The National Police in Ibiza arrested the mastermind of the biggest diamond robbery in the history of the Netherlands on Tuesday. The event took place on 25 February 2005 during the assault by a group of armed people on an armoured KLM airline vehicle on a maximum security runway at Schiphol Airport (Amsterdam). Most of the loot, worth more than 72 million dollars (around 67 million euros), was made up of precious stones and was never recovered.
Errol H.V., 59, was the mastermind of the operation. He was sentenced in 2021 to 9.5 years in prison for the spectacular diamond heist, but only served just over three years and disappeared. It appears that the now arrested man had been been living on the island for quite some time.
This is how the robbery went
According to the Dutch media NOS, at 10 a.m. on February 25, 2005, a Tulip Air plane was ready to take off for Antwerp on tarmac B34 at Schiphol Airport when men entered Schiphol’s closed cargo area in a stolen KLM airline van. The media outlet says: “They used automatic weapons to force employees to hand over a shipment of diamonds and jewelry. The thieves loaded the jewelry and quietly drove the van off the site. They managed to get out of the closed goods section by driving behind a car that was passing under the open barrier at the time.”
Help from inside?
The thieves left the Citroën-branded KLM van in Hoofddorp: “In their haste they forgot some of the loot, but still managed to get their hands on 63 million euros worth of diamonds and jewelry. Detectives have long assumed that the thieves were not alone, but received help from inside,” says NOS.
In 2021, four men were convicted after a lengthy investigation and a multi-country operation. The suspects were also arrested in 2005 and 2006but they had to released for lack of evidence. A fifth suspect died during the criminal trial.
In January 2017, the seven suspects – five men and two women, all Dutch – were arrested in Amsterdam and Valencia in a joint operation by the two countries.
The mastermind of the robbery, Errol H.V, appealed the sentence as it was the highest of the remaining convicts and his capture was not ordered. In October 2023, the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence.
As reported by the National Police this Wednesday, the now arrested man had been living on the island for quite some time. The investigation began in November 2023, when the police in the Netherlands” brought to the attention of the Fugitive Locator Section, through the Enfast Network (it is a network of police officers), that a fugitive with a European Arrest Warrant for his arrest and surrender in force could be found in Ibizaissued by the Netherlands for robbery with violence and intimidation using weapons.
From that moment on, the agents of the Fugitive Locator Section went to Ibiza. After an exhaustive search, he was located in a villa on the island and was finally located on Tuesday afternoon when he left his house and got into a car as a passenger.
The agents chased the car for several kilometers and stopped him by cutting him off with three cars and arrested him. The investigators noted his great physical change compared to the photographs they had. Errol H.V. had a much more youthful and slimmer appearance. In addition, the agents do not rule out that he had undergone cosmetic retouching to change his appearance so as not to be easily recognized. Once arrested, he was placed at the disposal of the Central Court of Instruction number 6 of the Audiencia Nacional.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.