Sunday, August 30, 2026 - Austrian police are searching for two men who allegedly stole a 200-carat platinum necklace encrusted with 673 diamonds from a museum in Vienna.
The necklace, which was on loan to the Museum of Applied
Arts (MAK), reportedly once belonged to Queen Nazli of Egypt. Police released
images of the suspects captured by security cameras during the theft and
appealed to members of the public for information that could help identify or
locate them.
The two men reportedly entered the museum after buying
tickets to the exhibition. During opening hours on Thursday afternoon, they
allegedly smashed a glass display case with a hammer before taking the necklace
and fleeing the scene. In an appeal for information, police said: “The
perpetrators fled with the jewellery in an unknown direction.”
Officers searched parts of central Vienna and deployed a
police tracking dog as they attempted to trace the suspects. Austrian newspaper
Kronen reported that investigators believe the theft may have been carried out
as a “contract job” for a criminal gang.
The stolen necklace was part of an exhibition that had been
on display at the MAK since June. The exhibition featured more than 300 works
associated with French luxury jewellery house Van Cleef & Arpels. No one
was injured during the incident, although several visitors were reportedly
present in the exhibition room when the theft occurred.
Museum documentation states that the necklace once belonged
to Queen Consort Nazli of Egypt. She reportedly wore the piece during the 1939
wedding of her daughter, Princess Fawzia, to Iran’s then Crown Prince Mohammad
Reza Pahlavi, who later became shah. The necklace was sold by Sotheby’s in New
York in 2015 for $4.3 million.
The MAK said the exhibition brought together about 200
“unique and rarely seen objects” from its own collection and pieces from the
heritage collection of Van Cleef & Arpels, covering about 120 years of the
jewellery house’s history.
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