Detectives in Antwerp are searching for clues in a sewage pipe under the Belgian city’s diamond quarter after burglars apparently crawled through it to break into a bank holding safe deposit boxes full of jewels in a criminal caper fit for the big screen. When police attended the BNP Paribas Fortis bank, they opened the still-secure main vault door to find some 30 emptied deposit boxes, a hole in the floor and a tunnel to the sewage system. Initial investigations suggest the thieves started out in a building opposite in the early hours of Sunday and moved through a freshly dug tunnel four metres (13ft) long to connect with a sewage pipe under the road. To get closer to the bank, it seems the burglars crawled through the sewage pipe – said to be between 40cm and a metre high – before tunnelling for a further four metres and emerging among the bank’s vaults. The first the police knew of the heist was when the bank’s security firm sounded the alarm at 1.34pm on Sunday. When police arrived, they saw the vault was “still locked but the alarm was on”. The bank is on the edge of a square mile that is the largest diamond district in the world, boasting an annual turnover of $54bn. It was the scene of the “heist of the century” in 2003, when more than $100m in jewels was stolen from a vault. Willem Migom, a spokesman for Antwerp police, said: “A tunnel to the sewer system has been found. We first had measurements carried out on gas to see if it was safe to descend into it. In the sewerage we then found a second tunnel that led to a building in the Nerviërsstraat.” In a sign of the groundwork required to pull off the burglary, a mattress and digging equipment were found in the sewage pipe. BNP Paribas has declined to comment on the size of the burglars’ haul. Concerned customers gathered at the bank’s office on Monday as news of the break-in spread were asked by staff to disclose the contents of their deposit boxes. “We are investigating the size of the robbery and we cannot provide further information,” the local prosecutor’s office said in a statement. “At the moment no suspects could be apprehended.” A building opposite the bank on Nerviërsstraat was searched by police on Sunday. One unnamed person was taken in for questioning but later released. The first the residents of the central Antwerp district knew of the incident was when police raised all the manhole covers running down the centre of Nerviërsstraat on Sunday afternoon. One woman in an adjacent street told Het Nieuwsblad she had heard “a lot of banging” from the neighbours in the past few days. The newspaper likened the crime to the infamous 1976 Ocean’s Eleven-style bank heist, when 13 people used the sewers to break into the vaults of the Société Générale bank in central Nice. That gang cleared more than 300 safe deposit boxes of gold ingots, cash and jewellery valued at 50m francs – about £24m today – before fleeing just in time to escape the rising sewage that was flooding the bank. Roger Moorthamer, a spokesman for the federal police, said: “We have no idea at the moment who the perpetrators are.” Els Liekens, of the engineering company Aquafin, told Het Laatste Nieuws the theft had been extremely risky. “I do not know how those burglars got out alive there. When it starts to rain, rainwater enters the sewers and can fill up very quickly, which can lead to drowning if you are there,” she said.<doc-sep>"First of all, digging the tunnel towards the sewage system was dangerous for the robbers themselves because of a possible subsidence," she said.<doc-sep>Robbers raided dozens of safe deposit boxes from a bank in Belgium at the weekend after tunneling in, prosecutors said. The thieves tunneled up into the vault of an Antwerp branch of BNP Paribas via a nearby sewer system. At 1:34 p.m. (12:34 UTC) the bank's alarm was triggered despite the vault door remaining locked. By the time authorities made it into the vault, thieves had opened and robbed 20 to 30 deposit boxes and fled into the tunnel. A search of the sewer in Antwerp's famed diamond district found a second four-meter (13-foot) tunnel that led into the basement of an apartment building several hundred meters away from the bank. The robbers presumably descended into the sewer system from the basement, traveling through the sewer before ascending into the bank vault. Police have not said what was stolen, but bank customers were queuing at the branch on Monday to find out if they were victims of the theft. "We are investigating the size of the robbery and we cannot provide further information," the prosecutor's office said in a statement. The police have no major suspects. Read more: French police capture Hollywood-style jailbreaker Apartment residents questioned Local paper Het Laatste Nieuws reported the basement of the building had been vacant for some time, citing residents. Some residents of the building were reportedly interviewed by police but released without charge. Equipment, including a mattress, was found in the sewer. Read more: Thieves dig tunnel to burglarize Berlin bank Municipal authorities told Belgian radio the raid was very dangerous for the thieves, saying they risked drowning from fast-moving rain water or asphyxiation from noxious gases. Sewer pipes in the city can be as big as 1.3 meters high and as wide as 80 centimeters. But they can also be considerably smaller and often have obstacles inside. DW editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it here.<doc-sep>
In a brazen bank heist worthy of a Hollywood movie starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt, thieves broke into a bank vault holding deposit boxes full of jewels through sewage pipes under the Belgian city of Antwerp. The authorities were initially left baffled upon arrival to the BNP Paribas bank on Sunday in response to the security alarm going off, with the vault doors secured and no signs of criminal activity. They only grasped the seriousness of the heist after entering the vault and seeing some 30 empty deposit boxes, a hole in the floor, and a tunnel to the sewage system. STOLEN SWEDISH ROYAL ARTIFACTS WORTH $7M MAY HAVE BEEN FOUND, POLICE SAY Police are unable to quantify the exact damage caused by the thieves, with many clients of the bank checking whether their possessions were stolen. “We are investigating the size of the robbery and we cannot provide further information,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The bank is located in the famed largest diamond district in the world that claims of annual turnover of $54 billion, according to the Guardian. Detectives have so far determined that the complex robbery involved digging a tunnel from a home several hundred meters away into the sewage system. 4 MEN TIED TO LEBANESE MAFIA IN GERMANY ON TRIAL OVER HEIST OF $4M GOLD COIN The bank robbers then had to make their way through tight sewers – less than a meter wide – towards the bank, while risking the prospect of being flushed with water or harmful vapors. Upon arriving at the bank, the criminals had to dig another tunnel to get into the vault of the bank. “A tunnel to the sewer system has been found. We first had measurements carried out on gas to see if it was safe to descend into it. In the sewerage we then found a second tunnel that led to a building in the Nerviërsstraat,” Willem Migom, a spokesman for Antwerp police, told the Guardian. The investigators speculate that the robbers may had more time to empty the vault as it was a weekend and the bank was closed, though the theory remains uncorroborated. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP A prosecutor said the bank called the police about the burglary around 1:34pm on Sunday. They say the vault was “still locked but the alarm was on.” Only after entering the vault they saw the “hole in the floor.” No suspects have been arrested in relation to the crime, the prosecutor said. The Associated Press contributed to this report.