A man of Serbian origin was tried on Thursday March 25 by the Nice Criminal Court (Alpes-Maritimes) for stealing seven diamonds from a negotiator in Menton in 2014. As reported Nice morning, the defendant was finally sentenced to two years in prison for attempted fraud.
After asking for the certificates of authenticity of the diamonds, the defendant fled and the victim found that his stones, estimated at € 400,000, had disappeared leaving behind sunglasses on which genetic traces are subsequently found. Investigators then turned to two men already suspected of theft of gold and jewelry in Italy and Germany.
Requalification of the facts
Expertises having confirmed these suspicions, an international arrest warrant had been issued against them. The defendant will be found in June 2018 in an Italian prison before being handed over to France last year. His accomplice has still not been found, as have the seven diamonds.
At the stand, he admitted to having stolen the certificates of authenticity and prepared a suitcase full of counterfeit banknotes. But he refuted the theft of the diamonds, explaining that he just wanted to push the negotiator to complete the transaction in Italy. After evoking an organized gang theft, justice finally reclassified the facts as an attempted fraud, in the absence of sufficient evidence to prove the theft of diamonds.
To find out more: read the article by Nice morning
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