Armed robbers hit Paris Bulgari jewellery boutique

Armed robbers raided the Bulgari luxury jewellery boutique in the swanky Place Vendome in central Paris in broad daylight Saturday, making off with an estimated several million euros' worth of items, police and prosecutors said.

Published: 30 April 2023 10:39 CEST

Armed robbers hit Paris Bulgari jewellery boutique

French Nationale Police officers form a security cordon on the Place Vendome square in Paris, on September 7, 2021. Photo: Thomas COEX/AFP.

Three people who arrived on two motorbikes entered the store in the popular tourist district at around 1:45pm local time (1145 GMT), a police source said, citing preliminary information.

Two were carrying long weapons, the source added, saying they had hit a security guard.

The full extent of the haul and damage estimated at several million euros was still being assessed, another source close to the inquiry told AFP.

The same Bulgari boutique was also targeted in a daylight armed robbery in September 2021, when thieves made off with some €10 million ($10.6 million) in loot.

Video footage posted on social media networks on Saturday appeared to show two large black motorbikes parked on the pavement in front of the jewellery shop.

A man in a helmet with a gun and wearing black clothes is seen apparently standing guard. Later, three men can be seen fleeing the scene on two motorbikes.

An investigation into armed robbery has been opened, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.

Following the 2021 heist at the Bulgari store, one of the robbers was wounded in the leg by a police officer.

He was arrested, charged and imprisoned.

In June 2022, two other suspects, aged 26 and 37 at the time, were arrested.

They were also charged and placed in pre-trial detention.

The Italian jeweller Bulgari is owned by the French fashion conglomerate LVMH.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.