James Allen News Center

Four armed men, some wearing wigs, held up the exclusive Harry Winston store in Paris and made off with a reported US $108 million worth of diamonds and jewelry.  The robbery was the largest jewelry theft in French history.

The four gunmen approached the exclusive diamond store on the upscale Avenue Montaigne – home to other high-end shops like Dior, Gucci and Chanel – at 5:30 pm,  just before the store was about to close.  According to Doron Levy, a spokesman for the Union of French Jewelers, at least two of the men wore wigs and women`s clothing and addressed some of the staff by name. 

The gunmen threatened the store`s fifteen employees, overturned display cases, and assaulted several employees.  They stuffed all the display-case jewelry into large bags.  Then, they identified additional storage locations, and forced employees to hand over even more of the valuable gems.

The brazen robbery wasn`t the first for the Paris Harry Winston shop.  In October 2007, several masked gunmen robbed the store of $28.4 million in merchandise, ranging in price from $3,000 platinum rings to a $5 million diamond-studded bracelet.

The largest jewelry heist in history took place in 2003 in Antwerp, Belgium, the world`s diamond trading center.  A team of thieves broke into over 120 security vaults at the heavily-guarded diamond market and made off with a reported $128 million in valuable gems.