Belgium Police Offer Reward For Stolen Diamonds

BRUSSELS, Belgium, March 13, 2007 — -- Belgian police offered a 2 million euro (US$2.6 million) reward Monday for tips that help them track down a man who stole US$28 million (21.3 million euros) worth of diamonds from an Antwerp bank lastweek.

Prosecutors said they are searching for a man who broke into open safetydeposit boxes in an ABM Amro bank in the city's diamond quarter.

Police are unsure how he did it but believe he may have carefully plannedthe robbery, becoming one of several trusted diamond traders given anelectronic card to access the vault. The suspect had been a regular customerat the bank for the past year, giving the name Carlos Hector Flomenbaum fromArgentina.

They now believe that the suspect was using a false identity because apassport in that name was stolen in Israel a few years ago.

They released a composite photo of a gray-haired man, 1.90 meters (6 foot3) tall and aged between 55 and 60. They said he speaks English with anAmerican accent and often wears a baseball cap, and they are appealing toanyone who got to know him during his time in the city to come forward.

The bank discovered the theft on March 5, believing that someone took thestones that Monday morning or the previous Friday from a vault used bypawnbrokers and diamond cutters.

Police did not say why they had waited over a week before making the theftpublic, nor did they mention who had put up the reward money.

The stolen diamonds weigh 120,000 carats and include some very unusualstones, police said.

The diamonds will be difficult to sell on world markets, said Philip Claes, spokesman for the Antwerp Diamond Council. He told Belgium's RTL-TVI television network the haul included both cut gems and rough diamonds which cannot be sold without certificates of origin to show they have not come illegally from war zones.

In 2003, in the world's largest safe-deposit box theft, thieves in Antwerppried open 123 boxes, finding so much loot they could only carry away US$100million worth of diamonds, gold and jewelry.