Inside Man in Paris Jewelry Holdups Admits to His Role, and Stupidity
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Version 0 of 1. PARIS — When diamond thieves struck a Harry Winston jewelry store with clockwork precision, it appeared to be a perfectly executed $100 million heist. But a video of their 2008 caper in the capital’s golden triangle of luxury boutiques, playing in a courtroom here, offers a grainy trailer of comedy and greed. On the video are glimpses of four men, most dressed as caricatures of women in flowing dark wigs, handbags and sunglasses, and one with a silky scarf knotted under the chin, granny-style. There are telling moments when a Harry Winston guard, ignoring the thieves’ peculiar costumes, unlocks the revolving doors to allow them to storm inside. And the video shows how, about 10 minutes later, he held the door as they fled, rolling a bag of gems into the chic quarter of Avenue Montaigne. Now that guard, Mouloud Djennad, 39, is admitting he was the “inside man” — one of eight men on trial in a Harry Winston holdup in October 2007, in which the thieves were disguised as painters, as well as the one in December 2008 that was carried out in women’s clothes. Between the two, more than 900 gems were stolen, including emeralds, diamonds and a 31-carat solitaire ring that itself was valued at more than $8 million. Mr. Djennad’s defense is no less audacious than the robberies. “I was stupid, impressionable, lost,” he said. “I was not able to say no.” The trial began on Feb. 3 and is expected to last through the end of the month, offering a rare glimpse of the scheming of a diamond theft ring that shook up the French capital, amid a wave of organized attacks on high-end jewelry stores and other luxury shops in the last decade. The most recent occurred in November, when thieves robbed a Cartier store near the Champs-Élysées and fired a Kalashnikov rifle when they stumbled into a police patrol. In retrospect, the Harry Winston robberies lacked the flawless execution of a George Clooney-Brad Pitt Hollywood heist. Frédéric Ploquin, the author of a new book about the evolution of organized crime in France, said that the robberies reflected a new wave of gangsters who have emerged since 2005 — a “Kalashnikov generation” with a zest for arms, no fear of death, and a taste for quick and easy profits, usually through drug trafficking. “In this case, there was no unnecessary violence,” said Mr. Ploquin, who visited the courtroom to watch the trial. “But the main suspect is not a robber or a thief. He is a drug dealer who seized opportunity. What strikes me is the lack of preparation. The old generation did not steal booty they couldn’t sell. Were they going to recycle these jewels in 10 years?” At times the Harry Winston trial has shifted from crime noir to soap opera. Mr. Djennad — a tall, lanky man with a shaved head — buried his face in his hands and wept in court after facing one of his former Harry Winston co-workers last week. He apologized for his betrayal — months in which he fed security information to the others, who befriended him over cigars, whiskey and shared stories of their common family roots in the Kabylie region in northeast Algeria, though all grew up in France. “If I had not been fired, I think there would have been three or four robberies,” Mr. Djennad testified, describing how he penetrated a murky world far from Harry Winston’s wrought-iron doors. He became trapped in a vise of friendship with a convicted drug trafficker who, he said, used threats to pressure him to participate in the second robbery. His own loose lips led to his involvement, Mr. Djennad admitted. After he talked freely about sloppy security at the jewelry store, a friend from his gym introduced him in 2007 to his brother-in-law, Daoudi Yahiaoui, nicknamed “Doudou,” which in French means stuffed toy. Mr. Yahiaoui, 50, was a broad-shouldered businessman and hotel owner in the eastern suburbs of Paris with a long prison record for drug dealing. But he was warm and friendly, like a “big brother,” according to the testimony of Mr. Djennad; his lawyer, Philippe Stepniewski, described the guard as naïve and searching for a sense of family. The former guard said he believed Mr. Yahiaoui’s assurances that no one would be hurt in the robberies and that the jewelry store would be reimbursed by insurers — which ultimately did pay $33.6 million to Harry Winston for actual costs. But the potential for violence upset him, Mr. Djennad said, so he distanced himself until the businessman pushed him to participate in a second strike. The 2008 theft drew huge international attention because of the gang’s coldblooded style and meticulous approach — calling employees by first name, demanding the opening of a secret vault and threatening to use a grenade. Their accents initially raised suspicions that the men were part of a loosely knit international network of jewel thieves and ex-soldiers from the former Yugoslavia nicknamed the Pink Panthers. Only later, piecing together complex clues, did investigators realize that the victims had actually overheard the thieves speaking in the street argot of the city’s suburbs. The investigators’ suspicions about the calm behavior of the Harry Winston guard intensified when they noticed his Facebook connection to his gym buddy, Mr. Yahiaoui’s brother-in-law. And they benefited from a mistake: In his haste, one thief left behind his Max & Enjoy Paris handbag, with a fingerprint. Through the years, investigators tapped telephones, tailed people, bugged a Jaguar driven by Mr. Yahiaoui, and listened as the suspects spoke in code — playing a ring tone of the Marseillaise to signal a payday with a potential Israeli diamond buyer, or making references to carats and the Rapaport monthly bible of diamond prices. In the courtroom, below the tribunal where the four judges, all women, are seated, a showcase is stocked with seized evidence: pistols and an automatic weapon found in Mr. Yahiaoui’s home. It was there in March 2011 that investigators, on their fifth search, discovered a freshly cemented patch covering a drainpipe outdoors. In it was a hand cream bottle that contained three pairs of earrings, assorted rings and the 31-carat diamond solitaire. In court this week, Mr. Yahiaoui — represented by the lawyer Frédéric Trovato, a veteran defender of organized crime figures in France — minimized his role. He said he was simply an intermediary who passed information from the guard to the robbers and hid the jewels. At one point, an exasperated prosecutor pressed him to explain how such a meticulous robbery lacked a leader, as his testimony suggested. “Oh, people communicated by word of mouth, among their friends,” said Mr. Yahiaoui, who faces up to 30 years. Farid Allou, 49, who has spent almost half his life in prison, was one of the few suspects who emphatically admitted his participation in the robberies, but refused to identify anyone else. To date, there are still about 500 gems that have not been recovered. “I was invited and the door was open,” he said, glaring at the judges. “It was not a game. Not at all. I went to Harry Winston for the money and it was very serious.” |