The Cannes Film Festival provided thieves with the opportunity to make off with more than $1 million worth of jewels. French authorities say the Novotel hotel room of a Chopard employee was burglarized between 7 p.m. Thursday and 3 a.m. Friday. A safe containing necklaces, bracelets and other jewelry was taken.
"Numbers have been put forward that we're still trying to verify, but the figure of $1 million ... we're in that range," said Nice judicial police spokesman Cmdr. Bernard Mascarelli.
A Chopard spokeswoman said the jewelry was not going to be used by stars at Cannes. She did not say what the jewelry was intended for. "The jewels stolen are not part of the collection of jewels that are worn by actresses during the Cannes film festival," spokeswoman Raffaella Rossiello told reporters.
Mascarelli said it appears the robbery was pulled off by multiple people who had inside information about the Chopard employee. "It seems pretty unlikely to us that it was just one person," he said. "Apparently this (hotel guest) was someone who was targeted because it wasn't someone who had been seeking attention. ... There must have been either inside complicity, or people who were in contact with this person and knew that the person had jewels.”
No other details were available. Earlier this week, thieves targeted South Africa’s Soccer City stadium after a sold out Justin Bieber concert. Hundreds of thousands of dollars from concession sales was taken.
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