How the Tamara Ecclestone diamonds case was cracked

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One wet afternoon in January 2020, Det Con Thomas Grimshaw walked into a budget hotel off a nondescript street in south-east London, with a hunch that it might help him crack a major case. Det Con Grimshaw asked the receptionist about guests who had stayed there in mid-December. She told him about a group she remembered vividly – one of them had sent her colleague inappropriate messages on the hotel’s out-of-hours iPhone, including a “dick pic”. They saved his number as “Weirdo”. It was the breakthrough that Det Con Grimshaw was looking for. Finding that phone number helped police identify their first suspect in the biggest domestic burglary in English legal history.

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It was less than two weeks to Christmas 2019 when Tamara Ecclestone, her husband Jay Rutland and daughter Sophia jetted off to Lapland. The daughter of former Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone had posted a picture before her departure on Instagram. That night, a gang of thieves would make off from her home in west London’s Kensington Palace Gardens - dubbed “billionaire’s row” - with more than £25m worth of cash and jewellery including diamonds and watches.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/nm7...3-543ed27d372b