When you think diamond heist, you think fast-paced movies like The Pink Panther, Ocean’s 11, and Reservoir Dogs, not something that actually happens in real life. But the truth is that piles of real diamonds are sometimes too tempting a target for crooks to ignore. Criminals regularly pull off daring heists, nabbing millions of dollars worth of precious gems in an instant. These capers usually take a long time to plan, a lot of thought to execute, and the gems are rarely returned to their rightful owners.
Here are just three true tales of diamond thefts that put your everyday hollywood heist stories to shame.
1) Graff Diamonds
In 2009, an experienced makeup artist in London was approached by two men for a job. They were shooting a music video, they claimed, and wanted to look very different. She altered their skin tone, changed the appearance of their jawline, and fitted wigs. After observing the work, one of the men remarked “My own mother wouldn't recognise me now.” The other laughed and said, “That's got to be a good thing, hasn't it?”
What the makeup artist didn’t know is that she had unwittingly prepared disguises for diamond thieves. Now completely disguised, they appeared at Graff Diamonds jewelry store looking like any other well-dressed customers. They then drew handguns, and threatened the employees, who quickly unlocked display cases that showed of the store’s prices and rarest merchandise. They left the store carrying 40 pieces of jewelry valued at a stunning $65 Million.
They left the store, fired off a shot to scare witnesses, and sped off in their getaway car. To avoid detection, they switched cars while escaping, and left to their safehouse.
They might have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for one major mistake: they had left a cell phone in their original getaway car. Police used the number from the cell phone to track down the thieves, nabbing ten in all. Even though everyone in connection with the crime was caught and will always have the crime on their criminal records, the jewelry was never recovered.
2) Harry Winston
The robbers who knocked over the Harry Winston store in Paris, France went a step further than just disguising their faces — they also disguised their gender. On December 4th 2008, four men, some of whom were wearing dresses and wigs, walked into the Harry Winston Store and brandished handguns.
Over the course of the next fifteen minutes they smashed display cases and barked orders — they evidently knew some of the employees first names. The store was right down the street from a police station, but the thieves acted too fast for the police to arrive. They got into their getaway car with sacks of rubies, diamonds, and emeralds valued at more than $105 Million, and sped away.
While investigators believe that the robbers were part of an Eastern European organized crime syndicate, they have never been caught — and the millions of jewels have never been recovered.
3) Diami Store
On February 24th 2008, the owners of the Diami Store in Milan were schmoozing with celebrities in afterparties for the Academy Awards. Unbeknownst to them, meticulous robbers were stealing millions of dollars worth of their jewelry back home.
Though the robbery itself took only 40 minutes, this stunt took months of planning. They made their way into the jewelry store via a tunnel that took over a month to dig. During the construction of the tunnel, some neighbors complained about construction noise, but the police didn’t respond because they assumed it was merely part of completely legal construction projects in the area.
The thieves made their way into the building, using the tunnel to avoid alarms and surveillance cameras. Inside were a handful of wealthy clients, five employees, catering staff, and a manger. The skilled robbers overpowered them all, tied them up, and locked them in a washroom. They cleaned out jewelry from the safe deposit boxes and left through the tunnel they came. Despite an intense investigation, they have yet to be discovered.
Brainy Criminals
We like to think that are crooks are of the bumbling variety, but the mind of a robber can be more complex than law-abiding citizens give credit for. While you might not have tens of millions worth of jewelry to protect, a small amount of protection can keep even high-IQ crooks away from your personal valuables.
