A luxury Rolex watch stolen during an armed robbery in Denmark five years ago was located in Greece when a woman brought it into a store for repair, in Athens. The robbery was attributed to an international jewel thief network, known as the Pink Panthers.
As its serial number was registered, the store technician was able to identify it as one of 50 luxury watches stolen from a jewelery shop in Copenhagen, back in November 2017.
The thieves had entered the store posing as customers, and with the threat of a pistol and pepper spray, they immobilised the employees. One of the employees was pepper sprayed in the face, when he tried to react. The perpetrators snatched a total of 50 luxury watches of various top-end brands and fled the scene. The total value of the haul was not made public, but it’s believed to be several hundred thousand Euros….ouch!
The well-traveled “Greek” Rolex, valued at EUR80,000.00, was confiscated by the Property Crimes Department of Attica Security in Athens after the watch technician notified the police about his finding. Officers immediately turned to the 35-year-old woman of Albanian origin who had brought the watch to the store, but it turned out that she had nothing to do with the robbery. She told police that the watch was sold to her by a compatriot in Albania 4 years earlier, at a ridiculously low price, compared to its real value, and that was why she bought it.
Investigations are apparently ongoing to determine the journey the watch has taken, in the hope that some traces of those involved in the armed robbery and the disposal of the booty can be found.
So the moral of this story about a Swiss watch stolen from a Danish store, bought by an Albanian woman, and identified in Greece, is …… register your watch!
