Pink Panthers

Last updated

Pink Panthers
Founded byDragan Mikić [1]
Founding location Belgrade, Serbia
Years active2001–present
EthnicityMajority Serbians and Montenegrins [2]
Criminal activities Robbery, art theft, burglary, possession of stolen property
Allies Serbian Mafia YACS Crime Group, Russian Mafia, Italian Mafia, Romanian mafia.

The Pink Panthers are an international jewel thief network responsible for a number of robberies and thefts described as some of the most audacious in the history of organized crime. [3] The organization has roughly 800 core members, many of whom are ex-soldiers with extensive military and paramilitary backgrounds. [4] Both women and men play an equal part in the structure of the organization. [3] The organization's membership mostly consists of Serbian and Montenegrin citizens, who are believed to be Bosnian War veterans making use of their military experience for criminal activity. [5] The organization was named by Interpol after The Pink Panther series of crime comedy films.

Contents

The Pink Panthers are responsible for what have been termed some of the most "glamorous" heists in history, with one criminologist even describing their crimes as "artistry". [1] They have operated in numerous countries and on several continents, and include Japan's most successful robbery amongst their thefts. A film documentary based upon their thefts, Smash & Grab , was released on 2 July 2013. [6]

Raids

In 2003, the gang first came to attention and earned the nickname "Pink Panthers" following the theft of a £500,000 diamond from a jewellers in the Mayfair area of London. [1] [7] The thieves hid the diamond in a jar of face cream, mimicking an act seen in the film The Return of the Pink Panther . [1] In May 2005, Graff, a diamond specialist in London, was targeted by Pink Panthers and lost a total of £1 million in jewellery. [8] Three men were suspected of being behind the theft; one was in possession of a firearm. [8] Graff had been targeted in 2002 and lost £23 million on that occasion, £3 million of which was recovered two years later. [8] [9] One of the thieves was sentenced to 15 years in prison in July 2004. [9]

In the space of six years during the 21st century, the Pink Panthers robbed 120 stores in 20 countries. [10] Japan, United Kingdom, Denmark, Monaco, France, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and the United States have all been targeted by the gang, [1] [10] with the attention to detail of the heists ensuring a high rate of success. Before robbing a jewellery store in Biarritz, the gang covered a nearby bench in fresh paint to deter anyone from sitting on it and seeing them in action. [1]

The gang is suspected of participating in at least two smash-and-grab jewellery robberies in Tokyo's Ginza district. The first, in 2004, netted ¥3.5 million in gems. The second, in June 2007, took jewellery valued at ¥284 million; during the heist, Rifat Hadžiahmetović and Radovan Jelušić sprayed tear gas at three saleswomen before taking a tiara, necklaces, and other jewels and fleeing the store. [11]

The gang is also known for its escapes and its attempts to break into their chosen store. The gang robbed a jewellery store in Saint-Tropez in 2005 wearing T-shirts emblazoned with flowery designs, before making their escape on a speedboat. [1] Prior to one 2008 robbery of Graff jewellers in Dubai, eight gang members drove a pair of Audis through a window, taking watches and other items worth a total of £8 million. [1] In a further robbery in December 2008, four gang members dressed themselves up as women before breaking into Harry Winston jewellers in Paris. [10] The gang escaped from the store with items worth over US$100 million (£60 million). [10]

Speculation also exists as to certain other robberies having been conducted by the gang; in the August 2009 robbery of Graff Diamonds in London a key element in the speculation being that the robbers made no attempt to hide their faces, suggesting that they had already altered their appearances with prosthetic makeup. [12]

In 2013, the gang was suspected to have struck again when a man wearing a baseball cap and a scarf covering his face broke into the Carlton Hotel in Cannes and made off with $136 million worth of jewels and jewellery being stored by the Leviev diamond house for an exhibit. Nice-Matin , a leading newspaper in the region, speculated that this may have been the most costly jewellery theft in history. [13]

Arrests and breakouts

According to Interpol, a number of the gang's members have been identified and linked through DNA matching. [14] In 2005, three Serbs, two men and one woman, were arrested in Belgrade on suspicion of being part of the gang; [15] in October 2007, they were sentenced to jail terms by a court in Serbia for the theft of the Comtesse de Vendome necklace, worth approximately £15 million ($30 million), in March 2004 from a Tokyo jewellery boutique, in what was Japan's biggest ever jewel robbery. [15] The gang leader was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment, while the other two were handed lesser sentences. [15]

Three Pink Panthers from Serbia were declared guilty of robberies carried out in Biarritz, Cannes, Courchevel and Saint-Tropez by one court in Chambéry in 2008. Two were given jail terms of six and 10 years. [1]

