Jail sentence for attempting to steal luxury watch on place du Casino in Monte-Carlo

During a private meeting at the Hôtel de Paris with a luxury watch pop-up store merchant, a man tried to swap a counterfeit for an original model worth €48,000. Caught in the act, the culprit fled but was arrested on Monaco’s Place du Casino on Tuesday 27 August.

Several amateur videos, which have gone viral on social media, show a man being knocked out by a chauffeur, on place du Casino. The man, a young student and Uber Eats delivery driver from Nice, had been planning his stunt for over a month to pay off €20,000 in debts, it was said at his Monaco Criminal Court hearing on Friday 30 August.

Advertising

Well-prepared, and well thought-out

The story began on 13 July, when the young man visited a pop-up luxury boutique at Metropole Shopping Monte-Carlo. He was particularly interested in certain watch models and asked the shopkeeper if he could pay in cash. Suspicious, the manager replied that he only accepts bank transfers for sums over €10,000. The future buyer accepted, but the sale didn’t go through because the shop was about to close. The seller gave him his card so they could meet again at a later date.

The next day, the shopkeeper was contacted by a UK number via WhatsApp, with a certain “Arkady Abramovitch” introducing himself as the person who was interested in the watches. Of course it wasn’t Roman Abramovitch’s son, but the owner didn’t suspect anything. The two men agree to meet the next day.

And so they met at the Hôtel de Paris on August 15. The seller brought with him a yellow gold Rolex Daytona and a white gold Rolex GMT-Master, the models that seemed to interest the young man. He appeared to find it difficult to choose between the two and asked to reschedule the appointment so he could think it over.

In the end, they met up again on August 27. The setting was the Hôtel de Paris again. The shopkeeper said in his statement that he was surprised and suspicious because of his customer’s attire. He was wearing a hat, sunglasses and carrying a Hermès cardboard bag. The appointment went ahead anyway. The young man looked at the watches once, went to the toilet and came back to make his decision. He then began to play with the watches under the table, which alerted the salesman.

When the young man gave back the two Rolexes, the shopkeeper immediately realised there was a problem, as the weight of the GMT-Master wasn’t right. He immediately checked the serial number and colour, which weren’t right either, and realised that he was being robbed. As he called the police, the swindler ran off and tried to escape.

His getaway was short-lived as he was tackled to the ground and knocked out by a chauffeur, then held down by two Société des Bains de Mer security guards, while he tried to throw away his counterfeit goods before the police arrived.

Threats and debts to the tune of €20,000

At his immediate court appearance, the young man admitted what he had done, saying he had acted under duress, having received threats if he didn’t pay off his debts. The debts were run up in part by his mother, who has been in prison for several years for theft, and who wants him to support her financially,” he explained to the Court.

To get out of this situation and “fix his problems”, as he put it, he explained that he had got the idea from videos on the Internet explaining how to get hold of counterfeit goods. He then ordered the goods for €100 on a Chinese website and put his plan into action. He intended to switch the counterfeit model and the original, which he would then hand over or sell on.

The Court’s verdict

The accused’s past and French criminal record did not argue in his favour during the prosecution’s closing arguments. The young man had already been convicted in 2022 of receiving stolen goods and attempted fraud, and in 2023 of aggravated theft as a repeat offender, with his mother.

The public prosecutor requested four months’ imprisonment and a ten-year ban from Monaco for the offences committed in the Principality. The court handed down the requested sentence, ordering him to be taken back into detention and confiscation of the counterfeit watch.