The band of the “thieves’ grandparents” that stole Kim Kardashian at the tip of gun in Paris without knowing who it was

The theft of Kardashian, later wrote in his memoirs, was going to be his last job before retiring.

But a series of errors caused the crime to be sentenced to failure from the beginning, already early 2017, three months after the incident, Abbas and several of their alleged accomplices were arrested.

Ten of them will now appear before a Paris court in a trial that will last a little less than three weeks.

Five of them are accused of participating in the robbery and six of being accomplices.

Most was born in the 1950s, which led the French media to nick them the “grandparents thieves.”

Abbas and a 68 -year -old man, Aomar Ait Khedache, confessed; The others, no.

One of them has died and another, 81, will be acquitted for advanced dementia.

By the time the trial begins, almost nine years will have passed since the robbery.

On the night of October 2 to 3, 2016, Abbas and four accomplices allegedly monitored the discreet Kardashian Suite at the Hotel de Poultalès, in the elegant neighborhood of La Madeleine in Paris, near the opera and the Place Vendôme.

Around 3:00 local time, they broke into the hotel lobby, police dresses and armed with a gun.

They threatened and handcuffed Abderrahmane Ouatiki, an Algerian doctoral student who used to work as a night receptionist, and took him to Kardashian’s room.

He was resting in his bed, fatigued after days attending the events of the Fashion Week in Paris, when he heard strong footsteps up the stairs.

He called his sister Kourtney and his stylist Stephanie, but when they did not respond, he panicked.

“I knew someone was going to rescue me,” he recalled years later in an interview with American journalist David Letterman. “I felt so.”

Kim called 911, but the number, of course, did not work outside the United States.

While calling his then security guard, Pascal Duvier, who had accompanied his sister to a club, the men broke up, pushed her on the bed and began to shout.

“They didn’t stop saying: ‘The ring, the ring!’

The language barrier forced Ouatiki to act as an interpreter.

They found the ring and put it in a bag along with other jewels, in addition to 1,000 euros (about US $ 1,135) in cash. One of the men grabbed her and pulled her towards him.

As he wore a robe with nothing underneath, he thought he was going to assault her, Kim told Letterman, drying her tears.

But instead, the man tied her with flanges and adhesive tape and left her in the bathroom.

Then, he and the rest of the thieves fled by bicycle and foot. Kim freed himself from his bonds and, shortly after, his security guard appeared.

Traumatized, Kardashian made a statement to the French police in the early morning and returned to the United States at dawn.

It was not until later that same day, when Abbas looked at the television screen with his wife, who understood who the victim was.

“There were last minute alerts saying that Kim Kardashian had been assaulted at gunpoint; this was important,” says Kj Matthews, entertainment journalist of Los Angeles.

“We were fascinated with her, her family and her rise to fame … when the robbery occurred, we were very surprised. How could thieves get so close to her?” Matthews says.

Although mistakes were made regarding Kardashian’s security, serious failures were also committed by thieves.

“They did not take into account the advances of police techniques, which can now find DNA microStros anywhere,” said Patricia Tourancheau, reporter of events and author of “Kim and grandparents thieves”, an exhaustive story of the robbery and life of its authors.

“When they disguised police officers, they thought: ‘That’s, nobody can recognize us,'” he added.

But in 2016, Paris still recovered from the terrorist attacks of the previous year, and there were a lot of surveillance cameras throughout the city, which allowed the police to locate the thieves and see them flee with the jewels.

Other details of this story suggest that thieves planning was quite random. When fleeing the place by bicycle, Abbas stumbled, dropping a bag with jewelry.

The next day, a passerby found a collar with diamond inlays and took him all day in his office before seeing the news and realizing where he had left.

The police arrested Abbas and several more people in January 2017 and later confirmed that the thieves had been under vigilance for several weeks, after the DNA traces left on the scene coincided with Aomar Ait Khedache, also known as “Omar el Viejo.”

French media published a photo of the police operation, which shows several of the men drinking coffee and chatting in a Parisian coffee that winter, just before their arrest.

The question that remains pending, and that will undoubtedly be explored during the trial, is how the band learned of the Kardashian agenda.

Judicial documents seen by the BBC show that both Khedache and Abbas declared that all the information they needed was published online by Kardashian, whose career is based on sharing details about his life.

But how did the band knew that the night of October 2 Kardashian would be alone in his room, without his security guard?

According to the documents, the police believe that Gary Madar, whose brother, Michael, had a company that had provided transportation and taxis to the Kardashian for years, was complicit in the robbery giving information about Kim’s whereabouts.

Madar was arrested in January 2017. His lawyer, Arthur Vercken, vehemently refuted the accusations, telling the BBC that “from the beginning, the case was based on assumptions, thesis and theories, but there were never evidence (of the participation of Madar).”

He added that, although the Madar brothers exchanged messages about the Kardashian during fashion week, it was simply because they were “boring” and that when the robbery occurred, Gary was asleep.

Gary’s brother, Michael, is not accused.

“Five men did this. Don’t you think any of them watched who entered and left their hotel?” The lawyer questioned, suggesting that Madar had only been arrested “to demonstrate that the French judicial system works.”

The trial will also try to determine where the jewels ended.

The police tracking of the band’s telephone numbers revealed that, shortly after the robbery, Omar El Viejo traveled from Paris to Antwerp, Belgium, where 50% of polished diamonds and 80% of the raw diamonds of the world are sold, according to the Diamond Investment Office.

It was reported that many jewels were cast or destroyed and sold. Abbas received 75,000 euros (US $ 85,000); the other much less.

As for Kim’s commitment ring, Omar the old man said the band had many fears of selling it, since it was very easy to track. It has never been found.

Undoubtedly, Kim was scared by the event, which marked the beginning of his pause on social networks.

In an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians -The family reality show remembered in tears the night of theft and said he feared for his life; Later, he also said that the theft had made her a “less materialistic” person.

Shortly after the incident, his sister Khloe declared in the Ellen Degeneres show That, for security reasons, the Kardashian family was implementing some changes in the freedom they published on social networks.

“The greatest change was his security team,” KJ Matthews told the BBC.

Patricia Turancheau, author of the book on the robbery, said “fascinated” by the “confrontation between these thieves of the old Parisian periphery school and a world social networks star.”

“They fled by bicycle and she flies in private jets,” he said.

“They are a group of elderly and resources, they are always in bankruptcy, always involved in convoluted plans … and they faced someone very famous and did not even know who it was.”

The band was not “elite”, as suggested at the beginning, he added. “This is not the flower and cream of French banditism. The truth, they are losers. They are the same type of people as in the 60s and 70s robbed banks or email offices, and then dedicated themselves to drug trafficking and then to the jewels because it was easier,” he said.

In mid -May, Kim will face the suspects for the first time in years when he declares as a witness at the trial.

The cameras are not allowed in the French courts, but their only arrival at the Court of the ILE DE LA CITÉ It will inevitably unleash the same media frenzy that has accompanied it for more than a decade.

In his memoirs, Abbas expressed his hope that the condition of the victim and the worldwide impact of the case do not improperly influence the judges.

But he also said that the last day of the trial would carry a canvas bag with his belongings, ready to be sent to prison.

“The problem with the past,” he wrote, “is that he remains with you while living.”

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