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A member of the Pink Panther international ring of jewel thieves was jailed for 10 years on Wednesday by the Tokyo District Court for his part in a 2 billion yen jewel robbery at a Ginza store in 2007.
Rifat Hadziahmetovic, 43, a citizen of Montenegro, was arrested in Cyprus last year on a charge of trying to leave the island using a fake passport. He was later extradited to Spain over a 2008 robbery on the Spanish island of Tenerife. The Spanish government agreed to hand him over to Japan.
Hadziahmetovic was convicted of snatching the tiara and necklace from a Ginza store after spraying a worker with mace.
The Pink Panthers, named after the 1963 movie starring Peter Sellers as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, are believed to be mainly from countries in the Balkans. The gang is believed to have more than 200 members and is characterized by swift robberies lasting less than three minutes, according to Interpol.
The gang is known for the creativity of its heists and has used bicycles to escape from a robbery in the dense traffic of Tokyo and a fast motorboat in southern France.
After one robbery in London, the gang hid a diamond ring worth $1.28 million in a pot of face cream. That earned the gang its name, since a similar tactic was used in the film “The Pink Panther.”
They are the prime suspects in a series of jewel thefts worth more than $150 million over the past decade in Europe, Asia and the Persian Gulf.
Some Pink Panther members have already been caught but others are still at large. Hadziahmetovic is suspected of participating in other armed robberies in Bahrain, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.
The Pink Panther members are also suspected in a 2004 Tokyo jewelry heist.
© Japan Today/AP
4 Comments
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Patric Spohn
Can of mace is a weapon ;)
Gurukun
Ocean's 200?
smithinjapan
10 years is pretty harsh, given that murderers often get less here. But hey, you do the crime, you do the time.
Cho88
In a way I enjoy the story of this jewel heist gang, it's a like a film happening in real life!
But yes, ultimately of course, crime is crime and should be punished. 10 years seems a bit harsh. Perhaps it's to dissuade the other members from continuing.