Interpol hot on heels of Pink Panther jewel thieves

In heists from London to Paris to Tokyo, the crime ring that Interpol calls the Pink Panthers is thought to have netted over 165 million in jewellery and luxury watches. Many of its members are said to come from among the 600,000 population of the tiny Balkan country of Montenegro.

The legend started seven years ago in a jar of face cream.

Milan Jovetic was among a group that robbed the Graff store on London's New Bond Street of 20m worth of diamonds. He was caught a couple days later and Scotland Yard found a 650,000 diamond ring that was purportedly his share of the job.

It was stashed in his girlfriend's face-cream jar, the same hiding place used by the thief in The Pink Panther, the 1963 film that introduced the world to the inept Inspector Clouseau. The robbers were dubbed the Pink Panthers, and as more robberies followed, enough of a pattern emerged for Interpol to set up "Project Pink Panthers".

"We are working on 190 cases in 27 countries on four continents, a big investigation," said Julia Viedma, director of Interpol's operations.

In court, Jovetic claimed he had only arranged logistics and was paid with the diamond ring. He was sentenced to five years in prison, of which he served four. Now he's back in the small Montenegrin valley town of Cetinje, a handsome 30-year-old with gelled black hair who is something of a celebrity.

Pushing his baby daughter in a buggy down a dusty street, he is asked if he is indeed Jovetic the Panther he grins and replies: "Do I look that way to you?" But when asked about the crime ring, he snarls "You don't have the kind of money for me to talk," and walks away.

Cetinje, a town of 15,000, has produced many of those arrested on suspicion of Pink Panther associations, Interpol says. Impoverished by the wars that broke up Yugoslavia, Cetinje has few exports besides young, jobless men, many of whom hang out at a caf owned by Jovetic.

A notion seems to have taken root here that the Pink Panthers are Robin Hood types, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. But other than some BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes parked outside certain cafs frequented by the underworld, there is no indication of any wealth trickling down.

A man who identifies himself only as Zoran sips espresso at a caf and asks for understanding for the Panthers: "They killed no-one. They just wanted to escape this godforsaken place." Indeed, though the robbers often are armed, they don't shoot at anyone.

Interpol officials are careful not to link every spectacular jewellery robbery to the Pink Panthers. It only enhances their allure, said one official.

But investigators believe Pink Panthers have been behind 150 robberies since the late 1990s. They say about 25 arrests have been made in recent years and 400 people are being investigated as members or accomplices, but that the core group numbers about 40. Those arrested observe a code of silence that confounds attempts to break up the gang.

"There is no doubt that these men and a few women mostly come from Montenegro and Serbia," said Dejan Anastasijevic, a reporter from Serbia who investigates Balkan crime syndicates. "We have no idea who hires these people, whether it's the Italian, Russian or Japanese mafia, or someone else," he said.

Their robbery tactics are simple. A well-dressed man enters a shop and points his gun at a worker. A few other masked individuals follow carrying hammers and steel bars. They smash display cases and are gone in minutes, fleeing in stolen cars.

In March, 2004, in what was then Japan's biggest jewellery heist, two robbers burst into an Tokyo shop, immobilised a clerk with pepper spray, and took valuables including a 17.6m diamond necklace.

Last December, three Pink Panthers, two men and a woman, were convicted by a Serbian court for stealing 20.5m worth of jewels, including the 125-carat necklace, two diamond earrings and seven diamond rings.

The items, as is often the case in these robberies, were never found, raising the suspicion that the gang is contracted for robberies by people with the resources to fence the stolen gems.

Harry Levy, vice-president of the London Diamond Bourse, said dealers in London, Paris, or New York can spot high-profile stolen diamonds. "But it is easy to alter the weight and the shape by re-cutting the stone, making it easy to sell in such places as eastern Europe or Asia."