Tamara Ecclestone offers reward of up to £6MILLION for return of her stolen £25m jewellery and £250,000 bounty ‘Mel Gibson-style, from movie Ransom’ for capture of suspect on the run
- A gang struck while Ms Ecclestone, her husband Jay Rutland and daughter Sophia, were on holiday in Lapland
- The criminals ransacked her home before fleeing when they were disturbed by an unarmed security guard
- The suspected ring leader, called Daniel Vukovic, remains at large and is thought to be somewhere in Serbia
- She told tell her fans she has ‘waited long enough to get back her stolen possessions by conventional means’
Tamara Ecclestone has offered a £6million reward for the return of her £25million stolen jewellery that was swiped from her Kensington mansion back in 2019.
A gang struck while Ms Ecclestone, the Formula One heiress and daughter of racing supremo Bernie Ecclestone, her husband Jay Rutland and daughter Sophia were on holiday in Lapland.
Those behind Britain’s biggest domestic burglary entered through the garden, and were seen hiding behind a child’s Wendy House from security cameras, before smashing open a window to get into the £70million property in West London.
The criminals left a trail of destruction and ransacked her home before fleeing when they were disturbed by an unarmed security guard.
The 38-year-old socialite took to social media on Sunday to tell her fans she has ‘waited long enough to get back her stolen possessions by conventional means’.
She went on to say she has been inspired by ‘Mel Gibson from the movie Ransom’ – which sees a millionaire adopt a novel technique for tracking down the kidnappers and recovering his abducted son – and is now offering a monetary reward for the return of her belongings and a bounty for the capture of a suspect on the run in Serbia.
Tamara Ecclestone has offered a reward of ‘up to £6million’ for the return of her £25million stolen jewellery that was swiped from the house of the heiress back in 2019
A selection of the jewels stolen by the gang from Miss Ecclestone’s mansion. The circled image shows the bracelet that Tamara’s husband Jay bought her when their child Sophie was born. it has her daughter’s name spelled out in diamonds and was presented as Tamara was in hospital
Writing on her Instagram Story, Ms Ecclestone said: ‘I have waited long enough to get stolen possessions back by conventional means. To date nothing has been found other than one single pair of earrings.
‘So now I am going to do what I wanted to do right from the beginning and go Mel Gibson style from the movie Ransom.
‘Whilst I have accepted I will never likely see my stolen belongings again, I will happily put up a reward of 25 per cent of the value of anything that the police are able to recover resulting from information provided by a source.
‘If you are the source, you get the reward. With the total value the burglary being £26m – that’s a reward of up to £6m for anyone that can help me get back what is rightfully mine.’
Jugoslav Jovanovic, Alessandro Maltese, and Alessandro Donati were jailed for a total of 28 years at Isleworth Crown Court in November last year for the terrifying raids. However, the suspected ring leader Daniel Vukovic remains at large and is thought to be in Serbia.
Ms Ecclestone went on to say she will ‘pay a reward of £250,000 to anyone that can deliver Daniel Vukovic to the police in London’.
Croatian ring leader Daniel Vukovic, pictured at Heathrow, still remains at large and is thought to be in Serbia. Attempts have been made to extradite him, but these have been refused by the Serbian authorities. A Croatian national, Vukovic is known to Italian authorities under 17 more identities and his real name could be Alfredo Lindley. He has a criminal record dating back to 1995 and by 2017 his various aliases had links to Sarajevo, Belgrade, Zagreb and Milan, the BBC found
She added: ‘This man thinks he can ride off into the sunset with all the spoils from robbing my family and I. Not so fast.’
It comes as a new BBC documentary about Britain’s biggest domestic burglary called Who Stole Tamara Ecclestone’s Diamonds? also revealed how detectives who were struggling to find the burglars unmasked the crooks when one of them sent a so-called ‘d**k pic’ to a hotel’s out of hours phone.
Saying her life will ‘never be the same again’, Miss Ecclestone described her fear at knowing that one of the thieves has not been caught. She said: ‘They are disgusting. Now I have seen their faces it is kind of haunting, in a way.
Footage shows how thieves left a trail of destruction through Tamara Ecclestone’s Kensington mansion before making off with £25million worth of jewels. Every room in the house was completely ransacked by the thieves
The documentary explores how the thieves climbed through this small window (left) at the Kensington mansion after they entered through the back garden. The programme also reveals that the intruders spend an hour in the house and cause a mess with Christmas decorations seen thrown all about the stairs (right)
This CCTV handout shows the thieves breaking into Miss Ecclestone’s home through the garden as they are also seen to hide by the child’s Wendy House in the footage from that night
A Metropolitan Police photograph of screwdrivers left at the Miss Ecclestone’s property as it was revealed thieves left a trail of destruction throughout it
The raid was carried out on Miss Ecclestone’s £57million home in Kensington, West London which is pictured with Christmas decorations outside in this photo
This handout shows the watches stolen from Miss Ecclestone’s Kensington home
Burglar who stole £20m diamonds from Tamara Ecclestone was identified by a ‘D**K PIC’: Thief behind jewellery heist at £70m mansion was caught when he sent hotel worker a lewd picture
The burglars who stole £25million worth of diamonds from Tamara Ecclestone were unmasked after one of them sent a ‘d**k pic’ to a hotel’s out of hours phone, a BBC documentary has revealed.
Police who cracked the infamous jewellery heist at the £70million Kensington mansion of Bernie Ecclestone’s daughter have revealed how they caught Jugoslav Jovanovic after he sent a hotel worker a lewd photo.
Scotland Yard Detective Constable Thomas Grimshaw has described asking a receptionist at a budget hotel called TLK Apartments in St Mary Cray about guests who stayed there in mid-December 2019.
