Wristwatches in crime reports

Wrist Watch

Let's see how the subject of our passion becomes the subject of a crime chronicle. Watches, these beautiful creations of the human mind, now and then find themselves at the center of some scandal or crime. It is, of course, not the watch that is to blame for this, but the people who chose them as the subject of their criminal activities.

Here is a very recent report - at the end of July, the Spanish police in Palma de Mallorca arrested two members of a gang that was engaged in robberies with violence, and the purpose of the bandits was exclusively watches. In the period from May to the end of July, the criminals carried out more than 20 attacks, the value of the stolen items, according to preliminary estimates, is estimated at about 300 euros - this is only according to proven episodes. Both of those arrested are Moroccans, in addition to this group, the so-called Rolex Gang is also operating on the island, in which the Italians also come for a short time, operate at night, then leave the island - they also have more than 000 robberies. Conclusion - rest at home.

It's not just defenseless civilians that are being attacked: rogues are also looting heavily protected watch shops, and quite regularly - remember the recent broad daylight raid on Chanel's watch and jewelry boutique on the Rue de la Paix in Paris, in the heart of the French capital, close to Place Vendôme.

On May 5 of this year, four well-armed and equipped robbers in helmets broke into the store and disappeared a few minutes later on two motorcycles, taking with them "goods worth a large amount." No one was hurt, all unwitting witnesses of the robbery were given psychological assistance, they also said that one of the attackers had an AK-47 assault rifle behind his back - he guarded the entrance to the boutique while his colleagues were doing business.

Boutique robberies in Paris are not uncommon. In September last year, the Bvlgari salon on Place Vendôme, which opened after a large-scale reconstruction, was robbed, valuables worth about 10 million euros were stolen, whether there were watches among the stolen ones is not reported.

On an unfortunate Tuesday at about 12 noon, three men in business suits entered a boutique near the Ritz Hotel and took possession of "luxury items" at gunpoint. There were seven participants in the robbery, three fled in a gray BMW, the other four on mopeds. The police then organized a chase at high speeds, like in a movie, the car was intercepted 2 km from the scene of the attack, they opened fire on the BMW, the criminals tried to escape, two of them were captured, one was wounded in the leg, I don’t know if the other suspects were caught or not.

On July 27, 2021, a man stole 2 million euros worth of valuables from the Chaumet boutique, after which he left the scene of his crime on an electric scooter. True, the very next day the loser was arrested along with an accomplice, and most of the valuables were seized.

And just three days later, two men, armed with stun guns and tear gas, attacked a Dinh Van store, seizing around 400 euros worth of loot. I'm not sure if Dinh Van makes a good watch, but for the sake of statistics, we add this case to the list of Parisian crimes.

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They rob not only in Paris - in 2017, the well-known and beloved Maximilian Büsser became a victim of criminals - not personally, but his "brainchild", MADGallery, a salon-gallery of MB&F watches and other interesting items in Geneva, was subjected to an armed attack. Two very smartly dressed robbers, posing as customers, tied up employees and held them at gunpoint.

The robbers stole all the watches on display, as well as those that were stored in the safe. But a few months later, the Swiss, French and Belgian police, who worked very professionally, tracked down the robbers in Antwerp. In the end, everything was resolved, as in a not very fancy detective story: Belgian policemen (they were dressed as fans of the local football club and behaved accordingly) arrested the kidnappers in a bar where they had a meeting with a buyer of stolen goods. MB&F was incredibly lucky: the robbers did not have time to sell anything, and, apart from a few scratches, all the watches were safe and sound.

But not all the criminal chronicle consists of robberies, quite a respectable kind of citizens, famous people are at the center of scandals.

On October 7, 2003, Jean-Pierre Jaquet, director of Jaquet SA, a company specializing in assembling complex watch movements based on ETA, was arrested early in the morning. The charges include armed robbery, simple theft and making and selling fakes. Jean-Pierre Jaquet, a well-known figure in the watch community who collaborated with prestigious brands, was involved in the theft of 12 kilograms of gold from a factory in Le Locle, as well as watch cases, in particular Rolex, which disappeared from the Miranda factory in Chaux-de-Fonds where polishing is done.

The police detained Jean-Pierre Jaquet (during the arrest, they seized a pistol from him, with which, as the family said, he had not parted for a long time) and 11 other people, production was stopped for 48 hours for searches, investigative actions revealed a lot of "interesting ” facts, confirming the suspicions of law enforcement that Jean-Pierre Jaquet and Jaquet SA were part of an extensive criminal network for the manufacture and sale, mainly in Italy, of the so-called “real fakes”, that is, watches assembled partly from real components, but without the knowledge brand and non-brand.

Now it is known for certain that Jean-Pierre Jaquet tried to buy watch faces of famous brands directly from the manufacturer of these same dials, while Jaquet SA was the supplier of movements for the same companies. The companies whose brand was on the dial knew nothing about it. This method of forming a "material base" for the manufacture of "real fakes" was very popular, especially since component suppliers were sometimes happy to get rid of the resulting surplus cases, mechanisms and other parts.

The missing ones produced themselves, including in China, or trivially stole, sometimes managing to make watches almost entirely from original parts - but even such a copy will be considered counterfeit, because without the knowledge of the corresponding brand and outside the established production quotas, not to mention the illegality of all financial chain.

