PARIS — Thieves ripped a safe from the wall of a hotel room near the Cannes Film Festival and made off with about $1 million worth of jewelry in a late-night burglary just hours after the screening of a film about break-ins at the homes of Hollywood celebrities, French officials said Friday.
The apparently well-planned robbery at the Novotel hotel took place in the room of an employee of Chopard, the Switzerland-based watch and jewelry maker and festival sponsor that was hosting a splashy gala event in a far ritzier hotel around the same time, officials said.
Chopard has loaned jewelry to A-list stars who walk on the festival’s red carpet under rapid-fire flashes of photographers’ cameras. Already this year, model Carla Delevingne and actress Julianne Moore have walked the carpet in Chopard gems.
Jean-Michel Caillau, a state prosecutor in nearby Grasse who is leading the investigation, said early estimates were that the loot could have been worth as much as $1.4 million.
