A number of questions arose shortly after the police were informed that a ring worth 750,000 euros had gone missing from the Ritz Hotel in Paris. Was it a carefully planned and targeted robbery? An act of carelessness? Or simply a quick move, made when the opportunity presents itself?
Two days after a Malaysian hotel guest reported a missing diamond ring to police, the hotel offered an answer, albeit a less exciting one than many of the theories circulating online: The hotel said security found the ring in a vacuum cleaner bag.
Le Parisien newspaper indicated that the confession was not enough to dispel any doubts about exactly what happened, but the hotel said its client was delighted with the news.
“We would like to thank the Ritz Paris staff who have mobilized in this search and who work every day with integrity and professionalism,” Le Parisien was told.
The client, described only as a Malaysian businesswoman, told police she left the ring on the table on Friday while she went shopping around town for a few hours. When she returned to the room, the ring was gone, she said.
A day after she filed her complaint, the hotel said it was still investigating all leads. The police arrived to investigate, and prosecutors were ready to take over the case if suspicions pointed to a master burglar. “We are talking about a colossal loss,” a source from the city’s public prosecutor told Le Parisien.
It wouldn’t be the first time the celebrated Vendôme hotel had been hit. An unnamed member of the Saudi royal family reported the theft of about 800,000 euros worth of jewelry from her suite in 2018, and months earlier five armed men made off with more than 4 million euros worth of jewels stolen from a window inside the hotel, The Guardian writes.
