See the Royal Tiara That Was Stolen in a Heist
A royal tiara was stolen right from its display case in Nottinghamshire, England last week. The treasure in question is the Portland tiara, a diamond-laden piece that's "worth millions," originally created for Winifred, Duchess of Portland to wear to the 1902 coronation of King Edward VII (the Queen's great-grandfather), BBC reports.
The precious headpiece was kept at the Portland Collection Gallery at the Welbeck Estate in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, but thieves smashed into its armored glass encasement with power tools to steal the tiara last Tuesday.
Alarms went off after the theft, but guards and authorities were a little too late. "Security services missed the thieves by 90 seconds and the police arrived on the scene two minutes later," a spokesperson from the estate told BBC. Police say a silver Audi S5, supposedly used as a getaway car, was found a 30 minute drive away, according to Vanity Fair.
The Portland tiara features a center diamond, two diamond drops, and additional pendant diamonds-all set in gold and silver. "It could be worth millions-but it is such a well-known piece it can't come up for public sale," James Lewis of Bamford, a leading British auction house, told BBC. A diamond brooch was also taken in the theft.
Lewis says a worrying possibility is that the tiara could get broken up and the diamonds could be removed and sold individually, making it more difficult to track down and recover.
Although the tiara heist sounds like a cut scene from Ocean's 8, this isn't the only royal jewelry raid of the year. In July, crown jewels from Sweden were stolen from the cathedral where they were displayed, Associated Press reports. One person was arrested for the theft. None of the items were recovered.
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