Parisian jewellers are experiencing a surge of violent robberies, with inventive covers. But it's not for money - many are carried out just for kicks, writes Lara Marlowe in Paris.
The florist next door didn't even notice the Peugeot 406 that parked for a few minutes in the taxi rank in front of Daras-Gauthier Jewellers in Mantes-la-Jolie, west of Paris, on a sleepy August morning. Three men wearing suits and ties put on gloves and ski-masks as they entered the shop.
"I tried to resist," the owner, Arnaud Daras-Gauthier, told Le Parisien newspaper. "One of them slapped me, so I had to give up. They sat me down and handcuffed my hands to the back of the chair. One of them was calm; the two others were very nervous." Two employees and two customers, one a pregnant woman, stood by as the robbers filled a sports bag with jewellery. Twenty-five minutes later, as the Peugeot sped down the A13 highway towards Paris, the driver swerved to avoid a police car and hit a barrier. The accident provoked a three-car pile-up in which five motorists were injured. The driver was pinned down by his airbag and arrested on the spot.
Police found the stolen jewels and a Kalashnikov in the boot. But the driver's three accomplices hijacked another vehicle and continued down the highway. An hour and a half later, a police helicopter located them in a grove of trees beside the A13.
Paris traffic helicopters have been re-assigned to tracking armed robbers since June 6th, in the hope they will be more effective than squad cars, which can't keep up with the powerful, fast cars (with speeds of up to 250 kmph) the thieves steal before each heist.
Despite the arrival of 150 policemen and sniffer dogs, one of the jewellery thieves hijacked another car and headed for the capital. The other two disappeared in Marly forest.
The Mantes-la-Jolies robbery was only the latest in a series of attacks on jewellers and money-changers in the Paris region. On May 25th, two men wearing sunglasses and gloves entered Fred at No 7, place Vendôme. They carried a grenade hidden in a bouquet of flowers.
The place Vendôme is home to the world's most expensive jewellers, including Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Boucheron and Chaumet - as well as the Ritz Hotel and the French ministry of justice. Security experts say poor training and vigilance on the part of staff contribute to the vulnerability that led to five armed robberies on the place Vendôme since March. "At Fred, they should never have let in men wearing gloves in late May, and sunglasses when it was raining," Fabrice Rousseau of CESG security consultants told Le Monde. The robbers used tear gas to overpower the shop's guard, then helped themselves to more than €6 million worth of jewels in the display windows.
Faced with a 15 per cent increase in the number of armed robberies last year - 165 in 2001 and rising - the National Federation of Watchmakers, Jewellers and Goldsmiths this summer published a "white paper" announcing its intention to create a data bank on jewellery heists, and proposed a fund to help victims. The Federation requested a meeting with Jean-Paul Proust, the prefect of police, in June.
These businesses have been the victims of improved security in banks, savings and loan and post offices, where armed robberies dropped from 223 in 2000 to 109 in 2001 and 48 in the first half of this year. As guards, security cameras, armoured doors and windows and two-stage entries that trap visitors momentarily were installed throughout France, thieves simply shifted to "softer" targets.
What police call the "new generation" of armed robbers use audacious methods in broad daylight. Last year, thieves took a blow-torch to a 15-centimetre-thick security glass display window at Boucheron, in the place Vendôme, then smashed it with a sledge hammer. Their booty: a necklace valued at €1.22 million.
Some French jewellers and money-changers are requesting street barriers to prevent robbers using cars as bulldozers to ram their façades, a favourite tactic. The Monnaies de Lyon, a money-changer near the Gare de Lyon, was attacked for the second time this year on June 8th. Four men wearing gloves and ski masks - de rigueur kit for most robbers - drove a Peugeot 206 into the shop's security glass window, which was shattered but resisted the attack.
The failed robbers fired two shots at the window while staff inside alerted police. The criminals made their getaway in an Audi equipped with a police siren. Like the Mantes-la-Jolie thieves, they provoked a pile-up on the motorway, hijacked another car and managed to evade police cars and a helicopter.
The same day, four other robbers, also hooded, entered the prestigious auction house at Fontainebleau, south of Paris, where they took €800,000 worth of jewels. Despite a brief shoot-out as they fled, they too escaped.
The May 25th "bouquet robbers" at Fred were probably of the old school of professional jewellery thieves, who are cunning and re-sell loot on the international black market. But most of the recent heists are attributed to the new generation. Two men arrested during an armed robbery in a shopping centre in Marne-la-Vallée on June 6th were 19 and 25 years old, and were from the council housing estates of the mostly immigrant suburbs north of Paris.
This new generation poses unprecedented problems for police. They are heavily armed, extremely daring, and continue to live in the suburbs, parts of which are virtual no-go areas for security forces. Most have graduated rapidly from petty crime to attacking jewellers and money-changers. They do not try to re-sell jewels to rich collectors or middle-men, but often unload their spoils in their home neighbourhoods for as little as one-twentieth of their value.
The phenomenon seems to show that sport - not financial gain - is the thieves' primary motivation. But it also indicates the extent to which some suburbs are a world unto themselves. One gang that stole precious oil paintings dumped them for only €1,500. A robber who was shot dead in Paris was wearing a stolen €18,000 wristwatch - and was found to be receiving welfare payments.
The rise in armed robberies has driven insurance premiums up 20 per cent - 50 to 100 per cent for merchants who make a second claim. One in 20 French jewellers has given up on insurance altogether, and the number of companies seeking clients in the sector has dropped from 15 to fewer than five.
Those still selling policies frequently demand security measures comparable to those that have reduced bank robberies. But jewellers are reluctant to turn their shops into armed fortresses. "You go into a jewellery shop to buy dreams and happiness," says Claude Barrier, the head of security at the National Federation. "If you feel like you're in prison, there's a problem."
Proust, the prefect of police, has deployed police in bullet-proof vests to patrol the place Vendôme by foot, and a police van is now permanently parked there. After his meetings with worried merchants, he issued a statement: "The authors of these spectacular armed robberies should harbour no illusions: they will be arrested and severely punished.
"The very image of Paris and France is at stake".