At first is seemed the two well-dressed, armed robbers, had not bothered to try wear any disguise, when they robbed the exclusive Graff store, in New Bond Street, London, of $67 million. The thieves set a new record, for stealing precious gems.
The heist was well organized and perpetrated in broad daylight. An unsuspecting 29 year-old professional make-up artist was used to ‘remodel’ the faces of the two robbers, for a fee of $650. He had been told the men were starring in a music video. “They asked him to make them look older. He used special latex material to change the way they looked and was really pleased with the result,” said a friend of the make-up artist.
In a ‘Mission Impossible‘ scenario, the thieves spent 4 hours at the make-up studio, during which time they had their hair coloured, skin tone changed and stick-on prosthetics attached to their faces. Having changed from T-shirts and shorts into formal suits, the men carried the heist out, one and a half hours after leaving the studio.
The thieves grabbed only 43 exquisite pieces of jewellery, including a pair of circular diamond earrings, yellow diamond flower necklace and a $6 million watch. They then dragged a female staff member with them as a hostage, when they retreated from the jewellery store. She was unharmed when a security guard pulled her to safety.
As the BMW raced away from the store, it hit a taxi. A 24 year-old, would-be-hero, who had been drinking outside a pub, gave chase thinking it was just a hit-and-run incident. He gave up when he was fired on by the retreating thieves.
It is believed the stolen gems were quickly whisked overseas within hours of the heist. Expert Antonia Kimbell, of the Art Loss Register’s recovery unit, said: “These items are highly portable and a flight would have been set up. The Jewellery will pass through a number of hands quickly, to dissociate it with the people who carried out the robbery.”
It is estimated the stones will be broken up and sold for 10% of their market value, which would still net the robbers around $7 million. The most likely market-place for the gems being East Asia.
It is believed the robbers could be connected with the infamous Pink Panther gang, a group of highly-disciplined former soldiers from Serbia.
Similar daring raids have also been carried out in the past 10 years, across 19 countries in Europe, Asia and the Persian Gulf. A brazen theft netted cross-dressed thieves a million dollars when they robbed an up-market Paris store in December 2008.
The same make-up studio had also unwittingly provided disguises for the Securitas mob, which perpetrated England’s biggest cash robbery. $175 million was stolen from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent, in 2006.
Not only does the latest theft hold the record of being the largest jewel heist in England, it also has the record for offering the largest reward, of $1.6 million.
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Tags: biggest cash robbery, biggest jewellrey heist, biggest jewellrey robbery, Britain’s largest jewellrey robbry, largest cash robbery, largest jewlry robbery, largest reward offered, mission impossible copycat, pink panther gang, record reward offered
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August 19th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Robbery Records Broken…
Using Mission impossible copycat tactics robbers pull off England’s biggest jewellrey heist. Now it holds the record of the largest reward offered….