The recent terrorist attack in Paris hasn’t deterred jewellery thieves in the least. Just yesterday, a Chopard boutique was broken into during the day, after two men stormed in armed with a gun and a grenade (or GRENADE as the Daily Mail likes to put it) before making off with their haul.
This isn’t the first time the Swiss luxury jewellery brand has experienced a robbery. Just last December, its store opposite the presidential Elysée Palace was robbed and the lone robber got away with jewels and watches worth over 1 million euros after brandishing a weapon. In 2013, another heist took place at the Cannes film festival by unscrewing an entire safe from a room wall of a Chopard employee.
We’re not one to glorify heists, but we also grew up on plenty of Ocean’s Eleven, Reservoir Dogs and Point Break (the Keanu one, not this film travesty) so here are August Man’s favourite heists of the past decade (no tips available unfortunately).
A professional make-up studio, suited gents, and a Bimmer as a getaway car – what more could you ask for? Graff got cleaned out of £40 million worth in jewellery, most of which has yet to be recovered even though the robbers were caught and now sit behind bars. And how do you get caught after planning such an elaborate heist? You leave a phone with everyone’s contacts on it in the getaway car.
Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company, London (2015)
Like Reservoir Dogs but with geriatrics instead, the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company robbery saw seven elderly men execute a heist in its building, taking home an estimated amount of above £60 million in stolen cash and jewellery from 73 security boxes. The “experienced” thieves, who’ve all been caught even included one ex-police officer who has yet to be apprehended. The robbers’ modus operandi included disguises as well as drilling through vault walls to bypass the main vault door.
We love Harry Winston timepieces and the fact that robbers dressed as women stepped into a Paris boutique and possibly walked away with an Opus XII hurts our heart and could almost (ALMOST) convince us to try out the criminal life. What’s even crazier was that the robbers had hit up the same store just 14 months prior, dressed as builders. How’s that for confidence?