Brussels Airport diamond heist (2013)

On the evening of February 18, 2013, eight men in outfits resembling police uniforms drove through the perimeter fence of Brussels Airport, up to a Helvetic Airways plane bound for Zurich, and blocked the armored van that had just brought its cargo. Within minutes, without a shot fired, they took more than a hundred parcels of diamonds. The announced value was around 50 million dollars. Arrests followed in May 2013, in Belgium and neighboring countries. Specie in air transit is usually written vault to vault, from shipper to consignee, and the policy splits the journey into stages: pickup, carriage by courier, handover to the airline, flight, delivery. The most exposed stage is the transshipment, when parcels move from the van to the hold. On the tarmac, custody changes hands within minutes, from the courier to the ground handler and then to the airline, and who held the parcels at the minute of the theft then governs every recovery action. For the underwriter, the case showed that an apron reputed to be secure is still a fence, with vehicles imitating those of the authorities and the one point in the chain where the stones are exposed. Questions have since focused on the tolerated length of the transfer, escort up to the aircraft and last-minute loading. The liability of the airport and the carrier is argued separately, under air carriage limits calculated by weight, unless a special declaration of value was made, and far below the value of the stones. The claims adjuster starts from the air waybills and handover receipts to establish which parcels were already in the hold and which were still waiting. Not to be confused with cargo theft from a warehouse, where the loss occurs at a fixed site, nor with cash-in-transit insurance, which covers cash entrusted to a courier on the road.