Luxury watches stolen in Cannes

On Sunday evening, September 17, a 57-year-old Swiss tourist leaving a restaurant on the Boulevard de la Croisette in Cannes was attacked on the corner of Rue Pasteur at around 10:30pm. In a matter of moments, an individual snatched from him the watch he was wearing on his wrist, a Richard Mille valued at 200,000 euros. These facts, confirmed by a police source the following Tuesday afternoon, were quickly established by the police, with the thief fleeing the scene.

The thief, acting alone, ran off, leaving the police called to the scene to take note of the facts when he was already far away. An investigation was launched and handed over to the Sûreté de Cannes. Fortunately, the victim, although shocked, suffered no injuries.

However, not all owners of luxury watches have been so lucky. Recently, a Mexican man in his thirties, walking with his partner in Nice’s chic Carré d’Or district, was violently attacked, thrown to the ground and struck several times by an assailant who was also trying to steal his watch (an Audemars Piguet estimated at 50,000 euros). In Cannes, on the night of September 13-14, an American tourist was violently pushed from behind on the boulevard de la Croisette and robbed of his watch, valued at 70,000 euros.

Since the beginning of the year, the city of cinema has recorded 30 thefts of watches, a phenomenon described by a Cannes investigator as “the Côte d’Azur phenomenon”. The issue remains a major concern for the local police and the town’s mayor, David Lisnard. Investigations are encountering increasing difficulties, not least because of the competition between traditional Neapolitan thieves, considered to be professional watch thieves, and the “small-time crooks” from the Côte d’Azur, often from the housing estates of Marseilles. The police officer notes that the former are cunning and delicate, while the latter are brutal and unable to distinguish between a 300 euro watch and a 300,000 euro one.