Three men charged in connection with Harry Winston jewellery robbery in Paris

Armed robbers used a motorbike as a battering ram during the heist in May, making off with valuables worth €7 million

Police officers guard the Harry Winston jewellery shop in Paris, after a robbery. AP

Police have charged three men in connection with a robbery at the luxury Paris boutique of the Harry Winston group, which saw thieves make off with jewellery worth €7 million ($7.5 million).

Armed robbers used a motorbike as a battering ram during the robbery in May.

The three are being held in custody in connection with the crime.

They were arrested last week at an apartment in a wealthy Paris suburb where much of the loot was reportedly discovered.

Two men entered the boutique and broke nine windows using a hatchet during the attack on May 18, while a third waited outside with a Kalashnikov machinegun.

As they sped away, they pointed the firearm “in the direction of police officers, who had to put an end to their pursuit”, prosecutors said.

They stole 23 pieces of jewellery with a resale value of about €340,000 each.

According to Le Parisien newspaper, they were apprehended after a man living in Paris, a French-Israeli citizen, sought to sell on the jewellery.

That led police to an apartment in a wealthy suburb of the capital, where they discovered 17 pieces of jewellery worth about €5.5 million. The jewellery appeared unaltered, apart from one ring that had some stones removed.

The three men were placed in pretrial detention on Monday, on charges of “concealment of theft by an organised gang” and “criminal conspiracy”, said the newspaper.

It is not the first time the boutique has been targeted.

In 2015, eight people were convicted in connection with a 2008 robbery, in which three gunmen fled with a loot worth $92 million from the same store.

After opening his eponymous jewellery house in New York in 1932, the late Harry Winston revolutionised modern jewellery design. He was perhaps best known for donating the 45.52-carat Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

The American luxury jewellery brand has forged a reputation for offering some of the finest white and coloured diamonds money can buy.

Customers include Crown Prince Hussein of Jordan, who proposed to Rajwa Al Saif with a Harry Winston pear-cut diamond ring.

The largest Harry Winston engagement ring made was for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Weighing 40.42 carats, it was presented by the Greek-Argentine businessman Aristotle Onassis, and was one of 18 stones cut from the 601-carat Lesotho III diamond.

Two years after her death, it was sold at auction in 1996 for $2.6 million, while today it is valued closer to $20 million.

A man removes the wreckage of a vehicle that was used by robbers to ram into a Chanel boutique, near the Champs-Elysees in Paris, in a separate theft. AFP

In June, thieves rammed a Chanel boutique in Paris, driving an SUV through the front window, before making off with a haul reportedly worth between €6 million and €10 million.

On the same day in Rome a gang of thieves broke into the Bulgari store on Via Condotti, making off with jewellery and watches estimated to be worth €500,000.