theft

Brazen Thieves Steal Bzyantine Cross

Filed under: Jewelry

Earlier this week I mentioned the jewel theft at the Damiani store in Milan. An even bigger theft went down on February 18 in Belgium. A pair of armed robbers broke glass display cabinets containing items from the Cathedral Treasury making off with several prize pieces including eight 17th-century chalices, two episcopal rings, two episcopal crosses and the beautiful Byzantine cross shown here, a 5th Century piece which is gold and set with precious stones, pearls and paste. The robbers disappeared into an Audi driven by an accomplice.

[via Stolen Vermeer]

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Tags: belgium, cathedral, cross, jewelry, theft

Clever Jewel Theives Tunnel Their Way To Millions in Milan

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Jewelry

It's not as impressive as the Harry Winston job last year but the thieves who raided Damiani jewelry's showroom in Milan on Sunday earn points for ingenuity. BBC News reports that the thieves dug an underground tunnel to a Milan showroom and then seven men, dressed as police, came through a cellar wall, tied up the staff and stole several million euros of jewelry in just a few minutes. Many of the showroom's best items weren't there they were in Los Angeles getting their red carpet moment at the Oscars. The men were reportedly unarmed. They tied up the staff up with plastic cable and sticky tape, locked everyone in the bathroom except the manager, who was forced to empty the lockers. The thieves left few traces of their crime behind and it appears to be a very professional job.

Gallery: Jewels Gone Missing

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Tags: damiani, diamonds, italy, jewels, milan, theft

Mets Pitcher's Jewels Lost and Found

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Jewelry, Celebrity Shopping

New York Mets pitcher Ambiorix Burgos has better luck than some other celebrities who have had their jewels stolen. Burgos, who reported $270,000 worth of jewelry stolen from his St. Lucie West hotel room on Tuesday, got his belongings back. An unidentified man dropped off a jewelry-filled black bag several hours after the bag was reported missing. Burgos told police his bag was missing after he switched rooms. Employees with access to the rooms said they did not take it but a few hours later a man came in to the hotel with the bag, put it on the counter saying he had found it outside, and ran away. The most interesting part of the story to me is that the police called Ambiorix Burgos Tuesday night to let him know but the pitcher was too busy to return to the police station to identify the bag until Wednesday. Perhaps these are just Burgos's traveling jewels.

UPDATE: A housekeeper at the hotel has been charged with grand theft for stealing the bag and Burgos says some items worth between $10,000 to $20,000 are still missing.

Gallery: Jewels Gone Missing

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Tags: ambiorix burgos, jewelry, mets, pitcher, theft

Major Impressionist Art Theft Took Just 3 Minutes

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

Most of us picture art thieves as slinky sleuth types who sneak in under cover of night and quietly disable the alarm system, but apparently that's not what works best in Switzerland. This past Sunday 3 masked men dressed all in black burst into a private museum in Zurich in the middle of the day and took 4 paintings valued at £85 million by simply ripping them off the walls and running. They were in and out of the building and flying down the road in a beater of a white car in less than 3 minutes! Amazing. Sad, and outrageously embarrassing for Switzerland, but amazing.

The truly sad part is that they made off with some major and historic pieces of art: Cézanne's The Boy in a Red Vest, Degas's Viscount Lepic and his Daughters, Monet's Poppies Near Vetheuil, and Van Gogh's Blossoming Chestnut Branches. What a tragedy! I hope they get caught before the art is lost underground forever.

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Tags: art, expire-images:2009-2-12, impressionism, impressionist, steal, swiss, switzerland, theft

Dionne Warwick Loses Her Jewels in Italy

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Celebrity Shopping

Every time a story of celebrity hotel theft hits the news I wonder why celebrities travel with so many valuables. The latest to lose her bling is singer Dionne Warwick. Thieves stole two rings, a necklace, a pair of earrings and a Rolex watch worth more than $100,000 total from the singer's room at the Hotel De Russie. The rooms at the hotel have safety deposit boxes but Ms. Warwick left her jewelry on a night table. What's really interesting is that the robbery occurred in the same room at the hotel where Cameron Diaz encountered a pair of thieves seven years ago.

Gallery: 10 Common Myths About Wealth and Luxury

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Tags: dionne warwick, DionneWarwick, expire-images:2009-1-9, hotel de russie, italy, rome, theft

Russia's First Maybach Theft

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos

It's not always easy to be a high-spending Russian businessman. Vikotor Markov has the dubious distinction of being Russia's first Maybach 57 owner to have his car stolen. Markov, who bought the car for €530,000 but insured only for €300,000, lost his Maybach limo while he was eating dinner in Moscow. He went into the De Marco cate and aa gang of thugs hijacked his driver and knocked him out. He was released later outside the Moscow Ring Road. The theft is suspected to part of a series of ongoing thefts of luxury cars that has included three Bentleys. It is suspected that the car will be driven to another country such as Kazakhstan or Ukraine and resold.

