Jewellery worth €4.5m stolen during armed heist at Ritz Paris hotel

Armed robbers made off with an estimated €4.5m (£4m) worth of jewellery in a smash-and-grab heist at the Ritz Hotel in Paris.

According to The Guardian five masked men entered the hotel armed with knives and hatchets at 6:30pm on 10 January 2018, using axes to smash several display cabinets filled with valuable goods.

French police quickly arrived at the hotel and were able to apprehend three of the men using tasers, with two other thieves escaping through the back of the building and fleeing the scene using motorcycles.

Police are still searching for the two missing suspects.

One hotel employee told a French news agency: “We heard a loud noise and lots of racket in the street. Passers-by took refuge in the hotel. We didn’t know what was going on until someone told us there had been a robbery.”