Cannes experiences another round of thievery.
Another jewelry heist has taken away from the glitz and glamour of the Cannes Film Festival.
Reuters reports that a valuable De Grisogono diamond necklace was stolen Tuesday night during a party at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in the resort town of Cap d’Antibes, despite 80 security guards, local police and hotel staff on duty during the event.
While the Geneva jewelry said the necklace, which was part of its 20th anniversary collection showcased by models at the hotel, was worth $2.6 million other officials gave different estimates. According to CNN, police in Nice said the piece was worth $1.3 million whereas police in Cap d’Antibes said the piece was only worth $1 million.
Despite a disputed figure on the necklace’s worth, the company said this was the first theft in its 20-year history.
“We don’t know exactly what happened … it was one of the most beautiful items we had,” Fawaz Gruosi, founder and owner of De Grisogono, told Reuters Television. “The police are trying to figure out what happened.”
Last Friday, someone tore the safe out of the a Suite Novotel hotel room in Cannes and got away with thousands of dollars worth of gems by Swiss jeweler Chopard. While reports said the stolen jewelry amounted to around $1 million, the company has said the value of merchandise is much lower than that. According to police officials, a Chopard employee who was staying in the room left it unattended for several hours to grab a bit to eat and returned only to learn that the safe had been removed from the wall and was gone. Police also said that it seems that whoever stole the merchandise did so by entering the room without force or using a magnetic key card.
So far, there appears to be no direct connection between the two jewelry thefts.
In addition to the first jewelry theft last week, the festival experienced another disruption that same Friday when gunshots were heard during a live TV interview with “Django Chained” actor Christopher Waltz and French star Daniel Auteuil, causing them and spectators to run for their lives. The Los Angeles Times reported that the incident occurred as French TV station Canal+ was talking with the two actors for Le Grand Journal, its nightly news and entertainment broadcast program that is filmed from the beach in front of the Martinez Hotel.
No injures were reported, as the two shots fired turned out to be blanks, however police arrested the man, who was also found carrying a fake grenade and a knife.
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