By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The Heist in Paris

Kim Kardashian will testify in person at an upcoming trial over a 2016 heist in Paris in which armed robbers tied her up and locked her in a bathroom while they stole millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry.

In 2016, several men stormed her French hotel room during Fashion Week, stealing a reported $ 10 million in jewelry, including her wedding ring.

With tape put over her mouth and, with her wrists tied, she was put in the luxury apartment’s bathtub, believing she was going to be killed.

Now, nearly a decade after Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint, the Parisian underworld gang that allegedly targeted her is finally on trial.

Ten suspects accused of armed robbery, kidnapping, or other criminal charges are going on trial in Paris from April 28 through May 23. The October 2016 robbery took place in a Paris apartment where Kardashian was staying for Paris Fashion Week.

A judicial official said Friday that after five years of investigation, investigating judges ordered the case to be sent to trial. The 12 suspects face a range of charges related to the theft. No trial date has been set, and the official would not provide further details.

Several suspects have been released from jail pending trial for health reasons, including 68-year-old Yunice Abbas, one of the five men accused of carrying out the heist itself, who published a book about it last year.

“We can confirm that Ms. Kardashian will be testifying in person at the upcoming French criminal trial involving the 2016 incident in which she was bound and robbed at gunpoint by several masked assailants,” lawyer Michael Rhodes said in a statement.

The reality TV star and entrepreneur has ″tremendous appreciation and admiration for the French judicial system″ and ″wishes for the trial to proceed in an orderly fashion by French law and with respect for all parties to the case,” the lawyer said.

 

Conclusion

French media published a photo from the police stakeout, showing several men having coffee and chatting at a Parisian café that winter, just before their arrest.

The question that remains, and which will undoubtedly be explored during the trial, is just how the gang got wind of Kardashian's schedule.

Court documents seen by the BBC show that both Khedache and Abbas stated that all the information they needed was posted online by Kardashian herself, whose very career was built on sharing details about her life and movements.

But how did the gang know that on the night of 2 October Kardashian would be alone in her room, without her security guard?

Court documents indicate police believe Gary Madar, whose brother Michael's firm had provided transportation and taxis to the Kardashians for years, was an accessory to the heist and that he had fed information to the gang about Kim's whereabouts.

Madar was arrested in January 2017. His lawyer, Arthur Vercken, vehemently pushed back against the accusations, telling the BBC that "since the start the case was built on assumptions, these theories, but no proof [of Madar's involvement] was ever found".

He added that although the Madar brothers exchanged texts about the Kardashians during Fashion Week, it was just because they were "bored" and that when the heist took place, Gary was asleep.

Gary's brother, Michael, is not a defendant.

"Five men did this. You don't think one of them was keeping an eye on who was coming and going from her hotel?" he said, suggesting that Madar had only been arrested "to prove that the French justice system works".

 

 

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