A cache of Chopard jewelry worth about $1 million was snatched from a hotel room near the Cannes Film Festival at around 2:30 a.m. Friday, a few hours after Sophia Coppola's film "The Bling Ring" screened.
French Police say that thieves broke into a representative of the Swiss watch and jewelry maker's room at the Novotel hotel in Nice, a city in the South of France. They then wrenched a safe from the wall and ran off with the stones and settings that topped out at about $1 million.
Chopard, one of the festivals' sponsors, was to host a glitzy gala in another hotel around the same time, reported the Associated Press.
Cmdr. Bernard Mascarelli, a judicial police spokesperson in Nice says the jewelry was "very probably" meant to adorn a festival attendee.
Mascarelli mentioned that he did not know what kind of jewelry was nabbed, or its exact value.
"Numbers have been put forward that we're still trying to verify, but the figure of $1 million...we're in that range," he said.
He also said it is likely that there was more than one thief involved in the robbery and that they had gained insider knowledge beforehand.
"Apparently this [hotel guest] was someone who was targeted because it wasn't someone who had been seeking attention...There must have been either an inside complicity, or people... were in contact with this person and knew that the person had jewels," he said.
State prosecutor Jean-Michel Caillau, who has begun heading up the investigation, said the goods could be worth up to $1.4 million.
Late Thursday night, while Chopard hosted a party for the festival, director Sofia Coppola screened her drama, "The Bling Ring," a film about a group of LA teens who break into the homes of big stars to steal their loot.
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