Escaped jewel thief nabbed
Published
Police outside the Carlton hotel, in Cannes, southern France, the scene of a daylight raid. Police outside the Carlton hotel, in Cannes, southern France, the scene of a daylight raid.
Basel - A member of the Pink Panthers jewel thief gang was detained in Switzerland, one month after he staged an elaborate escape from a Swiss prison, police said Friday.
Fifty police officers were involved in the capture in a house in Chatel-St-Denis, in western Switzerland, on Thursday.
The 34-year old Bosnian had escaped a Swiss prison in Orbe in late July with the help of accomplices who drove through fences and held prison guards in check by firing automatic weapons.
Last week, French police caught a Macedonian-French Pink Panthers member who had escaped from another Swiss prison near Lausanne in May after accomplices had thrown cutting tools and a fake pistol into a prison courtyard.
The Pink Panthers are a network of hundreds of criminals from the former Yugoslavia. They have stolen jewellery worth more than 300 million euros (389 million dollars) since 1999 around the world, according to Interpol.
Sapa-dpa