The Swedish crown jewels have been stolen in a heist straight out of Hollywood
The robbers nabbed the priceless artifacts and made off by... speedboat
From The Italian Job to Heat, Hollywood has been obsessed with pulse-racing heist movies for decades. And for the perfect robbery flick, you need always need two crucial elements: absolutely shameless self-confidence and a killer getaway plan.
Now robbers in Sweden have put together an operation that rivals anything Hollywood could come up with.
According to Reuters, thieves have stolen two 17th century crowns and an orb from the Swedish royal family’s collection, before making off in a motorboat.
The priceless artifacts, including two royal crowns belonging to King Charles IX and Queen Kristina, were nabbed from Strängnäs Cathedral, about an hour’s drive from Stockholm, on Monday evening.
The stolen items (pictured) are reportedly priceless
The robbers broke into a glass case, while evading security in the cathedral, before escaping to the motorboat waiting for them a couple of hundred yards away on Lake Malaren.
They were pursued by land, air and sea but, so far, they’ve slipped through the fingers of police and authorities have no idea where they are.
“It’s 1-0 to them right now,” police spokesman Thomas Agnevik told reporters. “By boat you can reach Mälaren, Köping or Arboga in the west, or Västerås, Eskilstuna or Stockholm if you drive east.”
Police have cordoned off Strängnäs cathedral, west of Stockholm
Tom Rowsell, who called police after witnessing the escape, told the Daily Mail:
“One of my friends saw two people running. I saw the boat just there, a white little boat with a motor on the back. The two men hurriedly jumped on board. I knew immediately they were burglars because of the way they were behaving… the fact that the boat was waiting, it was obvious to me that they were burglars.”
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If these daring thieves do manage to avoid detection, they’ll face a major problem in offloading such obviously stolen goods.
“We want to spread information and pictures of these items so that they can be identified as stolen objects,” police Agnevik added. “What usually happens with this type of object is that they are recovered sooner or later, because there are very few people who are prepared to handle such items.
“We have high hopes of getting them back.”
(Images: Getty / Swedish Police Authority)
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