The alleged head of the gang that robbed Kim Kardashian of jewelry worth about $10.6 million in a Paris hotel room has told investigators that she gave them all the information they needed via social media.
Aomar Ait Khedache, 64, who is nicknamed Omar the Elder, said the US reality TV star made herself an easy target by divulging her whereabouts and jewelry online.
He made the disclosure under questioning by French investigators, according to a magistrate’s report leaked to Les Echos, the French financial daily. Ait Khedache, who has at least one previous conviction for robbery, is among 12 suspects — many in their sixties and seventies — whom prosecutors want to put on trial in connection with the robbery in the upmarket hotel room that Kardashian stayed in during Paris Fashion Week in 2016.
He has confessed to his involvement but denies prosecution claims that he was the ringleader and linked to organized crime. The investigating magistrate’s report says that Ait Khedache had little idea of Kardashian’s global renown when a contact told him that a “rapper’s wife” with expensive jewelery was in Paris. “The job … was a giveaway on the internet, with everything,” the convicted robber told investigators. “The jewels [were] presented on the internet, explaining that she did not wear fake jewels [and] the timing of her arrival in France. You just needed to look at the internet to know everything.”
A contact told him that a “rapper’s wife” with expensive jewelry was in Paris.
The gang posed as police officers before threatening the hotel concierge and telling him to take them to the “rapper’s wife’s room”. They appeared at the bedroom door at about 3am. Kardashian was wrapped in sticky tape and placed in the bath before the gang made its getaway.
Police quickly identified the alleged robbers through a DNA sample found at the scene and subsequent telephone taps, according to the report.
Ait Khedache said he had sold the $4.5 million engagement ring given to Kardashian by the rapper Kanye West for $400,000 and melted down the rest of the jewelry after realizing the extent of Kardashian’s celebrity. None of the jewels has been recovered.
