The Pebble Heist: Lulu's (Un)likely Tale

Lulu Lakatos is this week starting a five-and-a-half-year jail term for Britain's highest-value - and most unlikely - shoplifting offence. She walked out of Boodles, the posh London jeweler, with diamonds worth $7.8m and left worthless pebbles in their place. Lakatos posed as a gemologist and arrived looking as though she was dressed for an evening at the theatre rather than a day's work. She cut an unlikely figure - a grey-haired 60-year-old Romanian woman, supposedly called Anna, and described by her victim, the Boodles boss, as being "overweight", "most unattractive" and wearing a low-cut dress that revealed her "enormous boobs".

The moment of the switch. Click here for video

She was also less than convincing as gemologist, arriving as she did without anything so basic as loupe with which to "examine" the jewels she was about to steal. There was, incidentally, little in her previous criminal activity, mostly minor shoplifting offences in France suggest that the former cleaner and school catering assistant could pull off such a daring heist. In all, it would be hard to imagine a more unlikely crime. Her defence in court was, appropriately, no less unlikely.  It wasn't me, she argued. It was my dead sister, Liliana. She had a long criminal record, she stole my passport, committed the crime, confessed to me and soon after that she was (conveniently) killed in a car crash. That didn't wash with a jury at Southwark Crown Court, which found her guilty on Wednesday of conspiracy to steal.

You can see for yourself (click here for video) the moment in February 2016 when she helped herself to the gems - and replaced them with worthless garden pebbles. CCTV at the Boodles store, in up-market Mayfair, shows her place the padlocked, zipped purse of diamonds into her designer handbag, after her bungled "examination", then remove it moments later as staff gemologist Emma Barton reminds her they must remain in the vault until funds are transferred. It's hardly a moment of high drama.  It's been described in press reports as a remarkable sleight of hand, but it's more of a prolonged fumble than a split-second switch. But it did the job. She'd retrieved an identical-looking purse - containing pebbles instead of gems - from a secret compartment in her handbag and handed it over.  It wasn't until the following day that anybody checked, by which time Lakatos and her accomplices were long gone, on a Eurostar train to France.  The promised money didn't arrive and Boodles, already sensing something wasn't quite right, sent the locked bag to be X-rayed at Heathrow Airport. That was when the awful truth dawned. They'd been duped.

With hindsight you could argue that Lakatos's bizarre appearance and unusual behaviour were deliberate distractions.  Champion boxers win because they distract their opponent, then land a knockout punch from nowhere. Nicholas Wainwright, chairman of the long-established family firm, may well have been distracted. He told the court: "She was overweight, she was dressed most extraordinarily, she was wearing the sort of thing a Russian dancer would wear. She had enormous boobs and you could see her cleavage, it was most unattractive."  He'd been wined and dined by "wealthy Russians" in Monaco, who appeared happy to pay a very decent price for the gems - among them a 20-ct heart-shaped diamond worth $3m. So a sophisticated sting was probably the last thing on his mind. Emma Barton, the Boodles gemologist, may also have been distracted. Lakatos gave a clueless performance as a gemologist. She weighed each of the seven diamonds, but hadn't brought a loupe to inspect them. She tried and failed to use the her thermal conductivity probe, and ended up using Barton's instead. Odd behaviour, but not enough to sound alarm bells.

Hindsight is, without doubt, an excellent way to spot a con.  Being totally ambushed is not. I've just finished reading the (excellent) Malcolm Gladwell book Talking to Strangers, in which he examines how readily - and wrongly - we form opinions about people we don't know, and how we frequently "default to truth".  Even when faced with apparent contradictions or inconsistencies, we persuade ourselves that there must be a logical explanation. Even if we should know better. Be warned.

By the way, two of Lakatos's accomplices were already in prison but others are still missing - as are the diamonds.

Pics and video courtesy Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service