In Vienna, two men stole a diamond necklace that belonged to Egyptian Queen Nazli from the Museum of Applied Arts. The necklace contains 673 diamonds weighing more than 200 carats. It was estimated to be worth several million dollars.
The Guardian writes about this.
The attackers entered the museum at around 2pm on August 27 as regular visitors. They then smashed a glass display case, took a necklace and fled. There were witnesses at the museum during the robbery.
The necklace was made by the French jewelry house Van Cleef & Arpels in 1939. Queen Nazli commissioned it, along with a tiara, for the wedding of her daughter Fawzia to Iranian Crown Prince Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the future Shah of Iran.
In 2015, Sothebyʼs estimated the piece at $3.6–4.6 million. That same year, it was sold at auction in New York for approximately $4.3 million.
After the theft, police began searching for two suspects. According to law enforcement, they are thin men with dark hair and beards, approximately 170-175 centimeters tall. At the time of the crime, they were dressed in black.
The necklace was part of the Prime Pieces: Van Cleef & Arpels High Jewellery x Masterpieces exhibition, which was scheduled to run until September 27. The exhibition was temporarily closed after the theft.
The theft is the latest high-profile heist at a European museum, with Europol warning this week that criminals have changed tactics, increasingly using force and targeting gold and valuable historical artifacts.
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