In the case of the robbery in Tamara Ecclestone’s villa alone, the burglars make the greatest prey in English criminal history. The gang also targeted other celebrities.
London – They took tens of millions of dollars in jewels, valuables and cash from the super-rich mansions in London in just a few weeks.
Today the sentence is expected for three members of a gang of burglars who wreaked havoc in London in December 2019. Among the victims were celebrities such as Tamara Ecclestone (37), daughter of the Formula 1 founder Bernie Ecclestone (91), and ex-soccer star Frank Lampard (43).
The defendants, aged between 24 and 45, pleaded guilty to a court in London of having been involved in the break-ins. The British investigators had followed their tracks as far as Italy, where the suspects could be arrested. They were then extradited to the UK. A fourth defendant is still on the run.
In Tamara Ecclestone’s house alone, the gang is said to have looted jewels and valuables worth 25 million pounds (around 29 million euros). According to the police, the case is considered to be the most valuable loot in English criminal history. They also broke into the house of ex-soccer star Frank Lampard and took items worth 50,000 pounds (about 59,000 euros) with them. Valuable watches, Buddha followers and hundreds of thousands of pounds of cash were stolen from an apartment of the previously deceased Leicester City soccer club owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha. There is still no trace of most of the prey.
The gang’s investigators found out about the gang, among other things, by meticulously viewing more than 2000 hours of footage from surveillance cameras, the police said. Later DNA traces from the crime scenes could also be assigned to the men.
The burglars left the country shortly after their deeds. Before that, however, they apparently celebrated the successful break-ins with dinner in a luxury restaurant and shopping in the glamorous Harrods department store, where one of the men even had a customer card issued. dpa
