Nine years after the high-profile robbery in Paris, Kim Kardashian comes face-to-face with her attackers in court. The high-stakes trial also sheds light on the security lapses that led to this major incident.
In early October 2016, Kim Kardashian, the queen of influencers, was robbed at gunpoint in her Paris hotel room during Fashion Week by a gang of aging thieves disguised as police officers. The trial for this sensational nine-million-euro jewelry heist opened Monday in Paris.
This highly publicized trial, where two worlds will clash until May 23, kicked off at 2:30 p.m. (12:30 GMT) in the historic courthouse of the French capital. Kim Kardashian, now 44, has indicated that she plans to testify on May 13.
Around 3:00 a.m. (1:00 GMT) on the night of October 2 to 3, 2016, two masked men burst into the American star’s room as she was about to go to bed in her bathrobe. She screamed. They, speaking with a strong French accent, demanded her "ring," she later said.
The "ring" was her engagement ring from rapper Kanye West, valued at four million dollars (3.5 million euros), which Kim Kardashian, then 35, often flaunted on social media along with much of her life.
A massive diamond, a celebrity consistently returning to the same discreet yet poorly secured hotel in Paris—the No Address—and real-time sharing of her location: the temptation was simply too great for the elderly robbers, as the press nicknamed them.
"It wasn’t a major armed robbery," claimed the main suspect Aomar Aït Khedache, identified by his DNA. He admitted to binding Kim Kardashian but disputes playing the central role the investigators attribute to him.
357 Million Followers
Aomar Aït Khedache claimed he was approached by an unnamed "mastermind" who allegedly offered the "job" with help from an "insider" close to Kardashian, able to give the green light. That night, she was alone—her bodyguard had accompanied her sister Kourtney to a nightclub.
The robbery itself took only about ten minutes but left Kim Kardashian deeply traumatized. The loot amounted to ten million dollars' worth of jewelry (nine million euros, later reimbursed by insurance), making it the largest private theft in France in twenty years.
Only a necklace lost during the thieves' getaway was ever recovered. Investigators believe much of the stolen gold was melted down, and although they seized hundreds of thousands of euros from suspects arrested three months later, a large portion of the loot likely ended up in Belgium.
Thanks to her reality TV fame from Keeping Up with the Kardashians and her growing business empire, Kim Kardashian already had around 84 million Instagram followers back in 2016. Today, she boasts 357 million.
Apparently, her robbers weren't among them: they had asked the hotel receptionist for "the rapper’s wife" and only realized who they had robbed after the media frenzy erupted.
Old-School Gangsters
The so-called "old-school gangsters," as investigators called them, averaged around 60 years old at the time. Already convicted for previous robberies and drug trafficking, Aomar Aït Khedache, his accomplice Didier Dubreucq, and eight others are standing trial—though all are free pending the outcome.
The judges must determine exactly who did what—and, most crucially, how the gang acquired such precise information. The investigation points to Gary Madar, the brother of Kardashian’s driver, who firmly denies any involvement.
No fewer than 400 journalists, about a quarter of them foreign, are accredited to cover the trial. But nine years after the events, the proceedings promise to be complex: several defendants are elderly or in poor health. One suspect died in March, and the case against Pierre Bouianere, 80, was separated because he is unfit for trial. Aomar Aït Khedache, now 68, can no longer hear and can only communicate in writing.
Kim Kardashian, who once thought she was going to die that night, stayed away from Paris for years and significantly reduced how much of her life she shares online—in real time, at least.
With AFP
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