Security cameras and DNA betrayed the robbers of the notorious "Pink Panthers" gang, who on December 20 attacked the headquarters of Rolex in Athens.
The police managed to track down and arrest two of the five masked robbers within 70 days.
The four Serbian "long-handed professionals" and the Greek, otherwise known as the "bandit with the Kalashnikov", made a series of mistakes, left genetic material and fingerprints on the stolen motorcycles and the hammer, and thus their fate was sealed.
Incredibly, the operative leader of the group had robbed two jewelry stores in Switzerland and Slovenia.
They brought in an elderly gang member from Belgrade, aged 63, to act as a client, while the 35-year-old Greek man has a serious criminal record and was recently released from prison.
At the same time, the codes of the 24 very expensive Rolexes that were stolen from the store on Kolokotroni Street have been passed on to Interpol, which has officially notified the Swiss company's headquarters, so that if they are presented at any official dealership for service, they will are blocked.
However, it was found that in Germany there is a system that undertakes to "wash" stolen watches of this particular brand.
What officers are looking into is whether the large 24-hour batch immediately headed overseas to go through the "washing" process before ending up on the wrists of their buyers.
What the cameras filmed
Guided by the closed-circuit surveillance frames of the Rolex headquarters in Athens, the Security officers tracked down the gang and then identified them with DNA.
It is worth noting that all the footage from the security cameras captured step by step how the gang acted. Its members were heavily armed and had a specific way of acting.
However, not infallible because it was precisely these mistakes that led to their discovery.
Specifically, the file states:
"At 10:52 on December 20, they entered the ROLEX store located on Kolokotroni street in Athens, where they took a total of twenty-four ROLEX watches, with a total value of approximately 135,000 euros.
They then left on the stolen motorcycles. Specifically, the three perpetrators, after covering their facial features, entered the watch store, taking advantage of the entry of an elderly man, their colleague, who pretended to be a customer and at gunpoint from another member of the gang. immobilized the security employee as well as the store employee".