On Tuesday morning, Marian Bee de Wolf worked at TEFAF, one of the world’s leading trade fairs for art and ancient relics. She saw a group of men running down the hallway.
It was a strange sight, she said in a telephone interview, as “no one is running at TEFAF”, which is held annually in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Things went awry, and at the next booth owned by a London jeweler, a man pulled out a heavy object and “started beating” the glass case, Bies de Wolf said. Symbolic & chase.. Bies-de Wolf said she couldn’t tell if the man had taken anything. She ran away after someone shouted that the thief had a gun.
Hours after the robbery, it was still unknown what the thief stole.Dutch police Said in a news release The four men had jewels, but no further information was available. Two men from Belgium were arrested, their potential involvement was being investigated, and a search for others involved in the theft was underway.
In a telephone interview, Wim Kunen, a spokesman for the Dutch police in Limburg, a region covering Maastricht, said he could not comment or state any further about whether the gems had been recovered.
A Symbolic & Chase spokesman declined to comment on the incident.
Also known as the European Art Fair, TEFAF is one of the longest-running art trade fairs in the world, specializing in art and ancient relics. The current edition is the 35th and will open on Saturday and run until Thursday.
This year’s event will be attended by 242 dealers. Symbolic & chase.. According to the Instagram feed, Symbolic & Chase had a large number of items on display at the fair. Diamond ringWhen Intricate Japanese style gold bracelet..
The TEFAF organizers do not mention that Fair experienced robbery on social media.of Post to Twitter They said the fair was “temporarily evacuated due to the incident” and “still open to visitors and exhibitors.”
Still, to witnesses, the event seemed more dramatic. British dealer James Butterwick said on the phone that he was only a few meters away from the robbery when the robbery took place. Butterwick said he left another booth and saw a man trying to break a glass case.
A A visitor to the Dutch trade fair picked up a vase and tried to fight the robbery, Butterwick added. “Something got worse,” Butterwick said.
Mr. Butterwick, the account is Backed by video footage of robbers posted on social media, Said the event lasted about 30 seconds. He added that he hadn’t seen what the robbers stole, but they seemed “after a particular item.”
Butterwick said when he attended the trade fair, the guards at the entrance “looked at you” and checked the bag, although they didn’t have to go through the metal detector or tap it.
He added that he did not see the guards confront the robbery. “The fair security team has swiftly worked to disarm the criminals,” TEFAF said in an email statement Tuesday afternoon, and Dutch police arrived at the scene within minutes. “No one was injured during the incident,” the TEFAF statement added.
This is not the first time TEFAF has been robbed. In 2008, a thief stole a diamond necklace Worth about $ 1.8 million from the fairIn 2010, Rings and necklaces worth about $ 1.3 million It was stolen from a booth run by another London jewelery dealer, Hancock.
Hancock did not respond to the request for an interview on Tuesday.
