PARIS // Two Qatari women were robbed of valuables worth “at least €5 million [Dh19.5m]” in Paris when they were held up on a motorway with their driver, police said on Tuesday.
The women, two sisters in their sixties, had just left Le Bourget airport north-east of the capital on Monday when their rented Bentley was held up by two masked men, who sprayed them with tear gas and stole “everything in the vehicle: jewels, clothes, luggage”, one source said.
The portion of motorway leading north from Paris to the Charles de Gaulle and Le Bourget airports is often the scene of hold-ups targeting wealthy foreigners in luxury cars, some of whom carry large amounts of cash.
Robbers often take advantage of traffic jams to pounce on their victims.
Last month, a taxi transporting the CEO of a French furniture chain among other passengers was held up after leaving Le Bourget.
The three robbers made off with an estimated €100,000 in valuables.
A Korean art collector was the target of a similar heist last year, with three attackers snatching €4m in jewels from her car.
Within Paris itself a number of high-profile robberies have led the government to step up security around tourist spots.
In October, American reality TV star Kim Kardashian was tied up and robbed at gunpoint of US$10 million (Dh36.7m) in jewels in a luxury apartment in the heart of the city.
The Kardashian hold-up prompted the mayor of Paris to defend the image and safety record of the world’s most visited city, which is struggling to reassure tourists and restore hotel bookings since the deadly militant attacks of a year ago.
Bookings of flights into France dipped 8.1 per cent over the first nine months of 2016 versus the same period a year earlier, and more heavily than that in the wider Paris region.
* Agence France-Presse and Reuters
