Thieves Smash Museum Case for Diamond Necklace Worth Millions in Vienna

BREAKING: Thieves smash a museum case in Vienna and steal a diamond necklace worth millions, once owned by an Egyptian queen, in the latest in a string of high-profile museum heists.

Thieves in Vienna just smashed a museum case and walked off with a diamond necklace worth millions.

And this wasn't any necklace. It once belonged to an Egyptian queen, the kind of piece that sits behind glass for a century and then vanishes in under a minute. Police have released CCTV of two suspects, and you can see them here, faces caught mid-heist, which is usually where these stories start to unravel for the thieves.

It's the latest in a string of museum raids across Europe, and museums are clearly losing this arms race. The crown jewels lifted from the Louvre still haven't been recovered, and every unrecovered haul tells the next crew the odds are decent.

Here's the cold truth about a piece this famous. You can't sell it whole, so it likely gets broken up, and once the stones are recut, that queen's necklace is gone forever.

This is Liu Yang, reporting for HIT.