THE KARDASHIAN CAPER—ANOTHER MAJOR CRIME COMMITTED BY OLDER PROFESSIONALS. In a post (here) in 2016, I asked: “D0 THE BANK ROBBING TECHNIQUES OF THE 1970’S AND 1980’S STILL WORK?” The post was about the theft of millions of dollars of diamonds and other valuables from a vault in Hatton Garden, the London diamond district. The crime turned out to have been committed by a gang of old and feeble retired London career criminals, rather than “the navy-SEAL-like professionals” who were first hypothesized as the culprits. The criminals had impressive credits, including a caper valued at over 150 million dollars. (Of course, to get credit, you have to be caught.)
This article by Paddy Dinham and Peter Allen in the Daily Mail tells of arrests made in the notorious theft in Paris of Kim Kardashian’s jewels. The article identifies as having been indicted: Aomar A., age 60; Pierre B., age 72; Francois D., age 54; Christiane G., a 70-year-old woman.; and Didier Dubreucq, age 61. Also in custody, “Marceau the Gypsey”, age 64, who is said to have traveled to Antwerp with “Old Omar”, age 60, to fence the jewels.
Unlike the Hatton Garden criminals who had read FORENSICS FOR DUMMIES and left no DNA behind, the DNA of one of the thieves were found on the ties that were used to bind Kim Kardashian. And one of the thieves dropped a a diamond pendant worth around £28,000 in the street outside and that jewel also had DNA on it, which led to a match.
The Hatton Garden crime was characterized as “one last hurrah”, and one has to think that glory was one of the motives in Paris.