Reality star Kim Kardashian was relieved of $11 million dollars worth of jewelry early Monday morning when she was robbed by five men at gun point in her Paris apartment.
French police spokesperson Johanna Primevert told CNN that Kardashian basically brought this upon herself.
“It was really the celebrity who was targeted, with possessions that had been seen and noticed via social media, and it was these goods that the attackers targeted,” Primevert said, adding that, “I saw this happening. It just had to do with the way Kim flaunts her riches and her diamonds. She has nearly 50 million people (on Twitter) who at any moment and on any day know where she is.”
The 35-year-old mother of two (three if you count her husband Kanye) was robbed at around 3 a.m. when five masked men broke into Kardashian’s $32,000 a month apartment at the Hotel de Pourtales.
French police said Kardashian was being followed by two men in the days leading up to the robbery. Investigators describe the men as “Caucasian” and “North African” and said they posed as a police officer and photographer to gain “close surveillance” information crucial for the heist’s success. The two men spoke with French accents and are believed to have been caught on security footage from across the street showing the men tailing a car carrying Kardashian, her husband Kanye West and her sister Kourtney after they left a fitting for the fashion show they were there to attend.
Authorities believe the criminals will have a tough time selling the items as they are highly recognizable pieces and media attention surrounding them will cool their value drastically on the black market.
The DailyMail provides some more details on the harrowing robbery:
“The men tied her hands together, pulled tape across her mouth, and then placed her in a marble bath.
The door of the bathroom was then locked, and two members of the gang helped themselves to the jewellery.
The robbers had also handcuffed and gagged the concierge who had opened the door of the apartment block, which is close to the British Embassy.
The terrified star reportedly asked the concierge ‘Are we gonna die?’ and he calmly replied, ‘I don’t know’ when he was led the robbers into her flat.
Neighbours of the star ‘did not hear a thing’ when she was screaming for help while being robbed in Paris and the gangsters did not leave a trace of DNA.
Kardashian is said to have been screaming frantically both before and after being locked in a bathroom, where she too was bound up with tape across her mouth.
She managed to escape, according to her own testament, and made a phone call to her bodyguard Pascal Duvier logged at 2.56am on Monday, while also shouting for help from a balcony.
After their highly organized raid, the five men were seen escaping on ‘velibs’ – hire bicycles which can be rented all over Paris.”