Armed thieves raid De Beers' flagship Paris store near Place Vendome in €1 million daylight jewelry heist and flee on motorcycles
Four helmeted suspects raided De Beers' newly opened Rue de la Paix jewelry boutique near Place Vendôme in central Paris on November 12, escaping on two motorcycles within minutes with luxury diamonds and jewelry estimated near €1 million ($1.1 million) without firing a shot or causing injuries.
PARIS — Four crash-helmeted thieves armed with long guns raided De Beers’ flagship jewelry boutique on Rue de la Paix near Place Vendôme around 11:15 a.m. on Thursday, escaping through central Paris traffic on two motorcycles with roughly €1 million ($1.1 million) in diamonds and luxury jewelry.
No shots were fired and no employees or shoppers were physically injured during the blitz robbery in Paris’s 2nd arrondissement, police officials and the diamond retailer confirmed. Initial law-enforcement estimates placed the value of the stolen merchandise between several hundred thousand euros and €1 million.
How the Rue de la Paix motorcycle getaway unfolded
Four masked suspects wearing motorcycle helmets entered the De Beers boutique shortly after late-morning foot traffic built along Rue de la Paix, displaying rifles to freeze staff while clearing high-value display cases in a matter of minutes, Alliance police union representative Fabien Bogais told reporters outside the cordoned-off storefront.
Before patrol units could seal surrounding boulevards near Place Vendôme, all four suspects exited the store and sped away aboard two high-powered motorcycles waiting at the curb. The Paris prosecutor’s office immediately opened an organized-robbery investigation, assigning specialized anti-banditry detectives and forensic technicians to examine interior security footage and trace getaway routes across the Île-de-France region.
A De Beers Group spokesperson confirmed Thursday afternoon that the Rue de la Paix flagship—which celebrated its grand opening just 10 months ago in January 2026—will remain temporarily closed while investigators process the scene and staff receive well-being support.
Security scrutiny intensifies across Paris’s luxury jewelry corridor
Thursday’s precision raid renews pressure on French interior and municipal officials to harden the historic Place Vendôme luxury triangle—home to Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Chaumet, and Boucheron—despite reinforced airlock entryways and dense license-plate camera networks installed over the past decade.
The robbery comes 13 months after thieves executed a brazen October 2025 daylight raid at the nearby Louvre Museum, escaping on scooters with historic crown jewels valued at €88 million. French investigators are cross-referencing stolen-motorbike reports and traffic-camera feeds amid heightened European law-enforcement and counter-intelligence operations to determine whether the Rue de la Paix crew is tied to transnational high-jewelry theft rings.