Chasing the Louvre loot: Inside Antwerp’s jewellery underworld

In the hours after the Louvre heist, Belgian police obtained an alert from their French counterparts, urging them to be on the lookout for anybody attempting to hawk the stolen jewels, in keeping with two Antwerp law enforcement officials.

The alert got here by way of the “Pink Diamond” community, a safe channel overseen by EU legislation enforcement company Europol that unites investigators specialised in high-value thefts. Antwerp, a Belgian port metropolis, has sat at the coronary heart of the world’s diamond commerce since the sixteenth century. Its wholesalers traded practically $25 billion value of stones final yr alone.

But over the final 30 years, Antwerp has struggled to comprise a rising underworld, dwelling to lots of of gold and jewellery retailers run largely by folks of Georgian descent, in keeping with police, prosecutors, courtroom information and municipal paperwork from Belgium and France. Although most of those retailers are law-abiding companies, some supply criminals from throughout Europe a channel by way of which they’ll promote stolen gold or jewels – a course of often known as “fencing.”

French authorities have positioned 4 folks beneath formal investigation in reference to the Louvre heist, however have but to recuperate jewels value $102 million. They have given no particulars about the hunt. Asked whether or not Antwerp was a spotlight of the French probe, the Paris prosecutor’s workplace mentioned: “All hypotheses are being considered.”

Antwerp police mobilised instantly after receiving the “Pink Diamond” alert, the two officers mentioned. “From the moment that happened… especially in Antwerp, with all the jewellery stores, we’ve been alert,” one mentioned.

They reviewed safety footage for French plates and tapped informants for recommendations on anybody attempting to promote the jewels. Police additionally warned some jewellers to not contact the iconic booty. Belgium’s federal police declined to remark, citing the ongoing French investigation.

Georgian merchants started settling in Antwerp in the Nineties after the collapse of the Soviet Union, police say. Many had a background in metals buying and selling and deep hyperlinks with the metropolis’s Jewish diamond merchants. There at the moment are some 300 jewellery retailers working simply outdoors the diamond district, 1 / 4 of that are concerned in “fencing” stolen product, the two police mentioned.

The Antwerp World Diamond Centre, a commerce physique representing the wholesalers, advised Reuters its repute “is occasionally put at risk” by being related to some jewellers with “questionable… money laundering practices.”

Antwerp’s diamond sector is already grappling with a G7 ban on Russian gems and a deluge of lab-grown stones which have led to traditionally low costs and requires a sector-wide bailout.
But for some jewellers, enterprise is booming. Some suspected fences drive round city in S-Class Mercedes-Benz, repeatedly open new retailers and purchase pricy overseas actual property, one among the officers mentioned.

“You clearly have two worlds here,” they mentioned. “Those who work hard, are legal… and are struggling to survive, and those who apparently do good business in the same neighbourhood selling the same products.”

Kris Luyckx, a lawyer who has defended many jewellers of Georgian descent in courtroom, mentioned compliance laws had been strong, whereas jewellers are topic to common police checks. Crime in France has been a dependable supply of revenue for Antwerp jewellers, French and Belgian legislation enforcement officers mentioned.

After robbing Kim Kardashian in her Paris lodge room in 2016, the mastermind of the plot confessed to promoting her melted gold and diamonds in Antwerp for over 25,000 euros, courtroom paperwork present. French and Belgian officers mentioned they consider the booty was purchased by Georgian fences, though no person was charged because it was by no means recovered.

Since then, over half-a-dozen French and Belgian investigations have uncovered a felony hall between the international locations during which Balkan burglars hand their stolen items to couriers in France, who ship them to consumers in Antwerp.  In most instances, the consumers had been Georgian, the Belgian law enforcement officials mentioned.

Yakout Boudali, head of intelligence for the French Gendarmerie’s Central Office for the Fight Against Itinerant Delinquency, the unit that ran three of the probes into French thieves transporting booty to Belgium, mentioned that in at the least two of these instances, the Antwerp fences had been “of Georgian nationality or held dual nationality.” However, she warned in opposition to “stigmatising” Georgians or Antwerp, saying Romania-based teams are more and more lively.

Antwerp’s illicit jewellery commerce provides to the woes of a metropolis already battling drug gangs utilizing Europe’s No. 2 port to import multi-tonne shipments of cocaine. In an open letter posted on Belgium’s courts web site final month, an nameless Antwerp decide mentioned the nation was on the cusp of changing into a narco-state.

Antwerp formalised a specialised police power to supervise the diamond and jewellery sectors in 2021. In a report at the time, which stays the most complete official account of the illicit commerce, the mayor’s workplace warned of “a strong link between fraudulent jewellers and the criminal drug environment.” Jewellers are suspected of “laundering of millions of euros in criminal proceeds,” it added.

Antwerp City Hall didn’t reply to requests for remark.
An omerta amongst many Georgian jewellers and Indian diamond merchants makes it arduous to penetrate these close-knit communities, the law enforcement officials mentioned.

The jewellers have additionally rejected what the police sources considered as an effort to enhance transparency, citing a 2017 push by then-Mayor Bart De Wever, now Belgium’s right-wing prime minister, “to drive criminal networks out of the city.” His municipal decree mandated safety cameras with facial recognition inside jewellery retailers, amongst different measures, with the photographs available to police.

Jewellers appealed the edict, however finally conceded on one situation, the police sources mentioned – the cameras might be put in however would not be turned on. Luyckx, who represented over 100 jewellers in the case, confirmed a deal was struck. He mentioned the legislation was overly invasive and unfairly focused the largely Jewish group.

“It was like profiling an area as a sort of criminal ghetto,” he mentioned.
Luyckx, who was requested to defend the jewellers by an area rabbi, Yosef Tarab Cohen, mentioned some jewellers’ wariness of cooperating with police was comprehensible, given the “smell of discrimination and racist profiling.”

Antwerp revoked the decree in 2020 after a state auditor mentioned it risked overreach and conflicted with privateness legal guidelines, courtroom paperwork present. Tarab Cohen declined to remark.

Selling stolen jewels is fast and simple in Antwerp, the two Antwerp police mentioned. Jewellers examine gold, stones or watches, title a worth and pay from undeclared money reserves. Once purchased, objects vanish. In back-room smelters no greater than a printer, gold is melted into one-kilo bricks about the dimension of a cellular phone, they mentioned.

The Louvre loot could also be too scorching for even the Antwerp jewellers to deal with, one among the cops mentioned. The jewels had been primarily set in silver, not gold, giving them low soften worth. Their outsized sapphires and diamonds are immediately recognisable, so the small circle of Antwerp cutters and polishers will not contact them. The pool of potential consumers for the pearls is tiny. “It’s not easy money,” one among the officers mentioned.