of Egypt’s cultural heritage.” She added: “It is a precious testament to an era of elegance, artistry, and vision, whose significance extends far beyond personal interests.”

In a statement shared with multiple media outlets, MAK’s director general Lilli Hollein said the theft had “hit us hard.” She added: “Especially considering the incidents at major museums in recent years, we took this as an opportunity to thoroughly review our own security measures at the museum in general.”

Local press reported that metal detectors have since been installed at the exhibition, which remains open until September 27.

It is the latest in a string of smash-and-grab raids at museums across Europe. Last October, in a crime dubbed the “heist of the century,” thieves forced open a window at the Louvre Museum in Paris before making off with a hoard of priceless Napoleonic-era artifacts. Earlier that year, robbers used explosives to enter a museum in the Netherlands, where they stole four ancient objects, including an approximately 2,500-year-old gold helmet on loan from Romania.

At an archeological museum in Alicante, Spain, last Thursday — the very day of the Vienna robbery — thieves took dozens of gold and silver Bronze Age artifacts from a collection known as the Treasure of Villena. According to Spanish media outlet El País, the assailants completed the early morning heist in under four minutes.

Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, says museum heists on the continent are becoming increasingly aggressive. In a report published last week, the agency noted a “concerning rise in violent and forceful tactics,” with thieves targeting artifacts made from high-value materials, such as precious metals and gemstones.

Europol also suggested that “new criminal actors” and “opportunists from other criminal sectors” are drawn to museum robberies as “low-risk, high-profit” crimes.

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