Crafty thieves swipe millions in jewelry from Italian palace | New ... - New York Post
A slick crew of thieves stole millions of dollars’ worth of Indian jewelry in broad daylight from an exhibit at a palace in Venice, Italy.
A brooch and a pair of earrings were lifted from the Al Thani Collection on the last day of a four-year international world tour.
“It is indispensable to understand what didn’t work properly in the security systems,” Venice Chief of Police Vito Gagliardi told the ANSA news agency, “The glass case was opened up as if it were a tin can.”
He went on to categorize the thieves as technologically adept professionals.
The thieves were able to evade police by delaying the alarm and blending in with the crowd that toured the extravagant rooms of the Doge’s Palace, which is mere feet from the Venetian waterways on St. Mark’s Square.
The stolen pieces, even though they were minor parts of the collection, will be too valuable and unique to sell on the market.
The Al-Thani collection, which belongs to Sheikh Hamad of the royal family of Qatar, is composed of pieces of jewelry, gems, gold and diamonds. The 270 pieces include antiques from India’s Mughal Empire to art deco works designed by Cartier.
Forbes magazine has said that “there is no comparable collection on the planet.”
The exhibit at the Doge’s Palace is now closed and the Al-Thani collection ends its world tour, which kicked off at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in October of 2014.
