Police find €18m of stolen jewels in French sewer

FRENCH investigators have found jewels valued at €18 million hidden in a Paris rain sewer — part of the spectacular 2008 heist from luxury jeweller Harry Winston’s Paris boutique.

Nineteen rings and three sets of earrings — one pair valued at €14m — were dug up from a drain at a house in the working class Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, police said.

The jewels were hidden in a plastic container set in a cement mould inside the sewer. The house belonged to one of the nine people charged.

The bold robbery on December 5, 2008, netted the thieves, some dressed as women and wearing wigs, gems and watches worth up to €85m.

The boutique is on a street off Paris’s famed Champs-Elysees Avenue dotted with fashion houses and fashionable cafes.

The robbery, carried out while Christmas shoppers strolled outside, was among the most audacious in recent memory.

Some stolen rings, necklaces and watches were recovered when police rounded up 25 people in a June 2009 sweep.

Among those charged was the heist’s suspected mastermind, who had been sentenced to 15 years in prison in a drug trafficking case. Police found stolen jewellery and €760,000 at this house.

A guard at the boutique put police on the trail of the suspects. When investigators learned that an Israeli was expected in Paris to buy some of the stolen jewels, police moved in to make the arrests.