To his astonishment, she told the detective about a man who had sent her colleague inappropriate messages on the hotel’s out of hours iPhone, including a so-called ‘d**k pic’. They saved his number as ‘Weirdo’.
By getting that number, Det Con Grimshaw identified Jovanovic and from there caught most of the gang behind Britain’s biggest domestic burglary.
‘Knowing that kind of person has been roaming around your house and helping themselves to my most treasured valuable possessions is just a horrible feeling. I feel like I can’t get those faces now out of my mind.
‘Definitely our lives will never be the same because there is always worry about the one thing I never used to worry about – which was being safe in this house.
‘I worried about so many other scenarios and situations. I just know that there’s still one of them out there and that is probably one of the things that is really hard to deal with.’
She also revealed that several of the jewellery items had sentimental value like a bracelet Jay bought her when their child Sophie was born which was inset with diamonds spelling out their daughter’s name.
Her mother, Slavica Ecclestone, also gave her the diamond earrings she owned when her daughter was in her 20s which Tamara has kept ever since and are now gone.
‘They are irreplaceable to me as they have such sentimental value,’ she added. ‘[These] are the things that hurt the most as they are the memories of the most special moments of my life.’
Speaking to the BBC Jay said: ‘In terms of the amount that was stolen, it was something like 450 different items.
‘All of the jewellery and the watches that were stolen were all excluded in the insurance policy. The total monetary value of everything that was stolen was just over £20million.
‘After [the thieves] had been in there an hour, after they have ransacked every single room. The security guard hears a noise and goes off to investigate.
‘He continues to go upstairs where he runs into the three intruders. He apparently chases them downstairs and at some point there is a fire extinguisher thrown at him that misses.
‘And all three intruders are able to escape with all the bags off into the night.’
The suspected ring leader Vukovic currently remains at large and is thought to be in Serbia. Attempts have been made to extradite him, but these have been refused by the Serbian authorities.
A Croatian national, Vukovic is known to Italian authorities under 17 more identities and his real name could be Alfredo Lindley. He has a criminal record dating back to 1995 and by 2017 his various aliases had links to Sarajevo, Belgrade, Zagreb and Milan, the BBC found.
Police have also linked Vukovic to the alleged burglaries of international footballers Patrick Vieira and Sulley Muntari in 2009, according to Italian court documents.
The gang carried out three raids in West London over just 13 days in December 2019 – with the other victims being former Chelsea FC midfielder and manager Frank Lampard, 43, and his 42-year-old television presenter wife Christine, and the late Leicester City FC owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.
Police said the gang are believed to have carried out similar crimes against high-profile victims across Europe and had planned to commit further raids on the rich and famous in the UK.
Detectives have not revealed the identities of other potential victims, who did not know how close they came to being burgled as the thieves carried out reconnaissance missions and dummy runs.
This handout shows a selection of jewellery stolen by the gang from Miss Ecclestone’s home in December 2019
Gang members Jugoslav Jovanovic (left) Alessandro Maltese (centre), and Alessandro Donati (right) were jailed in 2019
Jovanovic, Maltese and Donati were extradited from Italy and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to burgle between November 29 and December 18, 2019 over the three raids.
Jovanovic also admitted conspiracy to commit money laundering between December 10, 2019 and January 31, 2020, and one count of attempting to convert criminal property.
He was jailed for 11 years at Isleworth Crown Court in November 2019, while Maltese and Donati were each sentenced to eight years and nine months in prison.
The men were brought to the court in West London under armed police guard as a helicopter flew overhead.
Only a handful of items have been recovered with the rest of the £26million worth of loot believed to have been taken abroad.
The Lampards had around £60,000 in watches and jewellery stolen while they were out of their Chelsea property on December 1.
Tamara Ecclestone and husband Jay Rutland at the Rosewood Hotel in London in November 2018
On December 10, the gang targeted Mr Srivaddhanaprabha’s Knightsbridge home, which had been turned into a shrine by his family following his death, aged 60, in a helicopter crash shortly after take-off from the King Power Stadium on October 27, 2018.
Among more than £1million in property stolen was a TAG Heuer watch he was wearing before he left for Leicester that day.
The burglars even popped a £500 bottle of Cristal champagne to drink as they carried out the raid and later celebrated with a £760 sushi meal in Knightsbridge restaurant Zuma.
On the way to the final £25million burglary at Miss Ecclestone’s house, Maltese stole a packet of chewing gum from a kiosk at Victoria station as the gang stopped to buy coffee and pastries.
Jovanovic and his uncle Vukovic were later seen on CCTV in Harrods department store spending thousands of pounds on luxury goods and signing up for loyalty cards using fake names.
Police van carries the three convicted burglars from Isleworth Crown Court following their sentencing in November 2021
Incredibly, detectives who were struggling to find the burglars unmasked the crooks when one of them sent a so-called ‘d**k pic’ to a hotel’s out of hours phone.
Police who cracked the infamous jewellery heist have revealed how they caught Jovanovic after he sent a hotel worker a lewd photo.
Scotland Yard Detective Constable Thomas Grimshaw has described asking a receptionist at a budget hotel called TLK Apartments in St Mary Cray about guests who stayed there in mid-December 2019.
To his astonishment, she told the detective about a man who had sent her colleague inappropriate messages on the hotel’s out of hours iPhone, including a so-called ‘d**k pic’. They saved his number as ‘Weirdo’.
By getting that number, Det Con Grimshaw identified Jovanovic and from there caught most of the gang behind Britain’s biggest domestic burglary.
Who Stole Tamara Ecclestone’s Diamonds? is available on BBC iPlayer.
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