For the return of her £25 million in stolen jewellery that was taken from her Kensington residence in 2019, Tamara Ecclestone has offered a £6 million reward.
While Ms. Ecclestone, the Formula One heiress and daughter of racing mogul Bernie Ecclestone, her husband Jay Rutland, and daughter Sophia were vacationing in Lapland, they became the victims of a gang attack.
Security cameras captured the perpetrators of Britain’s largest residential burglary entering through the garden and hiding behind a child’s Wendy House before breaking a window to gain entry to the £70 million West London mansion.
The burglars plundered her house, leaving a path of devastation, then fled when they were confronted by an unarmed security guard.
The 38-year-old socialite posted on social media on Sunday to let her followers know that she had waited long enough to recover her stolen goods through legal channels.
She continued by claiming that she was motivated by “Mel Gibson from the movie Ransom,” in which a millionaire uses a cutting-edge method to find the kidnappers and rescue his kidnapped son.
As a result, she is now providing a monetary reward for the return of her belongings as well as a bounty for the capture of a suspect who is on the run in Serbia.
Ms. Ecclestone wrote on her Instagram Story, “I have waited long enough to obtain stolen goods back by regular ways.” One set of earrings is all that has been discovered thus far.
Therefore, I’m going to follow my original plan and adopt Mel Gibson’s look from the movie Ransom.
‘While I have come to terms with the fact that I will probably never see my stolen property again, I will gladly offer a reward of 25% of the value of anything the police are able to recover as a consequence of information provided by a source.
“You receive the reward if you are the source.” With the burglary totaling £26 million, there is a reward of up to £6 million available for anyone who can assist me in recovering what is rightfully mine.
At Isleworth Crown Court in November of last year, Jugoslav Jovanovic, Alessandro Maltese, and Alessandro Donati were sentenced to a combined 28 years in prison for the terrifying raids. Daniel Vukovic, the alleged ringleader, is still at large and is believed to be in Serbia.
A prize of £250,000 will be given, according to Ms. Ecclestone, “to anyone who can deliver Daniel Vukovic to the police in London.”
She continued, “This man thinks he can take all the loot from robbing my family and I and ride off into the sunset.” Not yet, please.
It coincides with the release of a new Who Stole Tamara Ecclestone’s Diamonds? BBC programme about Britain’s largest home invasion.
Recounted how cops, who were having trouble identifying the robbers, were finally able to catch them after one of them texted a phoney “d**k pic” to a hotel’s after-hours phone.
Miss Ecclestone expressed her worry at learning that only one of the burglars has been apprehended, saying her life would “never be the same again.”
She said: ‘They are disgusting. Now that I’ve seen their faces, it almost has an eerie quality.
“It’s just an awful feeling knowing that kind of somebody has been wandering around your house and helping themselves to my most prized costly stuff.” I feel as though I will never be able to forget those faces.
“There is no doubt that our lives will never be the same because there is constant worry about the one thing—being secure in this house—that I never used to worry about.
I was concerned about a lot of different possibilities and circumstances. I simply know that there is one left, and dealing with that is perhaps one of the most difficult things to do.
She also disclosed that several of the jewellery pieces held special meaning for her, such as a bracelet Jay gave her after their daughter Sophie was born that had diamonds set into it to form the name of their daughter.
Additionally, Slavica Ecclestone, her mother, gave Tamara a pair of diamond earrings that she had when she was in her 20s and had kept ever since.
Those earrings are no longer there.
They hold such sentimental worth for me that they are irreplaceable, she continued.
The memories of the most memorable times in my life are what hurt the most, so [these] are the things that hurt the most.
Jay said in an interview with the BBC that “about 450 different items” were taken in total.
“The insurance policy excluded all of the jewellery and watches that were stolen.” Everything that was taken was worth just over £20 million in total.
When [the thieves] had been inside for an hour and had thoroughly searched every single room. When the security guard hears a noise, he leaves to look into it.
‘He continues to go upstairs where he runs into the three intruders. He apparently chases them downstairs and at some point there is a fire extinguisher thrown at him that misses.
‘And all three intruders are able to escape with all the bags off into the night.’
The suspected ring leader Vukovic currently remains at large and is thought to be in Serbia.
Attempts have been made to extradite him, but these have been rebuffed by the Serbian authorities.
Vukovic, a citizen of Croatia, is known to Italian authorities by 17 additional aliases, and his real name might be Alfredo Lindley.
His criminal history dates back to 1995, and the BBC discovered that by 2017, he had connections to Milan, Sarajevo, Belgrade, and Zagreb through his multiple aliases.
According to Italian court documents, police have also connected Vukovic to the suspected 2009 burglaries of international footballers Patrick Vieira and Sulley Muntari.
The gang carried out three raids in West London over the course of just 13 days in December 2019, and the deceased Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, owner of Leicester City FC, and former Chelsea FC footballer and manager Frank Lampard, both 43, were also victims.
According to police, the group is thought to have committed similar crimes against well-known victims across Europe and had intended to carry out other raids on the wealthy and well-known in the UK.
Other possible victims, who were unaware of how near they came to being broken into as the thieves conducted reconnaissance missions and dummy runs, have not yet been identified by detectives.
Following their extradition from Italy, Jovanovic, Maltese, and Donati pled guilty to conspiring to commit robbery between November 29 and December 18, 2019 in connection with the three searches.
Jovanovic also acknowledged one count of attempting to convert illegal property between December 10, 2019, and January 31, 2020, as well as a conspiracy to launder money.
In November 2019, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison at Isleworth Crown Court, while Maltese and Donati received individual sentences of 8 years and 9 months apiece.
A police helicopter hovered overhead as the guys were transported to the court in West London under armed police protection.
Only a few of the £26 million worth of loot have been found; the remainder is thought to have been taken abroad.
On December 1, the Lampards’ Chelsea home was broken into while they were away, taking over £60,000 worth of watches and jewellery.
On December 10, the gang went after Mr. Srivaddhanaprabha’s Knightsbridge residence, which his family had turned into a shrine after his death at the age of 60 on October 27, 2018, in a helicopter crash shortly after takeoff from the King Power Stadium.
The TAG Heuer watch he was sporting when he went for Leicester that day was among more than £1 million in stolen valuables.
The thieves even opened a £500 bottle of Cristal champagne to enjoy during the robbery before celebrating with a £760 sushi dinner at the Zuma restaurant in Knightsbridge.
A Maltese burglar grabbed a pack of chewing gum from a vending machine at Victoria station while the gang paused to get coffee and pastries on their approach to the last £25 million heist at Miss Ecclestone’s home.
Later, CCTV footage from the Harrods department store revealed that Jovanovic and his uncle Vukovic had spent hundreds of pounds there on expensive items and bogus names had been used to sign up for loyalty cards.
Amazingly, cops who were having trouble identifying the thieves were able to do so when one of the thieves sent a so-called “d**k image” to a hotel’s after-hours phone.
Police who solved the notorious jewellery robbery have disclosed how they apprehended Jovanovic after he texted a sexual photo to a hotel employee.
The receptionist at the TLK Apartments in St. Mary Cray, a low-cost lodging option, was questioned by Scotland Yard Detective Constable Thomas Grimshaw about visitors who stayed there in mid-December 2019.
She informed the investigator, much to his surprise, about a man who had sent her colleague offensive texts on the hotel’s after-hours iPhone, including a purported “d**k pic.” His phone number was saved as “Weirdo.”
Det Con Grimshaw was able to identify Jovanovic by using that number, and he later apprehended the majority of the group responsible for Britain’s largest house burglary.