PARIS // Armed robbers forced their way into a private Paris residence where Kim Kardashian West was staying, tied her up and locked her in a bathroom before making off with more than €10 million (Dh41.3m) worth of jewellery, police officials have said.
A spokeswoman for Ms Kardashian West said the reality TV star, who was in Paris attending fashion week shows, was badly shaken but physically unharmed. She left Paris on Monday morning.
A Paris police official said five assailants, who were still at large, stole a jewellery box containing valuables worth €6m euros as well as a ring worth €4m. However, the Paris prosecutors’ office said that only two of the five suspects forced their way into the apartment.
The thieves entered the 19th-century luxury residence in Paris’ chic eighth district after the concierge let them in. Handcuffed and at gunpoint, he led them to Ms Kardashian West’s apartment.
Two police officials said the robbers tied up Ms Kardashian West and locked her in the bathroom before escaping on bikes.
It’s unclear whether Ms Kardashain West’s two children, three-year-old daughter North and 10-month-old son Saint, were with her when the robbery happened.
Her husband, Kanye West, abruptly ended his performance at the Meadows Music and Arts Festival in New York on Sunday night.
“I’m sorry, family emergency, I have to stop the show,” West told the audience.
With France under a state of emergency following a string of extremist attacks over the past 20 months in which more than 200 people have been killed, news of the robbery immediately sparked criticism from political opponents of the Socialist government.
Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, a right-wing member of the Paris council and a potential candidate in next year’s presidential election, said the robbery was proof that “there is a general emergency on security” in the French capital.
“Regardless of all the very expensive advertising we do to promote ‘I Love Paris’, tourism and the image of Paris, all these ads have been brutally cancelled by the Kim Kardashian case,” Ms Kosciusko-Morizet told Europe 1 radio.
But Paris’s Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo insisted that the robbery was an isolated event and did not cast doubt on security in the capital.
Tourists “can come to the French capital, visit and relax in good security conditions”, she said.
* Associated Press, with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
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