French police said Thursday they had recovered some of the jewels worth millions of euros looted from the Ritz hotel in Paris, but a manhunt continues for two of the robbers behind the latest in a series of daring heists in France.
The armed gang burst into the five-star hotel on the French capital’s glitzy Place Vendome through a rear staff entrance on Wednesday evening and smashed the display windows of jewellery shops on the ground floor.
Three men were arrested as they tried to flee out the back with bags of gems and watches worth over four million euros ($4.8 million) but came up against locked doors.
Part of the loot was recovered after being scattered about during the arrest of the three suspects, a police source told AFP.
More jewels and watches were found in a bag dropped by one of the two robbers who got away, another source said, without being able to give an estimate for the value of the goods retrieved.
The three arrested men, all around 30 years old, are from the Seine-Saint-Denis area north of Paris, and are “well known to the police for armed robbery, violence and receiving stolen goods”, a source close to the inquiry said.
The incident took place at about 6:30 pm (1730 GMT) as the streets of Paris were busy with people making their way home from work.
A police team in charge of patrolling the square — home to some of Paris’s top jewellers and watchmakers, as well as the justice ministry — was quickly on the scene.
– Attractive target –
Place Vendome has been the scene of several daring jewellery heists in recent years.
Several luxury brands display their jewels in the storied Ritz, famous as the lodging of choice for Coco Chanel and Ernest Hemingway as well as Britain’s Princess Diana, who stayed there before her death in a car crash in a Paris tunnel in 1997.
The hotel, opened in 1898, has been owned by Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed — father of Diana’s boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed who was also killed in the crash — since 1979.
Wednesday’s robbery took place 18 months after the Ritz’s palatial doors were re-opened to guests following nearly four years of renovations and a massive fire.
The suspects were wearing gloves and balaclavas and carrying handguns as well as hatchets, according to police sources.
On finding their escape route blocked they tried to transfer the loot through a window to two accomplices waiting outside. One of the two accomplices escaped in a car that was found abandoned north of Paris.
The other made a getaway on a motorbike, dropping a bag of jewels and knocking over a pedestrian while speeding the wrong way up a one-way street. The hotel’s management has declined to comment on the robbery.
– Long list of heists –
The total value of the loot was estimated at four million euros, a judicial source told AFP.
Interior Minister Gerard Collomb praised officers for quickly apprehending three of the robbers, saying they had “done our police force credit.” But the audacious strike at one of Paris’s most glamorous hotels could cast a cloud over the Ritz’s image.
France has found itself repeatedly in the headlines for high-profile robberies, particularly in Paris and on the Riviera.
Security around Place Vendome was reinforced in 2014 after five high-end jewellery and watch stores were hit by armed robberies in less than seven months. The losses in those attacks ranged from 420,000 euros to two million euros.
In October 2016, US reality TV star Kim Kardashian was the target of one of the biggest heists in recent years while attending Paris Fashion Week.
Five men held up Kardashian at gunpoint in the luxury apartment where she was staying, making off with a diamond ring and other jewellery pieces valued in total at nine million euros.
