MOTOR THIEVES' HAUL

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 34, 9 August 1921, Page 3

MOTOR THIEVES' HAUL

BIG JEWEL ROBBERY.

A jewel robbery committed in broad daylight and' lasting thirty seconds only, the thieves getting away with a haul esti. mated at _ half a million francs —such is the exploit during. > a morning on 18th June in Paris of four armed bandits of the Bonnot and Gamier school. Never has a robbery, on so vast a scale been so thoroughly planned, and so expeditiously was tho operation executed (says tho Paris correspondent of London Daily Telegraph) that one might imagine that it had been carefully rehearsed. Tho dramatic swiftness of tho coup beggars anything that the cinema films have shovn.

It is eight o'clock in the morning. A handsome blue motor-car stops in front of a jeweller's shop in the Boulevard Saint Martin. Four men step from ifc. Two of them, ono armed with a revolver and the^ other with a carbine, take up positions* on the pavement in front of the shop, while tho other two set forth on their mission of pillage. One f'maahes the window • with a ■hammer, and the other, wearing an apron like a valet de chambre, wraps many trays of jewels in it. The two armed men in front of the shop open fire in order to keop the crowd and any policemen who might happen on the scene at bay. The man • with thfi apron having seized as many cases of jewels as he could carry, the four thieves re-enter the car, the engine of which had not stopped, and the vehicle moves off at a rapid speed. The manager of the ishop, amazed and stunned, can do but little in thirty seconds. He seizes his revolver and fires \at the departing motorcar, the bullet entering the small window at the back and passing through the glass screen in front.

, Rushing along the Faubourg Saint Martin, tho car enters the Rue Albouy. It slops suddenly near the Quay Valmy, .Shots are fared all the time, and the shopkeepers see four mon leave the car and take to .their heels. An accident had happened to the car, which, it seems, had been stolen 1 at four o'clock that morning. Tho thieves leave behind a rainproof coat, two hats, a carbine, and two revolvers, the hammer which had smashed the window, and finger-prints on the car, but not a single jewel. This . daring exploit recalls the jewel robbery by means of a motor-car in the Ruo Tronehet a few months ago. A hammer also figured in that affair, and according to a description of one of the bandits engaged in the robbery this morning the police see some resemblance to "Chariot," the man whohas always succeeded in avoiding capture. The jeweller made an inventory of the articles stolen, and found that a tray of rings worth 150,000r lias to be included. This brings tho amount of the thieves' booty up to K'o.ooor.