Overview
- Two unmasked men bought tickets and entered the Museum of Applied Arts before smashing a glass case with a hammer and taking the necklace during opening hours on Thursday.
- The stolen piece is a platinum Van Cleef & Arpels necklace set with 673 diamonds totaling more than 200 carats that was made for Egypt’s royal family and sold at Sotheby’s in 2015 for about $4.3 million.
- Vienna police have released CCTV stills and suspect descriptions—two slim men about 170–175 cm tall with dark hair and beards wearing black clothes and dark sneakers—and say one assailant may have carried a gun-like object.
- Authorities deployed forensic teams, police dog units and Austria’s federal cultural-heritage investigation unit and have widened the search nationally and internationally while the necklace remains missing.
- The theft has renewed scrutiny of museum security after a string of high-value European robberies and investigators are examining whether organized criminal groups targeted the item for resale or to be broken down for parts.