A jewel thief was sentenced to more than five years in prison in Britain on Wednesday for stealing millions of pounds worth of diamonds by switching them with pebbles in a daring sleight of hand.
Lulu Lakatos, 60, posed as a gem expert under the alias ‘Anna’ to gain access to the jewels worth a total of £4.2 million ($5.8 million, 5.0 million euros).
During court proceedings, he claimed she had been sent to appraise the gems by a wealthy Russian client before swapping them for the worthless stones.
A jury at Southwark Crown Court in south London found her guilty of conspiracy to steal. The judge called the heist ‘highly sophisticated and audacious’, involving ‘brazen deception’.
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Prosecutors said the theft of the seven diamonds — including one worth £2.2 million — from a luxury family jewellers in London’s upmarket Mayfair district was the biggest heist of its kind ever committed in Britain.
The real diamonds, which London police have said were stolen by Lakatos in cooperation with an international organised gang, have never been recovered in the wake of the March 2016 theft.
Romanian-born Lakatos, from the Saint-Brieuc region of northwest France, arrived in London a day before the theft where she met with two other members of the gang.
The trio then made a reconnaissance trip to Boodles’ jewellers on Bond Street in Mayfair.
On the day of the theft, the court heard Lakatos had examined and weighed the diamonds, wrapping them in tissue paper and placing them in boxes in a locked purse.
Security camera footage from the family firm’s basement showed the moment Lakatos switched the purse for a duplicate in her handbag using what the court heard was ‘sleight of hand’.
The practised thief left the jewellers and switched the diamonds into the handbag of an unknown woman.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK