French police were on Tuesday investigating how jewelry said to be worth 4.5 million euros (US$6.2 million) was stolen from the daughter of the mayor of Kiev during a one-day visit to Paris.
French judicial officials said they had confirmed that the victim of the handbag snatch was indeed Kristina Chernovetska, 30-year-old daughter of Leonid Chernovetsky, the colorful mayor of the Ukrainian capital.
Earlier, one of the mayor’s aides had denied the report, which could be embarrassing to Kiev city hall, given the huge value of the jewels that the victim is said to have been carrying.
The chief Ukrainian consular official in Paris, Kostiantyn Kostenko, said: “This is a matter for the French police, it concerns a private citizen.”
French investigators, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Chernovetska arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport at 10am on Monday for a lay-over of several hours while en route to New York.
She rented a Mercedes and driver and set off to spend some time in Paris, but was caught in heavy traffic on the A1 motorway where it passes through the suburb of Saint-Denis just outside the city proper.
A thief smashed the window of the car and snatched Chernovetska’s handbag, dropping around US$10,000 in cash as he made his getaway, pursued in vain by the victim’s driver, the French officials said.
Officials said Chernovetska’s statement declared that the bag contained jewels worth 4.5 million euros, around 26,000 times the average monthly wage of her father’s constituents.
French officials said the spot where the theft took place is notorious for such attacks and that the Ukrainian mayor’s daughter did not appear to have been specifically targeted.
Earlier, Mayor Chernovetsky’s adviser Marta Grimska told the Interfax news agency: “This has nothing to do with Kristina. I think it is a joke and that she has been mixed up with someone, probably someone with a similar name.”
Grimska said the mayor’s daughter was in Kiev when the robbery took place.
“When I told her about these reports by telephone, she laughed a lot,” Grimska also told the online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.
A hugely controversial figure with many enemies, Chernovetsky senior won the post of mayor in 2006 following a career as a businessman and banker.
Nicknamed “Kosmos” for his increasingly unworldy behavior, last year he gave a news conference dressed only in swimming trunks and ran a lap around Kiev’s Dynamo Stadium in order to show that he was in good health.
In March last year a parliamentary commission probing his reign as mayor advised him to undergo psychiatric tests after antics that included recording a disc of 1980s hits and proposing to auction off his kisses.
Voters may be less amused by his family’s apparent wealth, however, with Ukraine having suffered badly in the global crisis — its economy contracted by about 15 percent last year, the economy ministry said on Tuesday.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS