Robber Steals More Than $53M Worth Of Jewels In Cannes

The typically sleepy town of Cannes, France, best known for its luxurious lifestyle and world renowned film festival, was rocked this week by a high speed armed robbery that left one jeweler missing $53,000,000 worth of precious stones. Details on what exactly happened aren’t completely clear at the moment, but apparently, the company Leviev was preparing for an exhibition when an unidentified man with a gun burst into the lobby of the Carlton Hotel and quickly secured as much as he could fit inside a briefcase before exiting in the wake of shocked bystanders.

According to BBC, the theft is the third jewelry heist to take place in or around the Cannes area this year. The first one saw a million dollars worth of jewels vanish from the safe of an employee for the high end jeweler Chopard. The second involved a two and a half million dollar necklace being pilfered during a party at a luxurious resort in Cap d’Antibes. Obviously, there’s a natural impulse to speculate all three jobs were pulled off by the same man, but the basic facts of the case don’t really seem to support that leap just yet. After all, breaking into a safe, slipping a valuable item into one’s pocket without detection and brazenly storming into a hotel lobby with a gun in full view of witnesses aren’t really demonstrations of the same M.O.

Authorities haven’t spoken in specifics as to what they think might have happened, but an official spokesman for the police did speak with the press. You can read an excerpt of his statements below…

Yes, they obviously do see Cannes as rich pickings, but with all the money that flies around that place and all the publicity, you would imagine companies would start responding by sharply increasing security measures. Obviously, the situation isn’t quite as safe as it once was, and therefore, all involved need to adapt to the threat level in order to secure their valuables.

Big money jewelry heists, like art thefts, tend to take a prolonged period of time to solve. They’re typically done by well-trained professionals, and the process of tracking the merchandise is often painstaking. As such, it could be years before we know any legitimate details as related to why this happened or who pulled it off. When those updates do come, however, we will make sure to bring them to you.