Pensioners pinged in Kardashian heist
FRANCE: Police have swooped on a gang of ageing criminals suspected of taking £8 million ($NZ13.85m) in jewellery from the reality television star Kim Kardashian in an armed robbery in Paris.
Seventeen people were arrested, three of them aged over 70 and four others over 60. Three were women. Also detained was a chauffeur who drove Kardashian on the day of the robbery in Paris. The chauffeur worked for a service often used by the star.
Investigators were helped by the discovery of a DNA sample at the crime scene. However, detectives have failed to recover the jewels, some of which they believe the robbers may have tried to sell in Antwerp, the Belgian city that is the world’s diamondtrading capital.
Police carried out a coordinated series of dawn raids in the Paris region and in southern France three months after Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint at an apartment in the city. Since then, police have been hunting for five robbers and their accomplices.
Under French law, suspects can be questioned for 96 hours before being charged. A police source said that the suspects were aged between 23 and 73, and most of them had criminal records, with convictions for armed robbery. Some were from travelling communities, others from France’s impoverished suburban council estates. Le Figaro said that many were of Algerian origin.
A 73-year-old Italian man was arrested when police raided his house in Grasse, on the Riviera. A 65-year-old woman was arrested near Nimes, also in southern France. The gang is understood to have had links to Antwerp, suggesting attempts to sell the jewels.
Kardashian, 36, was in France for Paris Fashion Week when five people, posing as police officers, broke into the apartment at 2.30am on October 3. Her bodyguard had been accompanying her sister at a nightclub. After having bound the night porter, two of the robbers entered Kardashian’s bedroom and put a pistol to her head, tied her up and stuck packing tape over her mouth. The robbers then took a diamond ring and other jewels.
Investigators discovered a DNA sample on a platinum-mounted diamond cross that was dropped by the robbers as they fled on bicycles and on foot. It was found on the pavement by a passer-by. A second trace of DNA was detected on one of the plastic cable ties that was used to handcuff Kardashian. It matched that of a gangster whose records were on a national criminal database.
Jean Veil, Kardashian’s lawyer in France, said that the gang must have had inside information about her bodyguard’s whereabouts.
Last week to promote her television show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, the star spoke about her fear during tthe attack. ‘‘They’re going to shoot me in the back. There’s no way out,’’ she recalled. The Times