National Post (National Edition)
STEAL
Confessions of the Kardashian diamond thief Megan Carnegie-Brown
Inside the Kim Kardashian heist, through the eyes of a 60-something Paris thief.
At 2:30 a.m. Paris time on Oct. 3 2016, Yunice Abbas, a 63-year-old French-Algerian, made his way to the Hotel de Pourtales to rob one of the richest women in the world, Kim Kardashian.
Along with four other men in their 60s and 70s, all dressed as police officers, Abbas, whose elderly conspirators had allegedly cased the joint beforehand, entered Kardashian's rented apartment and held her at gunpoint. They zip-tied her hands and ankles, dumped her in the bathtub and made off with $12.2 million worth of jewelry and two mobile phones.
It was a shocking crime, reportedly set in motion after the reality TV star marked her Paris arrival with an Instagram photo featuring a massive diamond ring.
But a book written by Abbas, who is awaiting trial — reveals just how madcap their plot was. I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian, his recollection of the biggest robbery of an individual in France in two decades, is by turns bizarre and fascinating; it could easily inspire the script for a Hollywood action comedy. Think Taxi meets Heat.
In the book, Abbas describes how within moments of cycling off with his loot he got a flat tire, catapulting him (and his goods) over the handlebars and on to a Paris sidewalk. A $45,000 pendant was left behind in the confusion; then a phone rang — Kardashian's, with an incoming call from singer Tracy Chapman.
Abbas tossed the phone into the Canal de l'Ourcq and sped home to face his wife, Farida, prone to chiding him for late returns.
Abbas, now 67, and his four accomplices are awaiting trial, but he plans to plead guilty to all charges against him. His book was written, he says, to set the record straight, frustrated as he was by his portrayal as “a very uninviting character… It's sad really.”
He adds he's proud to have fulfilled the kind of heist “every mobster dreams of” — in spite of claiming he “knew nothing about this girl before taking part in the robbery… I was closed off from the universe of reality TV stars and influencers.”
Abbas claims to have been recruited by an alleged criminal mastermind nicknamed Le Pince (Aomar Ait Khedache), when Kardashian was just “the wife of an American rapper,” who would be in possession of her lavish engagement ring plus jewelry loaned by fashion houses.
According to the book, Le Pince's “granny and grandpa spies” allegedly conducted multiple reconnaissance missions on Hotel de Pourtales, where they found little security. The communal door — as is common in Parisian buildings with courtyards — was open around the clock.
As for the security cameras, they were mostly a deterrent — after all, this is where high-fliers such as Prince, Madonna and Leonardo DiCaprio had stayed to ensure their privacy.
Khedache, who has previously admitted to involvement in the robbery but denies being the ringleader, is awaiting trial.
That night, a network of sources, including a brother of the owner of the car rental firm used by Kardashian and her husband Kanye West, fed the gang live updates on their movements.
By 2 a.m. it was clear that Kardashian was alone. West was on a flight to play at a festival in New York, her sister Kourtney and bodyguard Pascal Duvier were at a club, and Kris Jenner, her mother, had settled in for the night at the nearby Plaza Athenee hotel.
The concierge, on hearing banging at the door and cries of “Police!”, let the gang in and, according to Abbas, asked “Is it about the cocaine, gentlemen?” He was tied up, and Kardashian sought out.
For all his promises to “set the record straight,” Abbas fails to explain how he knew what really happened to Kardashian, maintaining he remained on the ground floor and never spoke to his co-conspirators ever again — although, “as seasoned thugs, we talk to each other with just our eyes.”
Much of the book is dedicated to his life story instead.
He describes himself as a family man who, growing up in the darkest of the Paris banlieues, was crushed by his circumstances. An apprentice mechanic, he gave most of his hard-earned salary to his mother before turning to a life of crime to pay off his debts.
He committed his first crime at 18, stealing 100,000 francs from the safe of a mini-market, for which he served two-and-a-half years in prison.
That would be just the start of a laundry list of petty crimes.
“After six years of injustice with irreparable consequences, I am already a hardened mobster in my head. Like most of my peers, I'm not even afraid of the police any more. When you get to this point, and you don't have much to lose, it is often the beginning of the end,” he writes.
During his attempts to lie low and avoid capture Abbas began “researching” his victim — by binge watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
Then a historic heart problem resurfaced and forced him into hospital, where he was told he would need a new heart valve and an urgent coronary bypass.
Healthy enough to collect his share of the cash from the sold jewelry, Abbas met the group in the car park of Hospital Saint-Antoine in Paris's 12th arrondissement.
His share was “a nice little bonus before the New Year's Eve celebrations.”
Abbas was arrested at home on Jan. 9, 2017, after the FBI matched DNA found on the concierge's cuffs with archival material from a hold-up he did in Belgium.
“The problem with your past is that it sticks to your soles throughout life. No one escapes it.”
Why Abbas has sought to write such an incendiary confessional while awaiting trial, other than to assure people he and the “papi-gangsters are just like other 60-somethings,” remains unclear.
Dairy-free, vegetarian
Prep: 10 min, plus 8 hr marinating time
Cook: 30–35 min
8 eggs
2 cups (500 mL) soy sauce or tamari
❚ 4 black tea bags
❚ 2 cinnamon sticks
❚ 1 star anise
❚ 2 tsp sugar
❚ 1/2 cup microgreens of choice (pea shoots or tatsoi is what I use), to serve
1/4 cup orange or black flying fish caviar (tobiko), for garnish
1. Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil. Gently lower in eggs and cook for 8 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer eggs to a colander. Soak eggs in a cold water bath until they have completely cooled.
2. Using the back of a teaspoon, gently crack the entire surface of an egg. Do NOT peel. Repeat with the remaining eggs.
3. In a medium saucepan, bring soy sauce (or tamari) and 4 cups (1 L) water to a boil. Reduce heat to mediumlow and simmer. Add tea bags, cinnamon sticks, star anise and sugar. Bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to low and steep mixture for 20– 25 minutes. Turn off heat, add eggs and let cool. Cover and let marinate in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours.
4. Drain eggs. Carefully remove shells. Spread pea shoots on a large plate, arrange the whole eggs on top and garnish with flying fish caviar.
Makes: 8
Make it gluten-free: This dish can be made gluten-free by using tamari instead of soy sauce.