A group of visitors from Latin America are suspected of stealing $2.1-million worth of diamonds in the Russian World Cup host city of Kazan, Tatarstan’s Business Online news portal reported.
A bag of diamonds belonging to a jewelry company from Russia’s Far East disappeared on the closing day of Kazan’s jewelry expo Sunday, the last day of the World Cup, the report says.
The 133-million ruble ($2.1 million) heist took 10 minutes to carry out, Business Online reported, citing security footage. Only around a quarter of the Seven Diamonds company’s property was covered by insurance, it cited an anonymous source as saying.
“The theft was committed on Sunday at 20:00 Moscow time after the exhibition” JewelExpo.Kazan. “The injured person is a representative of the company Seven Diamonds. Yakut diamonds,” Interfax agency was told at the Kazanskaya Yarmarka exhibition center.
Kazan police identified an unspecified number of Colombians and one Guatemalan as the alleged suspects. One of the alleged suspects has left Kazan for the South Korean capital of Seoul while the others fled to Moscow, Russian media reported.
Security footage alleging the moment of the heist shows one man in a red baseball cap and a backpack exiting a building onto an empty parking lot, followed by another man holding a large red bundle.
The head of Seven Diamonds, Vasily Savvin, confirmed the larceny but placed blame on the Russian arm of The Brink’s Company, an American security logistics firm.
“They’re the ones who lost the suitcase with the jewelry,” he told RBC.
