Pink Panther strikes again! Master thief snatches £2m rings from art fair in Chelsea
A JEWEL thief who snatched diamond rings worth £2million from a prestigious British art fair was unmasked as one of the notorious Pink Panther gang yesterday.
Vinko Osmakcic is a leading member of the crime network responsible for gem and art thefts worth hundreds of millions of pounds across dozens of countries.
The Croatian national is once again at the centre of an international manhunt after striking at the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London with at least one unidentified accomplice.
He made off with three diamond- encrusted rings by Switzerland-based family jewellers Boghossian.
Osmakcic, who uses several aliases and is in his 60s, is believed to be one of the longest-serving members of the gang known as the Pink Panthers.
It is made up of master criminals and ex- soldiers from the former Yugoslavia, including veterans of the Bosnian war.
They got their name after one hid a £500,000 diamond stolen during a 2003 Mayfair robbery in a jar of face cream. The same trick was used in the first Pink Panther film starring Peter Sellers as the hapless French investigator Inspector Clouseau.
Police said the theft at the Masterpiece art fair last July was caught on CCTV and was completed in seconds.
The industry event was held amid apparently tight security at the military veterans’ retirement home after the Chelsea Flower Show. Among its 44,000 visitors were Kirstie Allsopp and Lord Lloyd Webber, and items on sale included a one-off 1968 Riva Lamborghini with a £2million price tag.
Amid the hubbub, Osmakcic was seen reaching inside the cabinet after his accomplice unlocked it with what appeared to be a key or similar tool.
The two men, who had mixed with guests for several hours, then calmly relocked the cabinet and left immediately, hailing a black cab which took them to Piccadilly. Footage from the scene shows Osmakcic wearing glasses with receding grey hair and dressed in a blue polo shirt and jeans.
Detective Sergeant Chris Taylor of Scotland Yard described the theft as ‘ well-planned and audacious’, with scores of potential witnesses nearby.
‘The other man has opened the cabinet and Osmakcic has then reached inside and taken the three rings,’ he said. ‘It is as simple as that really. We believe he had a key or an implement of some sort to open it.’
Mr Taylor said the men are probably now elsewhere in Europe, living under different identities.
Osmakcic, a married father, is also known as Vinko Tomic and Juro Markelic and once described himself as a selfemployed cook. Osmakcic may also be a fake name.
He is a leading figure in a criminal network believed to be responsible for more than 370 jewellery and fine art thefts worth more than £400million in 35 countries.
Many of the crimes are classic ‘distraction’ thefts carried out under the noses of staff in luxury boutiques. However, the gang is also responsible for brazen smash- and- grab raids and gun-point robberies.