One suspect in a June 2007 Ginza heist, an ethnic Bosniak Montenegrin national named Rifat Hadžiahmetović, who had been travelling on a forged Bulgarian passport, was arrested in March 2009 by Cypriot police at Larnaca International Airport. [16] [17] Hadžiahmetović was due to serve a sentence in Cyprus for travelling on a forged passport before being extradited to Spain. [18] He was extradited from Spain to Japan and, in September 2011, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. [19] His accomplice, Radovan Jelušić, was arrested in Italy in 2010 over a separate crime, then was extradited to Montenegro to stand trial on 18 May 2012. [11]

On 20 June 2009, French police in Monte Carlo detained another three members of the gang seen loitering near jewellery shops in Monaco. [10] The gang members drove up outside a casino in Casino Square on 18 June 2009. The men were told to lie down and were then handcuffed before being whisked away from the scene quickly. [1]

One of the three arrested, Serbian Dragan Mikić, was of special interest to the police investigation into the gang, [20] having been placed on Interpol's "Most Wanted" list, [1] suspected to be a senior member of the Pink Panthers. Mikić has been on the run since 2005, after breaking out of jail via a ladder whilst other people fired machine guns at the prison. [1]

A head figure of the Pink Panthers, Mitar Marjanović, was arrested on 8 March 2012 in Rome, after two of his accomplices in a bank robbery, committed a month earlier, dropped stolen items containing Marjanovic's fingerprints. [21] [22]

On 14 March 2012, three more members of the gang were arrested in Athens, Greece. Two of the three were male Serbians, aged 20 and 36, and were arrested while casing a jewellery store. Patrolling police were prompted to question them due to their wearing wigs. The two men fled, the 36 year-old suspect firing at and injuring a police officer during the pursuit that followed. Both were arrested and led police to the arrest of the third person, 43 year-old Serbian female Olivera Vasić Ćirković. [23] On 12 July 2012, Olivera escaped from prison in Athens when a man who entered the prison on the pretext of delivering art supplies knocked out a guard and stole her keys. [24]

On 14 May 2013, a member of the gang escaped from the "Bois-Mermet" prison in Lausanne, Switzerland. As of June 2021, he has not yet been caught. He escaped with the help of three outside accomplices who meticulously prepared the operation. Four other prisoners got away at the same time. On 25 July 2013, Milan Poparić, who was serving a sentence of almost seven years for a 2009 robbery at a jewellery store, was the third Pink Panther to escape from a Swiss prison since May 2013. Also escaping was Swiss kidnapper, arsonist and money launderer Adrian Albrecht. They were helped out of the prison at Orbe, in western Switzerland, by accomplices who broke through the perimeter fence and brought ladders for the escapees while keeping the prison guards at bay with fire from AK-47s. [25]

On 3 June 2015, six were arrested in Zagreb, Croatia while they were preparing for a heist with munitions and two cars similar to those driven by security forces in Croatia; three of the arrested were Serbs, two Bosnian, and one Montenegrin. Names of the arrested Serbs were Saša Antonić, Aleksandar Tasić and Dejan Kostić. [26] [27]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yip Kai-foon</span> Criminal famous for armed robberies in Hong Kong from 1970s to 1990s

Yip Kai-foon, also known as "Teeth Dog" and "Goosehead", was an infamous Chinese criminal who was most active in Hong Kong from the early 1980s to 1990s. He and his gang specialised in robbing jewellery stores with assault rifles. Their weapon of choice was the AK-47 assault rifle, which they acquired from black markets hosted by triads. He is also the first person to have used an AK-47 during an armed robbery in Hong Kong.

The Brink's-Mat robbery was one of the largest robberies in British history, with £26 million worth of gold bullion, diamonds, and cash stolen. It occurred at the Heathrow International Trading Estate, London, on 26 November 1983, from a warehouse operated by Brink's-Mat, a former joint venture between US security company Brink's and London-based company MAT Transport. The bullion was the property of Johnson Matthey Bankers Ltd. Micky McAvoy and Brian Robinson were convicted of armed robbery. Most of the gold has never been recovered. Lloyd's of London paid out for the losses, and several shooting deaths have been linked to the case.

