June 14, 2002	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 2, 1423

PARIS, June 13: Thieves behind a rash of daring jewellry heists in Paris have used a bewildering variety of tactics to snatch their precious haul, but the latest innovation, a vacuum cleaner, has surprised even the police.

Four men on motorcycles roared up to a jewellers in a wealthy Paris district on Wednesday morning, smashed glass display units and then used a battery-operated, hand-held hoover to clean up.

“Using a vacuum cleaner, that was new. Thieves certainly don’t lack innovation,” said Patrick Mauduit, a spokesman for police officers’ union Synergie Officiers. “We’ll certainly see that again. It’s clever. In one swipe they sucked up jewels that usually have to be picked by hand.”

The attack was the latest in a spate of armed daylight robberies on jewellers and foreign-exchange offices in the French capital that have made national headlines as much for their increased frequency as for the thieves’ barefaced cheek.

With crime the top issue in elections here, news that the robbers feel confident enough to strike in busy districts in daylight hours has only fuelled a sense of fear and calls for a crackdown on delinquency and offenders.

Eight jewellers in Paris have been robbed so far this year, compared to 13 during the whole of 2001, police said. They suspect more than one group is at work.

In May, two well-dressed men wearing ties and sunglasses walked into luxury jeweller Fred on the capital’s classy Place Vendome with a tear-gas canister hidden in a bunch of flowers.

They released the irritant, smashed cabinets, grabbed a handful of jewels and jumped into a stolen getaway car outside.—Reuters