When the boxer Amir Khan clinched his sport’s world championship in 2020, he spent almost $90,000 on a bespoke rose-gold-and-diamond chronograph from Franck Muller. Then, last spring, it was snatched from his wrist at gunpoint after he left a London restaurant. Several of his fellow diners had been accomplices—so-called watch spotters who tipped off the thief to the target in their midst.
This theft is only one example of a disturbing new trend: the most identifiable trappings of wealth, especially watches and jewelry, are targeted in brazen robberies that often take place in the world’s toniest enclaves.
