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OSCAR NIGHT ROBBERY

February 26, 2008 | Photos | editor | 0 Comments

Stuff like this is cool.  I miss old-tymey robberies when thieves spent the weekend to tunnel into big vaults like they do in movies.  It's almost cute.  If at some point they had to swing from one building to another on ropes I don’t even think it should be illegal because that would be awesome. In America they would just kick the door in at noon and start shooting everyone.  The New York Post says…

Thieves pulled an Oscar-night heist by tunneling into a famous jewelry store in Milan, Italy, to swipe $20 million in gems – as company bosses partied thousands of miles away in Tinseltown. As if ripped from the script for "Ocean's 11," seven thugs dressed as cops busted through Damiani's cellar walls and tied up shocked employees before pocketing their loot Sunday night. The heist could have netted more. Some of Damiani's most valuable jewels were an ocean and continent away, decorating Hollywood's elite. Tilda Swinton was wearing a Damiani diamond bracelet as she won best supporting actress for "Michael Clayton." "Many of the best pieces were in Los Angeles with my brothers for the Oscars," said patriarch Guido Damiani. The Damiani robbery had been in the works since Christmas, cops said, with thieves taking advantage of a nearby construction site just behind the showroom. The brazen, night-shoveling robbers dug their tunnel inside the empty building under construction – but raised no eyebrows because of the ongoing hard-hat work. Cops almost instantly found the robbers' ill-gotten path to riches, that was about three feet in diameter. Once the gang of seven robbers broke into Damiani, they took an internal staircase into the showroom, thus avoiding any closed-circuit cameras. Five workers – three Damiani employees, a caterer and a cleaning woman – were above the robbers preparing for an Oscar-night party when they came through the walls. Originally, the robbers confronted the stunned employees by saying they were Italian tax police and demanding to see company records. Victims said the robbers even wore distinct vests donned by investigators of the Guardia Finanza, Italy's tax and finance authority. But moments later, the unarmed, unmasked robbers overpowered victims and bound them with plastic cable ties and construction tape. All the victims were taken to a bathroom, while the thieves forced the manager to show them to safety-deposit boxes, police said. The bandits methodically emptied the boxes and escaped in a van long before employees freed themselves and sounded an alarm.

This really is like Oceans 11.  Except this time, the game is for real.  In the future though I'd like to see more hanging from a ladder underneath a helicopter and girls in bikinis.



Tags: tilda swinton




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