The thieves were also ordered to pay €320,000 in damages after wiretap evidence helped secure their convictions.

Once Belgian police had searched the properties owned by the Romanian gangsters, one of them asked the other over the phone: “Did you move the pigeons in time?”

One of the stolen pigeons, Iron Lady Ellie, was worth €200,000. They were stolen in 2016 and never recovered.

It is thought they were taken after their owner Frans Bungeneers refused to sell a bird bred from Iron Lady Ellie.