Fresh probe into £4m gran larceny
CPS PURSUES RUSSIAN MOB
PROSECUTORS are trying again to recovering loot from Britain’s biggest jewellery heist.
Russian mobsters are believed to be behind the raid in which a woman in a granny disguise stole £4.2million of diamonds – swapping them for pebbles.
Not a penny has been recovered from the 2016 snatch at Boodles in Mayfair, West London.
The Sunday People can now reveal that the Crown Prosecution Service has started a new legal battle to claw back the proceeds.
But it was warned the effort could be an uphill struggle.
A source said: “The police reckon the gems have already been re-cut and sold on, so they will be very hard to trace. The Russian mobsters behind this were well resourced and meticulous. There’s little hope of the authorities recovering the diamonds or the cash made from their sale.”
An international manhunt for the gang is still ongoing, despite three being nabbed.
Jewel thief Lulu Lakatos, 60, was jailed
for five-and-a-half years in July. Using sleight of hand, she switched gems for rocks of the same weight while pretending to carry out a valuation for wealthy Russian buyers.
The crook – a former cleaner and school catering assistant in her native Romania – managed to hand the purse to two women walking past outside. Neither has ever been traced.
Lakatos dumped her disguise in a Wetherspoon’s pub toilet before fleeing via the Channel
Tunnel. Boodles discovered the theft the next day when staff opened the safe and found small garden pebbles.
The real diamonds – including a £2.2m, 20.06-carat stone cut in a heart shape – have never been recovered.
The only hint of them being traded on the open market came in 2017, when detectives believed one may have turned up at a Belgian jewellery store.
Its unusual size raised suspicion but the paperwork did not match. Lakatos was tracked on CCTV by police after she boarded a Eurostar train to Paris. She was arrested in France in September last year.
Two other raiders, Christophe Stankovic, 34, and Mickael Jovanovic, 28, were jailed for three years and eight months last year after being convicted of conspiracy to steal.
The CPS declined to comment on the matter except to confirm that confiscation proceedings are due to start at Southwark crown court in February.
Justice campaigners welcomed the move to pursue the gang.
David Spencer at the Centre of Crime Prevention added: “It is absolutely right that the CPS is going after this criminal gang to recover the goods it stole.
“Too often we see criminals getting to keep all or most of their stolen assets, even when convicted of the crime.
“It is refreshing to see that is not the case in this instance and the CPS should pursue every avenue to recover these stolen gems or any financial gain these crooks have made selling them.”