The Serbian mafia, or Serbian organized crime, are various criminal organizations based in Serbia or composed of ethnic Serbs in the former Yugoslavia and Serbian diaspora. The organizations are primarily involved in smuggling, arms trafficking, drug trafficking, human trafficking, assassinations, heists, assault, protection rackets, murder, money laundering and illegal gambling. Ethnic Serb organized crime groups are organized horizontally; higher-ranked members are not necessarily coordinated by any leader. According to criminologists and law enforcement authorities, the Serbian mafia is the most powerful in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Millennium Dome raid</span> Attempted robbery of diamond exhibition

The Millennium Dome raid was an attempted robbery of the Millennium Dome's diamond exhibition in Greenwich, South East London occurring on 7 November 2000. A local gang planned to ram-raid the De Beers diamond exhibition, which was held in the riverside Dome. The gang had then planned to escape via the Thames in a speedboat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2009 Graff Diamonds robbery</span>

The Graff Diamonds robbery took place on 6 August 2009 when two men posing as customers entered the premises of Graff Diamonds in New Bond Street, London and stole jewellery worth nearly £40 million. It was believed to be the largest ever gems heist in Britain at the time, and the second largest British robbery after the £53 million raid on a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent, in 2006. The robbers' haul totalled 43 items of jewellery, consisting of rings, bracelets, necklaces and wristwatches. One necklace alone has been reported as being worth more than £3.5m. Britain's previous largest jewellery robbery also took place at Graff's, in 2003.

Graff is a British multinational jeweller based in London. It was founded by British jeweller Laurence Graff in 1960. A vertically integrated company, Graff operations comprise the design, manufacture and retail distribution of jewellery and watches.

The Comtesse de Vendôme is a diamond necklace composed of 116 diamonds, including a centerpiece 125-carat diamond, and an estimated value of approximately 31 million dollars. The necklace was stolen from the Tokyo jewelry boutique Le Supre-Diamant Couture de Maki on March 5, 2004 by thieves who are believed to belong to the Pink Panthers crime ring.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Lawton</span> American YouTuber and former jewel thief

Lawrence Robert Lawton is an American ex-convict, author, paralegal, motivational speaker, and YouTuber. Lawton gained notoriety for committing a string of jewelry store robberies along the Atlantic Seaboard prior to his arrest in 1996. He spent 12 years in prison, and once released, began a career as a motivational speaker, life coach, and author.

Joseph Jerome "Jerry" Scalise is a Chicago mobster and a high-ranking member of the Chicago Outfit criminal organization. He is most known for stealing the Marlborough diamond in London in 1980, and also for serving as a technical advisor on the 2009 film Public Enemies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brussels Airport diamond heist</span> 2013 diamond heist

On 18 February 2013, eight masked gunmen in two cars with police markings stole approximately €38,000,000 worth of diamonds from a Swiss-bound Fokker 100 operated by Helvetic Airways on the apron at Brussels Airport, Belgium, just before 20:00 CET. The heist was accomplished without a single shot being fired.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2013 Carlton Cannes heist</span>

The Cannes jewel heist was an armed robbery at the Carlton Intercontinental Hotel in Cannes, a city on the French Riviera. The thief stole gemstones and watches ultimately valued at $136 million. .

Milan Poparić is a Bosnian Serb criminal, primarily a jewel thief. He is known for a dramatic escape from prison in July 2013. He has been identified by police as a member of a gang of jewel thieves called the Pink Panthers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft</span> 1990 art theft in Boston

In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, 13 works of art were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Guards admitted two men posing as police officers responding to a disturbance call, and the thieves bound the guards and looted the museum over the next hour. The case is unsolved; no arrests have been made, and no works have been recovered. The stolen works have been valued at hundreds of millions of dollars by the FBI and art dealers. The museum offers a $10 million reward for information leading to the art's recovery, the largest bounty ever offered by a private institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary</span> 2015 theft from an underground vault in Holborn, London

In April 2015, an underground safe deposit facility in Hatton Garden, London, owned by Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd., was burgled.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bonded Vault heist</span>

The Bonded Vault heist was the August 1975 robbery of the Bonded Vault Company, a commercial safe-deposit business occupying a vault inside Hudson Fur Storage in Providence, Rhode Island. It served as the unofficial "bank" used by the Patriarca crime family and associates. The stolen valuables were worth about $30 million. According to The Providence Journal, it was among the biggest heists in US history and resulted in the longest and costliest criminal trial in Rhode Island history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dresden Green Vault burglary</span> Burglary of jewellery

On 25 November 2019, royal jewellery was stolen from the Green Vault museum within Dresden Castle in Dresden, Saxony, Germany. The stolen items included the 49-carat Dresden White Diamond, the diamond-laden breast star of the Polish Order of the White Eagle which belonged to the King of Poland, a hat clasp with a 16-carat diamond, a diamond epaulette, and a diamond-studded hilt containing nine large and 770 smaller diamonds, along with a matching scabbard. The missing items were of great cultural value to the State of Saxony and were described as priceless; other sources estimate the total value at about €1 billion. However, in the years following the burglary, more accurate estimates place the total value of the stolen items at around €113 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zoe Progl</span> British criminal

Zoe Progl was a British criminal. Born into a poor family and with a father who was often drunk and in trouble with the police, Progl began stealing to feed herself from the age of six. She later progressed to shoplifting and worked in nightclubs where she fraternised with criminals. Progl married an American soldier at the age of 18, but soon left him and began carrying out burglaries with a new partner. Whilst three months pregnant, she was sentenced to three years detention at Aylesbury Borstal. After her release, she had an affair with Tommy "Scarface" Smithson, a London gangster whose gang included the Kray twins. She had a second child with Smithson before he left her.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Pearl Robbery</span> Jewelry robbery

In 1913, a necklace of 61 pearls was stolen in what later became known as the Great Pearl Robbery. It led to the largest claim from a jewellery policy at Lloyd's of London.