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Many of Jaquet SA's former customers have stated that Jean-Pierre Jaquet often asked to be paid by the clock at export prices, among those who agreed to such an exchange were, for example, Franck Muller Watchland brands - and we will return to these shortly.

Jean-Pierre Jaquet 

In 2003, Jean-Pierre Jaquet, known to some as "Pharaoh", was forced to cede control of Jaquet SA to his remaining colleagues, now called La Joux-Perret, and since 2012 owned by the Citizen group. Interesting? Then we read further.

Before the quiet Swiss outback had time to recover from the Pharaoh case, another scandal erupted, the content of which is quite enough for the scenario of a mini-series in the spirit of Netflix: a fierce struggle for power and influence, geniuses and villains, drugs and sex, public insults. The main characters are Franck Muller and his equal partner in the brand Vartan Sirmakes, as well as the previously mentioned Pharaoh. One of the storylines is a mysterious story about Russian mechanisms that were found in Swiss watches. The year is still the same, 2003.

Other blogs write about sex and drugs, but let's remember this dark story about the purchase by the Swiss group Franck Muller of almost 20000 mechanisms of the Russian Polet. This case is 20 years old, and in the early 2000s it was difficult to get to the bottom of the matter, but I will try to present the essence of the events as objectively as possible. As you understand, there were no robberies and armed attacks, but there were no trials, accompanying mutual accusations in the press, loss of reputation and other troubles.

In December 2003, the Geneva newspaper Le Temps reported that the Franck Muller Watchland group of companies purchased several thousand Russian-made movements, hinting that cheap "flights" may have been added to the group's Swiss brands. Vartan Sirmakes, the owner of FMW, denied these slanderous insinuations and sued the newspaper for libel.

Following Le Temps, another Swiss newspaper, Le Matin, took a trail, and pulled out documents confirming the purchase in 1994 of 1500 Poljot mechanisms by Sirmakes-owned Technowatch, and the contract stated that the mechanisms were to be manufactured and transferred without any - or markings, i.e. it should not be possible to identify the products as Russian calibers.

Under the pressure of newly discovered circumstances, Vartan Sirmakes acknowledged the fact of the purchase, but categorically denied that these movements got into the cases of watches manufactured by Franck Muller, explaining the delivery as follows: “Yes, sometimes it happens that we order Russian, Japanese or Chinese movements. But we used them for research to find out what the competitors are doing. The watches of the Franck Muller group have nothing but Swiss movements.” The watch community then laughed, believing that even ten pieces were enough to get acquainted with the products of competitors, and at the same time they were perplexed - is it really true that Russians are considered competitors in the Sirmakes group of companies?

Let's remember this contract of 1994, let's return to the events of the early 2000s and talk about 20000 Polet mechanisms from Russia. The aforementioned Jaquet SA, according to a source close to the Russian supplier, was supposed to bring the "flights" to the required level of technical requirements by order of Franck Muller Watchland so that they could then be used in the group's watches. Actually, there is nothing illegal in the very practice of using third-party calibers by watch manufacturers, unless the swiss made marking rules are violated, but in the case of “flights” a strange story happened - the trace was lost, and it’s hard to understand which Swiss watch a simple caliber fell into .

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As the newspapers reported at the time, sources at Jaquet SA confirmed that in some cases, “flights” were used as a base gauge for installing modules with complications, sometimes they were simply brought into proper form, decorated. True, there was no one who would confirm the installation of these "flights" in the watches of the Franck Muller Watchland brands, which, of course, does not mean that this did not actually happen.

In the year 2008, an employee of this company, who had already left Franck Muller by that time, assured me that he personally saw all ten thousand (mind you, not twenty) purchased Russian calibers in a warehouse in pristine condition - they bought, said, yes, “but did not use I swear on my mother." Why were the “flights” at Muller and not at Jean-Pierre Jaquet? Perhaps only part of the purchased volume went to Jaquet SA or somewhere else, because around the same time, Vartan Sirmakes and Jean-Pierre Jaquet announced that they were ending their cooperation. Evil tongues said that Hayek and the Swatch Group were to blame for everything, which at the height of the watchmaking boom could not cope with the supply of ETA movements to everyone (read - did not want to), which forced Vartan Sirmakes to look for solutions on the "Soviet side".

The "Soviet side", by the way, more than once came to the aid of Vartan Sirmakes and his Franck Muller Watchland. The conflict between Frank Müller and Vartan Sirmakes was resolved in 2004 by the fact that Sirmakes began to manage the company alone, and Muller retired, but did not immediately leave the pages of newspapers, he managed to “play tricks” before he settled in Asia, mine in Thailand.

Franck Muller Watchland's affairs did not develop very well in subsequent years: several stages of staff reduction, the transition to part-time work, the freezing of many projects, huge tax debts, a 2008% drop in sales by 75 - all this threatened with imminent bankruptcy. What to do in such a situation? That's right, save capital. Where? Of course, abroad, not in Switzerland, right? Where will the hands of Swiss creditors not reach? Before Belarus - a fact, and Sirmakes concludes a deal to acquire the Minsk Watch Plant in 2010. By the decree of Alexander Lukashenko dated January 10, 2009, Minsk Watch Plant OJSC was nationalized for debts to the state, so consider that Sirmakes bought the plant from Alexander Grigoryevich himself ...

Vartan Sirmakes