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Jewels worth 1.6 mn euros recovered after fake princess heist: police

August 10, 2019
Police traced the jewels with help from video surveillance footage. –Courtesy photo
Police traced the jewels with help from video surveillance footage. –Courtesy photo

PARIS - Jewelry valued at 1.6 million euros stolen from a Paris jeweler by a woman pretending to be a UAE princess has been recovered at a hotel room on the outskirts of the city, police said Friday.

No one has been arrested yet over the heist in late July, which saw two women switch the contents of a box of jewels as they negotiated with a jeweler at a luxury boutique on the upmarket Rue Saint Honore in central Paris.

"The jewels were recovered on Thursday in a hotel room in Seine-Saint-Denis" by investigators from the organized crime squad, a police source said, adding that no-one had been apprehended so far.

Police traced the jewels with help from video surveillance footage.

The theft took place on July 31, when two women -- one of whom was posing as a princess from the United Arab Emirates -- were shown several pieces of jewellery at the store.

They said they would make a transfer of the funds the following day to buy the pieces, taking multiple telephone calls during the presentation.

The jewels were placed in a box and put away awaiting the transfer, but when the money did not appear the jeweler checked the chest again and found that the contexts had been replaced by what later turned out to be "stock cubes".

An investigation into "theft by deception" has been opened. -AFP


August 10, 2019
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