RT |
A fraud posing as a princess from the United Arab Emirates has pulled off a daring con at a high-end Paris jewelry store, replacing precious stones worth €1.6 million ($1.78 million) with worthless bouillon cubes.
The impostor carried out the impressive switcheroo on Wednesday evening when she convinced staff in the jewelers on Rue Saint-Honore that she was a member of the Emirati royal family.
The store manager spent a full hour showing her the finest pieces the shop had to offer and the client selected several items which were supposedly placed in a box that was then safely stashed in a safe.
A fake princess from the United Arab Emirates steals 1.6 million jewels from a Parisian jeweler https://t.co/9YtDW0pDae pic.twitter.com/Dv4wNWn3Nn
— News1 English (@News1English) August 3, 2019
The supposed princess said she would transfer the money to the store but by Thursday evening it hadn’t arrived. The manager reopened the box and was horrified to discover that the incredibly valuable jewelry had been replaced with a bunch of cheap stock cubes, French news outlet LCI reports.
Police believe the woman pulled off the swindle while pretending to make a phone call to her husband. Investigators are now trying to track down the hustler who carried out the audacious scam.
Jewelry replaced by cubic broths?
(Added by GVS News Desk)
This woman, who had visited Tuesday at 9 pm in a luxury jewelry rue Saint-Honore in the 1st arrondissement, had had set aside several pieces placed in a box and assured that it would pay by transfer the next day.
Anxious not to receive the promised transfer, the jeweler reopened the safe in which the case was two days later on Thursday, and realized the scheme: the false princess had managed to replace discreetly jewelry by what appeared to be at first glance chocolates, confirming that the damage amounted to some 1.3 million euros.
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Nevertheless, according to LCI, it seems that it is actually cubic broths. An investigation for “robbery” was opened by the brigade of repression of the banditry (BRB) of the Paris judicial police which was seized of the investigation.
RT with additional input by GVS News Desk