PARIS — Kim Kardashian will take the stand in a Paris courtroom on Tuesday to testify against a gang of 10 people known as the “grandpa robbers” who are accused of stealing jewelry worth $9 million at gunpoint from her in one of the most audacious celebrity heists in modern French history.
Almost nine years after the break-in at the reality star turned business mogul’s luxury suite at the Hôtel de Pourtalès, an anonymous-looking building known as “No Address” frequented by A-list celebrities, the reality star will face the suspects accused of armed robbery, kidnapping and other criminal charges.
Dubbed the “grandpa robbers” by French media because of their ages, the suspects allegedly posed as police officers before they overpowered the concierge, who was forced to act as a translator as they tied Kardashian up in the bedroom of the luxury suite.
Months after the robbery made headlines, Kardashian talked about the incident during a season 13 episode of E!’s “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.”
“My door was open like this, and then I saw two guys holding another guy down in police uniforms, but right outside of my bedroom, 5 feet away,” she told her sisters, Khloe Kardashian and Kourtney Kardashian in an emotional conversation.
She said she saw the two men holding down the concierge, who was handcuffed and had a key to her room. “What I’ve heard from talking to him afterward is, they said, you know, ‘Where’s the rapper’s wife? Let us up to her room!’ in French,” she said, referring to her then-husband, the artist Ye, formerly Kanye West.
The episode which aired in March 2017 has been viewed 3.8 million times on E!’s YouTube channel.
Ahead of the robbery, Kardashian had posted real-time updates from her hotel suite, showing off a 20-carat diamond ring, gifted to her by Ye and investigators believe the gang followed her online, combing through images, timestamps, geotags, before employing old-school criminal methods to conduct the robbery.
Most of the defendants were arrested three months after the robbery as police launched a huge operation that involved piecing together security camera footage and DNA evidence. But the legal process was beset by delays and many of the aging defendants are now suffering from illnesses and one of them has since died. Another is too unwell to stand trial.
Among the defendants at the trial which began last month are Aomar Ait Khedache, 69, known as “Old Omar,” who is accused of being the plot’s mastermind. His son and alleged getaway driver, Harminy, 37, has also been charged along with Didier “Blue Eyes” Dubreucq, 69.
The brother of Kardashian’s driver in Paris, Gary Madar, 35, is accused of providing the alleged gang members with information about her whereabouts and 78-year-old Christiane Glotin, is accused of being an accomplice in planning the heist.
Yunice Abbas, perhaps the best-known defendant in the trial who detailed the robbery in his 2021 book, “I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian,” testified last month. He told the court it was the first time he had truly come to recognize the “trauma” he had caused his victim.
Gabrielle Nolin reported from Paris, and Henry Austin from London.
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