(Image source from: 'Most Wanted' Pink Panther aide detained})
French police detained a suspected Pink Panther aide, who decamped from the Swiss prison earlier this year.
The 47-year old Zoran Tomovic was arrested on Monday dawn after a special search brigade raided a villa in Southeast France, acting on the tip from Swiss authorities.
Nearly 20 armed policeman bust inside the house in Provence town of Bedarrides and arrested Tomovic, even while he tried to hotfoot through a window.
"He tried to play his card, but because the house was surrounded, he wasn't able to get far," said Divisional Commissioner Pascal Gontier of the judicial police in southern Montpellier. “The owner of the home was an old acquaintance of the suspect who apparently did not know about his recent misadventures,” he added.
In the recent months, southeast France has been hit with a wad of high-profile jewelry thefts that has left the French police frazzled.
Just last month, a gunman barged into a diamond jewelry show at the Riviera resort of Cannes hotel and fled with an astonishing $136 million worth of valuables – the biggest jewelry heist in years. Two more jewelry heists took place during the Cannes Film Festival in May.
Although there are no immediate evidence that proves Tomovic's association with these heists, the Monotonegrin native is wanted by French police for armed robbery, weapons and drug-trafficking charges in Switzerland. In fact, he was one of five inmates who broke away from a detention facility in Lausanne on May 14. He is also wanted by Macedonia police over the alleged murder of his former girlfriend.
The notorious Pink Panthers have been charged of committing a spate of spectacular thefts. According to Interpol, the crime group has looted luxury watch and jewelry stores in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the United States, netting over 330 million euros ($436 million) since 1999.
Tomovic is believed to be one of three Pink Panther members. Another aide, Milan Poparic, a Bosnian serving a 6-year, 8-month sentence for robbing a jewelry store in the Swiss city of Neuchatel four years ago, fled from a prison in the western Swiss canton of Vaud last month.
AW: Suchorita Dutta
