PARIS - A Saudi princess has reported the theft of jewels worth 800,000 euros ($930,000) from her suite at the Ritz hotel in Paris, a police source said on Monday.
The woman, who was not named, said the jewels were taken on Friday afternoon. There were no signs that the room had been broken into, the source said. The woman told prosecutors the belongings were not left in the room's safe.
A spokesman for the Ritz declined to comment.
If confirmed, it would be the second heist from the chic hotel on Paris's Place Vendome this year.
In January, ax-bearing thieves burst into the lobby and stole millions of dollars worth of necklaces and other jewellery from display cases.
Police managed to catch three of them inside, and two others who escaped on a scooter ended up dropping a bag of their loot. All the jewels were eventually recovered.
Armed thefts are not uncommon in the area, where dozens of luxury boutiques and jewellery stores align the streets.
In December 2017, a man was able to substitute two diamonds and two rings worth 5.5 million euros in a jewellery store, replacing them with cheap fakes.
In October 2016, reality TV star Kim Kardashian was the victim of a robbery 10 minutes walk from the Ritz, in which millions of dollars' worth of her jewellery were stolen.
Police now keep a permanent presence in the neighborhood, but that has done little to deter determined robbers.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
PARIS - Luxury furniture auctioned off by the legendary Ritz hotel in Paris sold for 7.3 million euros ($9 million), a world record in the industry, auction house Artcurial said Saturday.
The Paris hotel, home for a while to Ernest Hemingway, Marcel Proust and Coco Chanel, sold off all 10,000 pieces of furniture and decor.
They included stools from the Hemingway Bar, a 19th-century bathtub, and sofas and a harp from the Proust Lounge.
The Ritz sale outperformed other hotels around the world, the auction house said.
In 2013 in Paris, Hotel de Crillon made 5.9 million euros from a furniture sale while Plaza Athenee made 1.4 million euros.
The 3,400 lots that were up for grabs were on sale between April 17 and 21.
Buyers bid on objects ranging from velvet security cordons and curtain ties, to rugs, bedframes and sets of bathrobes and slippers embroidered with the Ritz insignia.
Price estimates ran from 100 euros for a pair of tablecloths to 10,000 euros for a pair of nymph sculptures carrying bronze candelabras that used to decorate the lobby.
"The Ritz has excited a sudden passion, attracting buyers from all over the world," auctioneer Francois Tajan told AFP.
The Ritz decided to sell the pieces from its famous Place Vendome address when it reopened in June 2016 after four years of extensive renovations.
Owned by Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed since 1979, the hotel had accumulated impressive quantities of objects since it was opened in 1898 by Cesar Ritz.
It has served as the backdrop to several key moments in French history.
The Nazis requisitioned it during World War II but had cleared out by the time Ernest Hemingway burst in with a group of Resistance fighters on August 25, 1944, gun in hand, to "personally liberate" it.
Realising he was too late Hemingway took to the bar where he is said to have run up a tab for 51 dry Martinis.
In 1997, tragedy befell the hotel when Britain's Princess Diana, who had been staying there, was killed in a car accident in a Paris tunnel while being pursued by paparazzi.
The hotel made global headlines again in January, when robbers armed with guns and hatchets ransacked jewellery shops on the ground floor, making off with over four million euros ($4.9 million) in gems and watches.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