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Tags: expire-images:2008-11-17, maybach, moscow, russia, theft, vicktor markov

Harry Winston Boutique Robbed

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Jewelry

I don't generally write about jewelry theft but when a Harry Winston boutique gets robbed you have to pay attention. Last weekend, thieves took approximately €20 million in jewels from the Harry Winston store. It is one of the largest jewel thefts ever. The masked and armed men entered the store on Saturday morning and got the employees to open the safe. They took off with a bag of gems that included a €3.2 million diamond-studded bracelet and a large diamond worth €2 million. The police believe the robbers are professionals and they hope to try and catch the thieves when they try to resell the merchandise. The thieves will have to move fast, the investigators are distributing information about the specific stolen pieces around the world.

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Tags: crime, diamonds, harry winston, jewels, robbery, theft

Hogan Family Gets Robbed

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Bad news for the Hogan family. Hulk Hogan and his family are looking to sell their house in Miami and recently the house was burglarized. Thieves ended up walking off with $100,000 of jewelry including diamond-covered dog tags and a platinum and diamond watch belonging to Hogan's young son Nick. The incident occurred while the Hogans were moving out of the home. The home, which we recently profiled as an estate of the day, is listed for sale at $18.9 million.

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Tags: estate, hulk hogan, HulkHogan, miami, theft

$1 Million Jewelry Theft at Heathrow

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Jewelry

Lindsay Lohan was leaving Heathrow Airport on Thursday when she noticed that her orange Hermes Birkin bag was missing. The bag itself might have gotten only a moment or two of mourning from the young celebrity, but the theft is now under investigation by Scotland Yard because that bag contained about $1 million worth of jewelry. Lindsay left it on her luggage trolley and must have turned away just long enough for someone to snag it. She is asking for the return her things, but given the value of the items taken, it seems unlikely that the thief will comply.

Update: Looks like someone actually found the bag and turned it in!

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Tags: airport, birkin, celeb, celebrity, heathrow, hermes, jewelry, lindsay lohan, steal, theft, tmz

Who Steals a Wedding Gown?

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Apparel

Given the size and delicacy of most wedding gowns, even the high price tags aren't usually enough to make them targets for thieves. It seems like it would be hard to smuggle one out of the store. But if you just go for the gown closest to the door, you might get lucky. A rare designer gown was stolen from an Alderley Edge bridal shop in the U.K. when they left the door open on a warm day.

The cream-colored tulle gown was made by Italian design house Toi Creazioni and embellished with gold lace, roses and ribbons and flares into a fishtail skirt. It is valued at £2,665 (about $5,000), but because the dress is so distinctive -- only one other shop in the country stocks it - and so very few like it are sold, the shop hopes to recover it. The shop owner said "it seems a very peculiar way to start married life in a stolen dress."

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Tags: dress, england, gown, steal, theft, uk, wedding, wedding dress

Diamond Heist in Sydney!

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Jewelry

At an international jewelry exhibition in Sydney, Australia, thieves managed to make off with over $1.1 million ($1.5 million AUS) in diamonds, despite the fact that there was very tight security. In fact, the police and security overseeing the transport and delivery of the stones were supposed to be some of the best and strictest in the world. The heist could be the biggest diamond theft ever in New South Wales. Over 500 uncut stones, of various colors and sizes, were stolen prior to their entry in the trade exhibition, but aside from the fact of the theft itself, organizers seem disturbed that no one can determine quite when they went missing.

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Tags: australia, diamond, diamonds, heist, jewelry, jewels, robbery, sydney, theft, thieves, uncut diamonds

Hi-tech Luxury Car Theft

by Trey Evans (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Gadgets, Luxury Cars & Autos

I was car shopping at the end of last year and looking at the new STS, and one of the features that really intrigued me was the "Keyless Go" (or whatever they call it). The idea is that you carry around a key-like device (in the case of BMW, it's a credit card thing) that, when in proximity of the car, you can unlock and start it without having to do anything short of pressing a button. Cool, right? Yeah, until black hats use RFID sniffers and laptops with mobile transmitters to break the ECU's encryption use the convenient technology for their own deviant purposes. It's been proposed that this is how Beckham's X5 was stolen, but at least his had a happy ending in the form of a free Audi.

Update: Sister site Engadget has a similar post - linking to the same article - which talks about the connection between this technique and the Beckham's Bimmer SUV.

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Tags: beckham, keyless, theft

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