Kim Kardashian‘s robbers planned out and set up a decoy escape to fool police during the October 3 raid, a Paris police official exclusively tells Us Weekly.
The burglars set up a sophisticated “double bluff” escape ruse in which one of the five men fell off a bicycle while another pretended to accidentally drop a piece of jewelry as they fled, the source explains.
“They wanted us to believe that they were amateurs, but all the real clues point to them being extremely sophisticated professionals,” the police official tells Us. “There is no way a gang like this would drop stuff and fall off bicycles — all that was done for any cameras that might be in the area. It is far more likely that they played around on bikes for a few minutes after stealing the jewels, and when they still had their masks on, before they all got into a van and disappeared.”
The gem that one of the robbers deliberately dropped was later found by local police, the source explains, adding, “That’s why it was of low value compared to the other pieces in the haul.”
Surprisingly, Hôtel de Pourtalès, where Kardashian was staying in her private residence, does not have internal closed-circuit television cameras. “This is because of the status of celebrity and other multi-millionaire guests who do not want to be filmed under any circumstances,” the police official explains.
Last week, Us Weekly reported that Paris authorities believe the raid was an “inside job” and that a photographer, or a man posing as a photographer, tipped off the robbers by alerting them when Kardashian’s longtime bodyguard, Pascal Duvier, left her flat at Hôtel de Pourtalès. (Duvier escorted sisters Kourtney Kardashian and Kendall Jenner to a nearby club.)
A police source told Us at the time that officials believe the heist was perpetrated by a “highly organized” group of individuals that had done a great deal of planning before committing the crime.
As Us Weekly previously reported, a group of five men attacked a male concierge inside the building in order to gain access to the Selfish author’s luxury apartment. The concierge was then held at gunpoint, gagged and hidden inside a stairwell cabinet. Kardashian was also gagged, tied up and thrown in a bathtub as the burglars escaped with more than $10 million worth of jewelry.
“We are dealing with a young woman who was practically alone with a hugely valuable amount of jewelry,” a law enforcement source previously told Us. “[Kim] would never open the door in the middle of the night in these circumstances, so who did if it wasn’t opened with a key? There were no signs of forced entry, but there’s also no proof that a key was used.”
Kardashian’s husband, Kanye West, was in New York at the time of the robbery. He learned of the incident while performing at the Meadows Music & Arts Festival and abruptly walked off stage mid-set, citing a “family emergency.” The couple’s two children, North, 3, and Saint, 10 months, were also in NYC at the time.
The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star told authorities that the five robbers, who are still at large, appeared to be middle-aged, Caucasian men of European descent.
