Suspects Arrested in Kardashian Jewelry Heist

Paris--French police have arrested more than a dozen people in connection with the Kim Kardashian West jewelry heist at a Paris hotel back in October.

According to French news site Europe 1, which broke the story early Monday morning, police arrested 16 suspects at 6 a.m. Monday Central European time in a simultaneous raid conducted across Paris and the Seine-Maritime and Alpes-Maritimes regions.

Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office, told The New York Times (which has reported that 17 suspects were arrested) that the arrested group were in their 40s, 50s and 60s, with the oldest member being about 72.

Police used DNA recovered from the crime scene and footage from security cameras to identify some of the thieves.

Luc Poignant, a spokesman for a police union, told the Times that some of this evidence was used to set up a larger surveillance effort that led to more of the arrests, explaining, “You have the robbers, and then the one who is going to sell off the goods, the one who puts people in touch, the stone cutter, etc.”

Police can hold the suspects up to 96 hours without charging them.

The heist took place during the early hours of Oct. 3. West, a reality TV and social media star, was robbed at gunpoint after five thieves disguised as police officers made their way into her hotel, l’Hotel de Pourtalès, and forced the establishment’s concierge to take them to West’s suite.

The thieves, who arrived and departed by bicycle, made off with a $4 million Lorraine Schwartz ring and a reported $5 million worth of additional jewelry, plus two cell phones and a wallet, and left West shaken but unharmed.

West has been mostly silent on social media since, only recently returning to the various platforms she uses last week.  

So far, only one piece of stolen jewelry has been recovered: a platinum cross necklace that was found in the street the day after the robbery, thought to have been dropped by one of the thieves.

National Jeweler could not reach the Parisian police for comment by press time.