George Henry "Taters" Chatham was a British thief and burglar. Born to a middle-class family, he aspired to become a professional footballer but despite a trial at Queen's Park Rangers, nothing came of it. Chatham turned to crime and was first convicted of theft in 1931. By the end of that decade he was burgling the houses of wealthy Londoners, carefully selecting his targets from society magazines. His calm-headedness led to his nickname from the Cockney rhyming slang for cold.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Allen, Peter (20 June 2009). "Three suspected Pink Panther gang members arrested in Monaco". The Daily Telegraph . London, UK. Retrieved 22 June 2009.
  2. ↑ Samuels, David. "The Band of Jewel Thieves Who Robbed for Revenge". The New Yorker.
  3. 1 2 Fleishman, Jeffrey (29 July 2009). "Balkans' Pink Panther jewel thieves smash their way into myth". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  4. ↑ "Pink Panthers: Daring heists rake in half-a-billion dollars". www.cbsnews.com. 31 August 2014.
  5. ↑ Chiu, Richard (15 August 2019). "Pink Panthers: Europe's mysterious gang of thieves". jewellermagazine.com.
  6. ↑ Cuffin, Eddie (26 June 2012). "A Look Inside The Crimes Of The World's Most Powerful Thieves". elitedaily.com. Elite Daily. Archived from the original on 12 June 2021.
  7. ↑ Samuels, David. "The Pink Panthers". The New Yorker. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  8. 1 2 3 "Jewellers hit again in '£1m raid'". BBC. 28 May 2005. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
  9. 1 2 "Gems robber jailed for 15 years". BBC. 21 July 2004. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 "'Jewel gangster' held in Monaco". BBC. 20 June 2009. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
  11. 1 2 Agence France-Presse/Jiji Press, "'Pink Panther' to face trial in Montenegro over 2007 Ginza heist", Japan Times , 21 May 2012, p. 1
  12. ↑ Treptow, Cornelia (14 August 2009). "Graff Jewel Heist, Were Pink Panthers Thieves Behind Record-Breaking Gem Robbery?". Abcnews.go.com. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  13. ↑ Williams, Carol (29 July 2013). "$136 million French Riviera jewel heist may be biggest in history". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 19 April 2015.
  14. ↑ Tedesco, Louie. "Interpol closing in on 'Pink Panther' jewel thieves". Arabianbusiness.com. Archived from the original on 20 August 2010. Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  15. 1 2 3 "Serbs guilty of Japan jewel heist". BBC. 2 October 2007. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
  16. ↑ Seward, Deborah (28 March 2009). "'Pink Panther' suspect held in Cyprus". The Independent . London, UK. Retrieved 28 March 2009.
  17. ↑ "Inspector Clouseau gets his man". New York Post . Reuters. 28 March 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2009.
  18. ↑ "'Pink Panther' suspect to serve Cyprus jail term". The Independent . London, UK. Associated Press. 21 April 2009. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
  19. ↑ "'Pink Panther' fugitive in Tokyo jail for Ginza heist". Japan Times . Japan Times. 15 August 2010. Retrieved 14 August 2010.
  20. ↑ "Pink Panther arrests in Monaco". The New Zealand Herald . 22 June 2009. Retrieved 22 June 2009.
  21. ↑ "Serbian Pink Panthers gang's 'brain' arrested". Focus News Agency. 8 March 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
  22. ↑ "Rome: Mitar Marjanović arrested as a "Pink Panther" leader". Novosti online. 8 March 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
  23. ↑ "Two members of the "Pink Panthers" arrested in Athens". in.gr. 14 March 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2012.
  24. ↑ ""Pink Panther" Female Prisoner Vanishes into Thin Air". greekreporter.com. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
  25. ↑ ""Pink Panther" jewel thief escapes Swiss prison". CBS News. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
  26. ↑ Jarak, Andrija (3 June 2015). "Andrija Jarak otkriva pozadinu djelovanja zloglasne bande razbijene u Zagrebu". dnevnik.hr (in Croatian). Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  27. ↑ "ONI SU POKUŠALI PLJAČKU VEKA U HRVATSKOJ: Objavljena imena Srba koji su uhapšeni u Zagrebu!". telegraf.rs (in Serbian). 4 June 2015. Retrieved 24 June 2021.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.