Mahrez has luxury watches stolen in £500k burglary
Riyad Mahrez has become the latest top footballer to be targeted by criminals during lockdown after the Manchester City forward had £500,000 of valuables stolen from his apartment.
Mahrez had three luxury watches taken – a Richard Mille timepiece worth £230,000 and two Rolexes – plus more than £50,000 in cash, it was reported last night.
The Algerian feared that he was being watched by the burglars and that the raid was carried out to order, according to The Sun.
A letter sent to residents of the building described how four apartments were “accessed without authority using a fob which had general access throughout the building”.
A Greater Manchester Police spokeswoman said: “At around 5pm on Friday April 24, police were called to reports that four separate apartments had been burgled at a city-centre block.”
The news of the Mahrez incident comes just over two weeks after Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Dele Alli was held at knifepoint during a burglary at his home. Alli suffered minor facial injuries in the scuffle that followed and also had a Richard Mille watch, reportedly worth £150,000, stolen.
In March, the family of Tottenham defender Jan Vertonghen were also held at knifepoint while he was playing for his club in a Champions League game in Leipzig.
Last year Arsenal duo Sead Kolasinac and Mesut Ozil were victims of an attempted carjacking in north London, with further security incidents following at Ozil’s home.
Security experts told The Telegraph this month that elite footballers were easy targets for criminals and it was “only a matter of time” before a player or a member of their family was seriously injured or killed.