Another famous jewelry heist occurred in 1994, when the Carlton Jewelry Store in Cannes, France, was robbed of nearly $60 million of jewels.
Three armed men entered the jewelry store in the Carlton Hotel, firing their machine guns in the air.
Employees and customers panicked, while the thieves seized $59.4 million worth of jewels and escaped. An interesting note is that there were no bullet holes in the ceiling; the thieves had used blanks!
While these were undoubtedly large scores, they are far surpassed by the theft of more than $100 million in gems from the Antwerp Diamond Center in 2003.
Over a weekend, skilled thieves broke into 123 of the Antwerp Diamond Center's 160 vaults, netting more than $100 million of gems and the documents that verified the value of the gems.
Several months before the theft, the culprits had rented an office in the Diamond Center to learn the security system and copy the master keys.
One crew member was identified, but he has never been charged due to extradition agreements. None of the diamonds have ever been located.
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