A new documentary reveals how a diamond burglar was caught.
The story reveals how Tamara Ecclestone, socialite daughter of Formula One tycoon Bernie Ecclestone, was targeted by a gang of thieves while living on an exclusive street known as ‘Billionaire’s Row’.
The thieves, Jugoslav Jovanovic, Alessandro Maltese and Alessandro Donati also targeted the home of ex-Chelsea manager Frank Lampard and his wife Christine, and a property owned by deceased Leicester City owner, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.
The three were jailed in November nearly a year after the raid at the 38-year-old’s £70 million London mansion.
On the documentary, “Who Stole Tamara Ecclestone’s Diamonds?’” she said: “Definitely our lives will never be the same because there’s just now always worry, there's worry about the one thing I didn't worry about which was being safe in this house.
“I worried about so many other scenarios, so many other situations.”
The Met Police’s Flying Squad detectives initially only had grainy CCTV of the thieves entering the garden to go on.
After tracing a taxi that had dropped the burglars off that appeared in the footage, detectives found they had stayed at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane in London’s West End.
The gang were also caught on CCTV getting in another taxi where they were taken to St Mary Cray in South East London.
Detective Constable Thomas Grimshaw visited budget hotel TLK Apartments on a hunch and made the discovery of an explicit robbery that provided a breakthrough in the case.
The hotel had supplied a phone number for guests to use late at night in case of an emergency.
One of the thieves did the “typical creepy guy thing” according to the documentary and sent a picture of his privates to the phone.
The receptionist blocked the number and saved it on the iPhone as “Weirdo”.
Grimshaw said: “Once I knew this, I felt like we'd identified the right group of people.”
Using the thief’s number, police were able to track his phone and discover his identity.
Ecclestone adds on the show: "They are disgusting. I am just finding it sickening that people are such low lives.”