(NOTE CONTENT, NATURE) Hard evidence, indeed…
Three men who robbed several ultra wealthy people would have gotten away with it if one of their comrades hadn’t gotten cocky, reports Daily Beast.
Scotland Yard bagged three Italians who are accused of robbing a swath of London’s upper class in 2019. Police were able to track them down after the men robbed the home of Tamara Ecclestone — the daughter of ex-Formula One owner Bernie Ecclestone. She posted online that while they were on vacation the robbers swooped in to pluck the place clean of jewelry, money and all luxury things.
A guard confronted them, but they managed to escape with about $30 million worth of goods and fled in a black taxi cab. Police began contacting the city’s 1,006 cab drivers until they found the one who drove the robbers to a budget hotel.
Detectives spoke with the hotel staff to ask if they remembered the criminals and, shockingly, they did. Why? One of the men spammed inappropriate and downright lewd messages to the staff’s after-hours text messaging service. One message was a picture of the guy’s you-know-what.
The staff had saved the man’s number as “weirdo” because of it. Police were able to positively identify the robber as 23-year-old Jugoslav Jovanovic and, soon enough, arrested all three burglars.
Jovanovic was arrested in Italy and extradited to England, as were his robber friends Alessandro Maltese and Alessandro Donati. They were linked to several other high-profile robberies and were all sentenced to jail after pleading guilty to conspiracy to burgle.
Turns out they were merely henchmen, as police were able to identify the gang’s ringleader, who is hiding in Serbia. The country has rejected requests from British authorities to extradite him.