Pink Panther member escapes

According to UPI, a member of the Pink Panther gang has escaped from a Swiss prison.

Two accomplices used ladders, a van and automatic weapons fire to get Poparic and another prisoner out of the prison near the French border, Thursday, the BBC reported.

Steal it then burn it?

Yahoo have an article about how the 7 masterpieces stolen from the Kunsthal museum may have been destroyed by the thieves who found themselves unable to sell the world famous pieces.

"A Romanian museum is analyzing ashes found in a stove to see if they are the remains of seven paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Monet and others that were stolen last year from the Netherlands," reports the Associated Press, which adds that the ashes were found in the stove of one Olga Dogaru, the mother of prime suspect Radu Dogaru.

More on Belgian diamond heist

The New York Times has a follow up article on the Belgian airport diamond robbery.  It seems it may not have been as well planned as originally thought.

Jewel Robbery at Cannes

The Atlantic Wire reports on a robbery in France during the Cannes Film Festival.  Someone left $1 million worth of jewellery in a hotel room safe and when they came home early in the morning the safe had been ripped off the wall and the contents stolen.

1990 Art Thieves IDed by FBI

According to ABC the FBI has identified, though not publicly, the people involved in a massive 1990 art theft in Boston. 

On the night of March 18, 1990, two thieves posed as Boston police officers. Once inside the museum, they tied up the guards and left with 13 masterpieces, including works by Degas and Rembrandt, valued at a total of $500 million.

The statute of limitations has since run out on the theft and officials have said naming the suspects would be "imprudent," given the continuing effort to recover the art work. DesLauriers said the announcement today, on the 23rd anniversary of the heist, was intended to increase public awareness, possibly leading to the artwork being found.

Brussels Airport Diamonds Heist

The Guardian has a report on a very smoothly executed robbery at the Brussels airport where thieves dressed as police stole $50 million worth of diamonds.

The men flashed machine guns but no shots were fired as they took 120 parcels from the plane's hold, stacking them in their vehicles. They fled at high speed through the hole in the security fence. The van believed to have been used in the raid was later found burnt out just outside Brussels.

Ine Van Wymersch, spokeswoman for the Brussels prosecutor, said: "They were well prepared. There were passengers on the plane but they saw nothing of what was going on."

$400K snatched from car

Reuters is reporting on $400,000 of diamonds that were snatched from a car in Florida.  The question is, what this planning or did some opportunist get a huge surprise?