It was just like a scene from the Alfred Hitchcock crime caper 'To Catch
a Thief.' The same hotel. The sparkly jewels. The robbery.
Only this was real life.
A
robber, his face covered by a hat and a scarf threatened to shoot
attendees at a exhibition in Canne's Carlton Hotel, setting of the 1955
movie, on Sunday. Within minutes he had escaped with $136 million worth
of jewels: security guards at the show were unarmed, while the man had a
semi-automatic pistol.
The
robbery is the third high-profile jewelery heist in Cannes in Southern
France in only three months. During the Cannes film festival in May, a
necklace worth $2.6 million (2 million euros) was stolen from a hotel
party shortly after more than $1 million worth of jewels were stolen
from a safe in a hotel room.
The high-profile thefts follow a
brazen heist in neighboring Belgium in February. A gang of eight men
managed to snatch $50 million worth of diamonds from a plane on Brussels
Airport -- within only eight minutes.
'It comes as a big
surprise that something like this is possible,' said Jan Van der
Cruysse, a spokesman for Brussels Airport. 'But of course, this is
rather connected to banditism and organized crime rather than aviation
security.'
Yet such incidents have a history.
From 1960s
gangster film-style armed robberies to elaborate stunts involving drag
queens and fake beards, thieves from around the world have tried almost
anything to get hold of diamonds. Here are some of the biggest heists
they pulled off:
On Valentine's Day weekend in February 2003,
$100 million worth of precious stones were snatched from the Antwerp
Diamond Center.
The thieves, headed by Leonardo Notarbartolo,
reportedly managed to penetrate some of the most advanced security
measures, including hi-tech combination locks, motion and heat sensors
-- and 18-inch steel doors.
The gangsters even changed the tapes
of the security cameras in the building to avoid being identified. They
did, however, make one mistake: they left behind a half-eaten sandwich
with DNA samples on it. They were arrested after months-long police
operation involving detectives in several countries. The jewels were
never recovered.
The sensational robbery inspired a book 'Flawless -- Inside the Largest Diamond heist in the History.'
In
March 2007, a man using the name Carlos Hector Flomenbaum adopted an
unorthodox approach to robbery. Swapping weapons for chocolates and
charm, Flomenbaum became a frequent customer at ABN Amro bank in
Antwerp. Befriending the bank staff, who believed he was a successful
diamond trader, he gained their trust and acquired a key to the bank's
vault.
Once he had the key, he simply let himself in and walked
out of the front door with 120,000 carats of diamonds, worth $28
million.
In mid-May 2008, four armed robbers -- two disguised as
women -- walked into a jewelry store in Paris. Once inside, they pulled
out their weapons, forced the customers and employees into a corner,
and grabbed jewels out of display cases and safes.
Swiping an
estimated 80 million euros ($102 million) worth of jewels, the 'drag
queen robbery' became one of the biggest heists in history.
On
New Year's Eve 2008, two armed men casually walked into a shop called
Dialite Imports, one of New York's diamond district shops. Dressed in
traditional Orthodox-jewish clothing accessorized with fake beards, they
quickly gained access to the store's safe, spray-painting two security
cameras in the process. They disappeared with $4 million in diamonds and
other jewels.
The heist later turned out to be an elaborate
inside job set up by the store's co-owners, who were $1 million in debt,
six months behind on their rent and acquired a new insurance policy
shortly before the robbery.
In 2009, two sharp-suited men walked
into Graff Jewellers on central London's New Bond Street. In the middle
of the afternoon, with people walking on the streets outside, they
threatened employees with handguns and managed to steal 43 items, with a
value of about £40 million ($65 million).
In 1994 three men
armed with a machine gun stormed into the Carlton Hotel in Cannes,
France. They stole jewels valued at £30 million ($43 million) from a
jewelry shop in the hotel. Reportedly, the rounds they had been firing
were blanks -- which did not prevent them from gaining the world's
biggest gems robbery record in Guinness Book of Records.
From
1960s gangster film-style armed robberies to elaborate stunts involving
drag queens and fake beards, thieves from around the world have tried
almost anything to get hold of diamonds. Here are some of the biggest
heists they pulled off: Once he had the key, he simply let himself in
and walked out of the front door with 120,000 carats of diamonds, worth
$28 million. In March 2007, a man using the name Carlos Hector
Flomenbaum adopted an unorthodox approach to robbery. Swapping weapons
for chocolates and charm, Flomenbaum became a frequent customer at ABN
Amro bank in Antwerp. Befriending the bank staff, who believed he was a
successful diamond trader, he gained their trust and acquired a key to
the bank's vault.
Drag queens, fake beards and chocolates: Notable diamond heists
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