The French police have arrested Zoran Kostic, 39, and Nikola Ivanovic, 36, two men suspected of being members of the Pink Panther international jewelry gang.
Representatives of the Interpol and police forces all over Europe gathered for a two-day conference in Monaco in March in order to pool information about the Pink Panther jewelry gang, with representatives from 16 countries, including the United States, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.
The gang includes a fluid combination of 200 men from Montenegro and Serbia who carried out reconnaissance missions by seeking “soft targets.”
According to the police, the Pink Panthers have snatched jewels worth more than $130 million in daring heists that have swept over a wide area, from Dubai to Geneva, Tokyo, Paris and Monaco. Their nickname stems from a ruse adopted by one of the suspects who hid a $657,000 blue diamond in a jar of cream, a tactic adopted from one of the “Pink Panther” films.
But when thieves hit a jewelry store on May 5 in Switzerland, police investigators raised an immediate alarm, passing on warnings that the robbers might flee to France.
Zoran Kostic is considered a “big fish” due to the fact that he has figured in more than 20 high-profile robberies. Kostic has reportedly not been forthcoming with information since his arrest.
Almost 40 men connected to the network have been arrested on jewelry theft charges in several countries, including Japan, where robbers tear-gassed employees in a jewelry store. Within minutes they had vanished with a sack of diamonds and the Comtesse de Vend?me, a 125-carat necklace embedded with 116 diamonds. Lately, the robberies seem to have shifted to watches from diamonds, which may be easier to resell.
To date, police investigators have not been able to determine what happened to all the stolen diamonds.
