The 2016 robbery allegedly involved holding the celebrity at gunpoint, tying her up and locking her in a bathroom at her rented apartment during Paris Fashion Week. Photo: TNS
A man involved in the armed jewelry heist targeting Kim Kardashian in 2016 has no remorse about the incident because the beauty mogul was “throwing money away”.
In an interview with Vice about high-profile robberies enabled by social media, Yunice Abbas, one of the five men who allegedly robbed the reality star, detailed what he and his collaborators did to carry out the operation that allegedly involved holding Kardashian at gunpoint, tying her up and locking her in a bathroom at her rented apartment during Paris Fashion Week.
While Abbas believes that Kardashian was traumatised by the attack and said that “you don’t come out unscathed,” he doesn’t seem fazed by it.
“Since she was throwing money away, I was there to collect it, and that was that,” he told the interviewer in French. “Guilty? No, I don’t care. I don’t care.”
A representative for Kardashian did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.
Abbas is among those awaiting trial in the case but was released from jail early because of health reasons. He told Vice he was caught because he left his DNA at the scene when he overpowered a guard at the Hotel de Pourtales.
“I took his hands, I tied him up, and by doing so I left my DNA,” he said. “As I already had a record, it was very easy to trace me.”
Abbas, along with a group of alleged assailants, tracked the Skims founder’s movements online and through social media. As he did in the tell-all book he published about the heist, Abbas also detailed how he and the alleged robbers gained access to Kardashian’s apartment building and room.
“We got in through the little door that was open on the inside,” Abbas told Vice. “As soon as we got in, we took control of the concierge. We overpowered him. We tied him up. But then we looked for the keys of the bedroom she stayed in.
“I stayed downstairs, but my two colleagues went upstairs with the concierge to go to Madame Kardashian’s room,” he said. “Then they picked up the jewellery. They went downstairs. Ms. Kardashian’s secretary called for help. But she called 911 in the United States, which scared us, which made them lose a lot of time. And when we got out, there was a bunch of police outside who didn’t know anything about the robbery.”
Abbas also told Vice that he vaguely knew of Kardashian because of her estranged husband, rapper Kanye West. But he did catch a glimpse of her TV show.
“I saw one of her shows where she threw her diamond in the pool in that episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians,” he said. “I thought, ‘She’s got a lot of money. This lady doesn’t care at all.’”
Meanwhile, the alleged mastermind behind the heist was Aomar Ait Khedache, who wrote Kardashian an apology letter from his prison cell that said he regrets his actions and realises the psychological damage he caused, according to the Associated Press.
The mother of four, 41, kept a low profile for months after the incident but slowly made her way back to the limelight.
In 2020, she spoke openly about the incident during an emotional sit-down with David Letterman and revealed she thought she might be raped during the robbery, then became paranoid, struggled with trauma and anxiety in its wake.
“I definitely took a year where I got really paranoid of people knowing my whereabouts,” she said. “I didn’t even want to go to a restaurant, because I thought someone will know I’m at this restaurant. They’ll take a picture, they’ll send it, they’ll know my house is open, they’ll know that my kids are there.”
“I was just really scared of everything,” she added. “I can’t sleep at night unless there are a half a dozen security guards at my house and that has become my reality, and that’s OK.” – Los Angeles Times/Tribune News Service
