Heist 'geniuses' got $100m gems

The haul from Belgium's most spectacular diamond robbery in Antwerp earlier this month was worth more than 100 million euros ($107m), Belgian police have said.

In what police authorities have called the heist of the century, 123 of the 160 vaults at the Antwerp Diamond Centre were emptied.

Antwerp's judicial director, Erik Sack, called the crime on 16 February "a piece of genius in its simplicity".

He said the gang had learned to circumvent the alarm system and had copied master keys after renting an office in the Diamond Centre in the name of a phantom company.

During the theft, they taped over security cameras and may have put old videotapes in the surveillance system, police said.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Heist 'geniuses' got $100m gems