It was a scene out of film noir. A man in his 50s, wearing a fedora and a dark suit, walked into a Chopard jewelry store in the middle of the afternoon in central Paris last month, brandished a pistol, and politely asked for the loot. It was as if Humphrey Bogart himself came for a visit.
The entire ordeal took no more than two minutes, and the robber calmly and casually walked away with jewelry estimated at about 10 million euros, disappearing into the Parisian crowd.
This latest jewelry heist is another in a series of robberies to hit the French capital in recent months, after an estimated 100 million euros worth of jewelry was stolen from a Harry Winston store just off the Champs-Élysées in broad daylight last December.
In that case, three of the four robbers chose to conceal their identity (and perhaps their masculinity) by dressing up as women.
That time, however, the thieves were a lot less gentle and maybe just a little more audacious. With several costumers looking on, the robbers, again in broad daylight and with guns drawn, began turning over display cases and taking everything they could get their hands on.
After the 20 minute heist was over, the gang got away with most of the store's inventory of top-of-the-line diamond necklaces, rings, bracelets, luxury watches, and other fine jewelry, including items that were not on display, hidden in the store's rear.
But dressing up in order to rob a jewelry store is not exclusive to Paris. This past April, two robbers in Glasgow, Scotland, took advantage of the Muslim religious garb in order to rob a jewelry store and make sure they were not identified.
The two men were dressed in a full women's traditional Muslim dress including a Niqab headscarf and veil which only reveals the person's eyes. Store owner Rukhsana Sadiq said after the ordeal that they didn't realize how tall the robbers were until they got attacked with pepper spray and the jewels were gone.
Now the store is taking steps to ensure such a robbery doesn't happen again and decided to ban Muslim women who wear the Niqab from entering the store. Sadiq, a Muslim herself, said that if a Muslim woman wearing the Niqab wants to come into the store, she will have to call in advance and make sure there is a female member of staff present to identify her behind the veil – a move which will certainly raise controversy.
So as store owners who are bent on protecting your property, would you ban Muslim veils in your store? Were you ever robbed by a masked gunman? How far will you go to protect your jewelry from fashionably or traditionally dressed robbers? Tell us what you think!
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