The window of the jeweler Chopard, robbed on the 30th of May 2009, place Vendôme in Paris - Photo : AFP

PARIS, 30 May 2009 (AFP) – The hold-up perpetrated on Saturday 30 May at the Parisian jewellery store Chopard, Place Vendôme, is, with a haul of an estimated value of €6.6 million, one of the biggest jewellery heists recorded in France.

The biggest jewellery theft ever seen in France however was the robbery committed in December 2008 at Harry Winston in Paris, items estimated at a value of €85 million.

In the world, the record is held by the thieves who got hold of diamonds worth €100 million on the 14th of February 2003 in Anvers, Beligum.

Here are the main hold-ups committed in the last few years:

- 28 Jan 2009: Four people seized 300 kilos of gold and precious metals at Rilleux-la-Pape (Rhône), worth €9 million.

- 4 Dec 2008: Three men took almost all of the jewels on display in the jewelers Harry Winston, Avenue Montaigne in Paris. The theft was valued at €85 million.

- 6 Oct 2007: First robbery at Harry Winston, total of more than €20 million of jewellery.

- 30 Aug 2005: Watches and jewellery worth €2 million were snatched from Julian in Saint-Tropez by members of the “Pink Panthers”, an international gang which have been active for more than ten years and to whom a hundred different robberies worth more than €110 million have been attributed.

- 27 Sep 2004: Two diamonds stolen from the Antique Dealers Biennial at the Louvre, Paris, representing a haul of €11.5 million.

- 20 Sep 2002: Two armed men made off with €3 million in jewellery from a jewelers on the Croisette in Cannes.

- 25 May 2002: Two criminals, their faces covered and using tear gas, smashed the window of the jewelers Fred on the Place Vendôme in Paris with a hammer and carried off €6 million in jewellery.

- 12 Oct 2001: More than 15 million Francs (€2.2 million) in jewellery, diamonds and watches were taken from three Parisian jewelers. They were conned by a client posing as a Kuwaiti emir.

- 15 July 2001: Three men made off with 25 million Francs (€3.8 million) in a robbery, using a car as a battering ram on the Van Cleef & Arpels boutique in Cannes.

By Jonathan Fulwell (Source: AFP)