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Camera footage shows men entering Graff Diamonds. (Cctv via Reuters) |
$65m in gems stolen from London store
LONDON - Two well-dressed thieves walked into a London Bond Street jewelry store last week and, after brandishing handguns at shop workers, made off with $65 million worth of gems in one of Britain’s biggest jewelry heists, police said yesterday.
Security camera footage released by police shows two men in crisp suits entering Graff Diamonds’s flagship store Thursday afternoon. It was the third time a Graff store in London had been targeted in a high-profile raid in the past six years.
The men stole dozens of high-end rings, bracelets, necklaces, and watches worth 40 million pounds, or $65 million, and fired two gunshots into the ground as they escaped in a series of getaway cars, police said. No one was hurt.
It was among the biggest heists in British history - far outstripping the 1963 Great Train Robbery in which 2 million pounds were lost.
Last week’s theft, however, was topped by the 2006 robbery of 53 million pounds in cash from a security company depot in southern England, and was rivaled by the 1987 theft of an estimated 40 million pounds from the Knightsbridge Safe Deposit Center in London.
Police declined to rank Thursday’s robbery, saying only that it was one of the country’s biggest. Items stolen included a pair of white diamond double hoop earrings, a platinum white Marquise diamond ring, and a Chronograff watch, police said.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
