Spectacular diamond heist valued at US$136m
Print Edition
An armed man who staged a brazen heist in a French Riviera luxury hotel took off with jewels worth US$136 million, prosecutors said yesterday, in one of the world’s biggest jewelry thefts.
Undisturbed by security staff, the man on Sunday walked into the Carlton in the posh resort of Cannes, a hotel popular with film stars that was once the location of Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller “To Catch A Thief.”
Armed with a semi-automatic pistol, his head covered with a cloth, he proceeded to steal items that were part of an exhibition by a group owned by Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, escaping with a briefcase full of jewels and watches incrusted in diamonds.
Authorities initially estimated the heist was worth US$53 million, but after an inventory of the exhibition, prosecutors in Grasse near Cannes have concluded that it is valued at a much higher US$136 million.
As such, it comes head-to-head with what is considered the world’s largest ever haul of jewelry — valued at around 100 million euros — which took place in Belgium in 2003.
Robbers at the time emptied more than 120 out of 160 safety deposit boxes inside the heavily fortified “Diamond Center” in the heart of Antwerp’s diamond district.
It is also France’s biggest diamond heist, eclipsing a 2008 incident when three men stole almost every piece on display at a jewelry exhibition in Paris, a theft valued at 85 million euros.
“It all happened very quickly and without any violence,” the prosecutor’s office said about the robbery in Cannes, famous for its star-studded film festival.
The theft has caused anger among employees and unions, who denounced lax security at the Carlton. The exhibition was held in a wing of the hotel with direct access to the street and police said they had not been alerted that it was taking place.
While not a legal requirement, alerting the police would ordinarily be standard procedure for luxury hotels such as the Carlton.
The CGT union said yesterday that the Carlton had already been the victim of a jewelry heist in 1994, when a security guard was seriously wounded by a bullet.
According to a source close to the case, the jewelry house Leviev was using its own security guards for the ill-fated “Extraordinary Diamonds” exhibition, which opened on July 20.
Cannes has fallen prey to thieves several times recently, notably during this year’s film festival, which attracts a glittering array of celebrities from the movie world.
In a pre-dawn heist at a hotel during the festival in May, thieves stole jewelry worth US$1.4 million due to be loaned to movie stars. The robbery took place in the hotel room of an American employee of Swiss jeweller Chopard while she was out for the evening.
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