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Deceptive diamond heist: exchange gems for pebbles in the showroom

A woman stole £4.2m from a luxury jewelry store in London by pretending to be a gem expert and exchanging stones for garden pebbles, she said in highly complex theft trials.

According to the court Lulu Lakatos Pretend to be a gem expert to steal seven diamonds worth a total of 1.74 billion forints from the Boodles Jewelery Showroom in Mayfair, London, on New Bond Street. Writes guardian.

Locksmith allegedly managed to ride the gem by pretending to be an expert and pretending to inspect and evaluate the jewels, which were then placed in a sealed purse in a showroom basement while awaiting payment. The Southwark Crown Court said Boodles’ diamond expert discovered the suspicion, and when the wallet was opened, seven pebbles were found instead of seven small diamonds.

The defendant stole the diamonds with a magic trick. The plot, in which she allegedly played an organic and central role, was characterized by the highest possible level of complexity, planning, risk and reward.

– Tell Philip Stott Prosecutor at trial.

Lakatos, 60, who was born in Romania but lived in France, denies that the Banshee would have done anything to get the diamonds on or before March 10, 2016.

The court was told that the 73-year-old boss of Boodles, Nicholas Wainwright In February 2016, he met one Simon Glass With an Israeli man who presented himself as a man who claimed he wanted to buy high-value diamonds as an investment. The couple met a month later in Monaco, where Wainwright was introduced to Glass’s alleged business partner, A Alexander Also for a Russian man named and after further discussions, it was agreed to sell seven high-value diamonds.

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According to the indictment, Lulu Lakatos pretended to be a jewelry expert I He was contacted when he was sent to the Poodles on March 10 to examine the stones.

Mrs. Wainwright was escorted to the jewelry basement meeting room with the expert of the family firm, Emma Bartonal together. Based on what the court said, Lakatos examined and weighed the diamonds, then wrapped them individually in pre-cut tissue paper and placed the gems in opaque boxes, which they placed in a purse-like zipper bag. Then the bag was locked with a padlock.

According to the allegations, Lakatos put the sealed bag in his own bag when Wainwright went upstairs to pick up a phone call from the alleged Russian receiver, but Barton asked him to return the bag to the table.

Looks like it was replaced by an evenly sealed suitcase and this copy of the suitcase was brought back to the table

Prosecutor said.

Wainwright then inspected the woman’s bag and reassured her that it was relatively empty and that there was nothing unusual in it. And Lakatos left the showroom only after an inspection.

Eyewitnesses said that two other women were waiting for Lakatos in a nearby store, and as they walked past him, Lakatos threw a smaller bag containing diamonds into one of their bags.

According to the public prosecutor, Lakatos, from Saint-Brieuc in northwestern France, then turned into a public toilet before leaving London by train, using his passport.

The lock on the train was accompanied by a complicit woman, while two men and two women from the group traveled together to France in a rented car in Csalagút.

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The next day, the Boodles arranged for the sealed bag to be X-rayed, which showed it contained diamond-like stones, but the staff remained skeptical about the case, so the bag was opened.

Each opaque box had a pebble instead of a diamond

Stott said.

The stolen gems, totaling £4.2 million, included a 20-carat heart-shaped diamond valued at more than £2.2 million and £1.1 million a 3-carat pear-shaped pink diamond – the former at around €915 million and the latter priced at over €915 million. £457 million. Corresponds to Hungarian Forint.

group member, Christoph Stankovicot And the Michael Jovanovicut He was previously convicted of conspiracy to rob. Padlock was arrested in France last September under a European arrest warrant before being extradited to the UK.

The case is not over yet.