©Jingming Pan via Unsplash
This summer, excavations will resume in Rotterdam as part of the investigation into the heist of the century.
At the Erasmus House in late 2019, more than 1,100 kilograms of gold disappeared from a heavily secured vault, and at first, the theft went unnoticed. It wasn’t until about a year later that it became clear that 63 vaults had been emptied. The loot is now valued at around 128 million euros.
During an on-site inspection of the crime scene on Friday, judges, lawyers, and police were given a rare glimpse inside the bunker on Coolsingel. Incidentally, the location looks like a set straight out of a crime movie: doors several meters thick, narrow corridors, old vault rooms, and an access system with biometric verification and multiple layers of security. Nevertheless, according to the investigation, the thieves managed to gain entry unnoticed and replace the contents of the gold boxes with lead balls encased in silicone rubber, so that the weight remained virtually the same. The police believe it was an inside job. The main suspects are Tjeerd K. and Thomas B., the founders and former owners of Safe Deposit Netherlands. They have vanished without a trace, just like the gold. According to the reconstruction, they are believed to have left for Dubai after the heist. It is unclear whether they are still there.
The grand switch
The theft appears to have been carefully planned. According to the police, the gold was transported to the second floor via a stairlift and a freight elevator—presumably to avoid security cameras—and then brought back down to a “workshop” in the basement. There, the gold boxes were swapped for an equivalent weight of lead balls, encased in silicone rubber to keep the whole thing stable. One of those red boxes, containing 17.5 kilograms of gold, was displayed on the mantelpiece so that the judges could feel its weight for themselves.
The investigation continues
The route through the building plays a key role in the case. On paper, the vault’s security was very strict. First, an employee on the second floor had to grant permission; then, a biometric pass was required to gain entry. But exactly how the perpetrators circumvented those security measures remains one of the key questions. The preliminary phase will continue on Monday, followed by the substantive hearing of the case later this year. As long as the suspects do not appear in court and the gold remains untraceable, the Rotterdam heist will remain one of the most mysterious crimes of recent years.
©Jingming Pan via Unsplash