Two Serbian members of the “Pink Panthers” gang convicted of robberies

Two Serbian members of the “Pink Panthers” gang, an international network specializing in jewelry theft, were convicted on Tuesday in Austria for robberies committed between 2011 and 2017, we learned from the court in Innsbruck (west ).

The 37-year-old first accused was sentenced to nine years in prison for aggravated theft in 11 robberies. The second, 35, was sentenced to four and a half years behind bars for robbing a luxury watch store in 2016 and threatening sellers with a gun.

Regrets as extenuating circumstances

These robberies were carried out using handguns and axes to smash shop windows, for a total damage of around two million euros. Some victims suffered serious injuries.

The two men pleaded guilty and expressed regret, which was considered extenuating circumstances, the judge said. They had already been convicted of similar facts in Switzerland in 2020 before being extradited.

Full of diamonds

The sentence handed down in Austria is in addition to previous decisions, says the APA news agency, which increases their sentences to 12 years and seven months for the first, eight years and one month in the case of the second.

Structured around members from the former Yugoslavia, the gang was given the name of “Pink Panthers” by the British sleuths of Scotland Yard, after the theft of a diamond in London in 2003. The jewel had been concealed in a jar of beauty cream, as in one of the films of the series of the “Pink Panther” directed by Blake Edwards.