Thieves Buy Tickets Before Plundering Necklace From Vienna Museum
- Two men smashed a display case at Vienna's Museum of Applied Arts on August 27 and fled on foot with a historic Van Cleef & Arpels diamond necklace valued at about $4 million.
- Designed for the 1939 marriage of Princess Fawzia of Egypt to Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the platinum piece features 673 diamonds weighing 200 carats and was assessed at up to $4.6 million in a 2015 Sotheby's auction.
- Police are tracking two slim suspects about 175cm tall with dark hair and beards; CCTV images captured both wearing black clothes and dark sneakers during the heist.
- The Museum confirmed the 'Prime Pieces' exhibition remains open 'with the exception of the affected exhibition' while police continue their manhunt for the thieves.
- This marks the highest value art theft in Vienna since the 2003 Saliera heist at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, though that piece was recovered three years later; the heist mirrors the 2025 Louvre theft of $100 million in jewels.
126 Articles
126 Articles
Platinum jewel adorned with 673 diamonds belonged to the Egyptian queen Nazli Sabri and was at an exhibition of the French jewellers Van Cleef & Arpels. Double assailants fled on foot and are on the run.
TVA Nouvelles
Le Journal de QuebecThe necklace was stolen in the middle of the afternoon on Thursday in an Austrian museum, the police announced.
In recent years, thefts of valuable works of art and jewelry have become more frequent in European museums, and a historic diamond necklace worth approximately 3.5 million euros, made in 1939 for Nazli Sabri, the wife of King Fuad of Egypt, was recently stolen from the MAK Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna.
According to Austrian police, the two suspects bought tickets to the exhibition before making off with the diamond necklace.
The thieves accessed the Museum of Applied Arts as visitors early on Thursday afternoon, headed to the room, broke the security glass and fled on footEight minutes to steal the 'Treasure of Villena', one of Europe's most valuable archaeological finds Austrian authorities have launched an international search and capture order against two men who on Thursday stole from a Viennese museum a historic diamond necklace valued at over four million doll…
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