European cities have fallen victim to "handbag gangs." Famous brands are helpless.
Also in November, this time in Ostia, a Fendi boutique was robbed, stealing handbags worth €40,000.
The Renaissance of "Handbag Gangs" in EuropeAs the Guardian notes, Paris has also seen brazen and carefully planned thefts in the past year. In addition to boutiques, thieves have also targeted resellers operating on the secondary market, such as the Parisian showroom Houlux.
At the beginning of July, thieves climbed to the fourth floor of the building where the showroom is located and in less than 20 minutes stole over a hundred handbags from brands such as Hermès, Dior, Louis Vuitton and Chanel, worth a total of one million euros.
Just days later, a large number of handbags were stolen from the Louis Vuitton building in central Paris. The loot is estimated to be worth over one million euros. Two other thefts occurred in May of this year and in November of 2024 at the Louis Vuitton boutique on Boulevard Saint-Germain.
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The problems for LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton and dozens of other high-end brands, don't end there. On Christmas Eve of last year, two thieves targeted the company's warehouse. They stole 50 Loewe handbags worth approximately €100,000.
Also last year, the Chanel boutique on Avenue Montaigne in Paris was robbed. The value of the stolen handbags ranged from €500,000 to €1 million.
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