Riviera raiders strike again
€70,000 diamond ring stolen in latest jewellery robbery on the Côte d'Azur
A PAIR of thieves have snatched a €70,000 diamond ring in the latest of a string of jewel thefts on the Riviera.
Two men grabbed the ring with a three-carat diamond after distracting the shop assistant in the jeweller’s in the Gray d’Albion Hotel shopping arcade that opens on to the Croisette.
There have been a series of high-value jewel raids on the Côte d'Azur this summer. The largest theft came at the end of July when a man stole €100 million of diamond jewellery from a display at the luxury Carlton Hotel on the Croisette. The jewels had been part of a sales display by jeweller Leviev.
In May, one million dollars worth of Chopard jewels were stolen in a raid in the middle of the Cannes film festival. They were grabbed from the Suite Novotel Hotel in Boulevard Carnot. The jewels were to be loaned to stars to wear at the festival.
Later in May a €2m diamond necklace was stolen from the Eden Roc hotel at Antibes during a Cannes Film Festival evening with actress Sharon Stone.
Then, the same day as the Carlton raid, the Kronometry watch shop was robbed by two men with guns and who fled on a scooter with a handful of watches. It was the second raid on the shop this year.
Earlier this month, safes in three bedrooms at the Grand Hôtel de Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat were robbed and jewels stolen. The value was said to be €40,000.
Days later another room safe was robbed in the Majestic-Barrière Hotel in Cannes – but only passports and a few hundred euros were lost – before a raid on a third prestigious Cannes hotel, the Martinez, saw €10,000 of jewels and €3,500 in cash stolen.
