A “grandpa robber” found guilty of stealing millions of pounds worth of jewellery from Kim Kardashian has died a month after being convicted, according to French media.
Didier Dubreucq, 69, was diagnosed with lung cancer while in detention prior to going on trial and had been undergoing chemotherapy.
He and seven others were found guilty of the high-profile Paris heist which happened in 2016, with the court hearing Ms Kardashian was bound and had a gun held to her head.
The thieves stole about £7.5m of her jewellery including an engagement ring worth £3m that was gifted by her then-husband Kanye West.
Also known as “Blue Eyes”, Dubreucq was one of two men who held Kardashian at gunpoint in her room. He denied the charges during the second day in court.
With tears in his eyes, Dubreucq spoke of his past as a criminal, telling the court according to Le Monde: “I told my son, ‘I hope you don’t become like your father.’ And I’m keeping a close watch.”
It was on 3 October 2016 when Kardashian was lying in the bed of the luxury apartment in central Paris, that she heard footsteps pounding up the stairs.
After calling out, and hearing no response, she knew something “wasn’t quite right”, she recalled in an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians months after the crime.
Two men in police uniforms had handcuffed the concierge and forced him to let them into her apartment. “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!’
“He ended up being our interpreter because I couldn’t understand them, they couldn’t understand me,” Ms Kardashian recalled.
When she was dragged to the hallway at the top of the stairs, Kardashian said she saw that the pair were armed – and began to fear the worst.
“He pulled me toward him at the front of the bed and I thought, ‘OK, this is the moment they’re going to rape me,’” she said. “I fully mentally prepped myself – and then he didn’t.”
The robber put duct tape round her legs and a gun to her head. She said: “I just knew that was the moment. They’re just totally going to shoot me in the head. I just prayed that Kourtney’s going to have a normal life after she sees my dead body on the bed.”
Kardashian told investigators she was taken to a bathroom and placed in the bathtub. Her attackers fled on bicycles or on foot, and she freed herself by removing the tape.
