Gabriel Stargarder

For professional jewel thieves all across Europe, Antwerp has become a place where they know that they can take their goods and have a no questions asked purchase of them by people within this trade.

For example, after robbering Kim Kardashian in 2016 in her Paris hotel room,

The jewelry robbers went to Antwerp and they ended up selling some of their goods for about 25,000 euros.

And different types of criminal enterprises are flourishing in Antwerp at the moment.

And of course, in many ways, they will feed off each other.

So the jewelry trade offers a very easy way for people involved in the drug trade to launder their cash.

One former member of the police force that's investigating the crime, he said that he was 100% certain that they would arrest the people who did it, and that he was less confident about whether they would recover the jewels.

So far, that has proven exactly on the money.

So arresting the people is not the problem.

I think recovering the loot is where it becomes more challenging.