Front ripped off jewellery shop

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33741, 14 January 1975, Page 13

Front ripped off jewellery shop

(K .Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) PARIS, January 13.

A daring band of thieves tore the front off an elegant jewellery shop in Paris yesterday )with a car tow rope and in just three minutes escaped with almost $NZ318,600 in jewels, police said.

It was the third time the shop had been burgled and the manager complained bitterly that his expensive alarm system and a police security squad guarding nearby airline offices had failed to stop them. Burglars first broke into the shop in the 1950 s by cutting a hole through the ceiling in a robbery that inspired the award-winning film, “Rififi” by a FrenchAmerican director, Jules I Dass in.. |

. In yesterday’s raid, a band of five men attached a steel | cable from their car to the I shop’s protective grille. They ) ripped off the front, scooped )out the jewels and fled as ) the shop’s alarm siren blared, i police said. The shop’s manager, Mr Rene Denis, begrudgingly admired the thieves’ daring. He told reporters: “They took enormous risks because they had very little time to pull it off.

“Despite the blaring of the sirens they dared to operate.” He added: “We are directly linked to the police station only a few hundred metres from here. Also, a team of security guards watch over airline offices just near us.”

Mr Denis, whose shop has been burgled through the ceiling, the floor and the front door, admitted: “I am absolutely disgusted by the whole thing and right now feel like giving up altogether.’’ r