Over breakfast at a Dubai hotel, Jessica Paice was planning the Middle Eastern expansion of her luxury handbag business when she received an alert that made her stomach drop.
It was her security system letting her know that thousands of miles away in London, thieves were ransacking her private showroom of millions of pounds worth of Hermes bags for the second time in three years.
And another gut punch was to come when the 41-year-old learnt of the horrifying security blunders that allowed the £1.9million heist to take place.
Three men smashed into the £290,000-a-year Georgian property by Marylebone Square in central London and cut into a hidden cage containing hundreds of priceless bags.
Just four minutes after the raid began at 3.20am on February 9, the thieves left with a haul worth well over a million pounds.
Two hours later, a security guard walked into the cage, filmed the damage then left the building to sit outside in his car.
And while he was idly fiddling with his phone, the thieves returned to the property at 6.40am and stole another £500,000 worth of Hermes handbags. In total, the three men took 93 pieces worth almost £2million from Ms Paice’s company, Aureon Group, some of which were unique.
Members of Ms Paice’s team arrived at the property at about 7.30am and found the security guard still sitting in the car, which was branded with a City Security logo.
Jessica Paice was planning the Middle Eastern expansion of her luxury handbag business when she received an alert that made her stomach drop.
Three men smashed into the £290,000-a-year Georgian property by Marylebone Square in central London and cut into a hidden cage containing hundreds of priceless bags
Just four minutes after the raid began at 3.20am on February 9, the thieves left with a haul worth well over a million pounds. They are seen here returning to the property to steal another £500,000 worth of Hermes handbags
They put their gloves on and carefully removed the handbags that had not been stolen from the cage, trying not to contaminate the crime scene.
Staff instructed the landlord, Argyll, not to allow anyone near the showroom. But a four-man maintenance team, plus the nine-year-old son of one member, shortly arrived and scrubbed the scene and inside of the cage.
By the time a forensics team from Scotland Yard arrived two days later, the room was spotless.
‘I was absolutely incredulous,’ Ms Paice told the Mail. ‘What were they thinking? Scrubbing a crime scene!
‘I was annoyed that the forensics team were late but there was no point them coming anyway – the landlord had scrubbed the place clean of any evidence. And this came after their security man had blown it, sitting in a car outside while my stock was stolen.’
Ms Paice said she tried to end her £22,000-a-month lease but Argyll said they would only allow this if she signed a contract promising not to sue them.
‘I showed this to the insurance company and they said under no circumstances should I sign it – as it would invalidate my insurance claim,’ she said.
‘So I was stuck paying £22,000 a month for an empty showroom I couldn’t use until the end of June. That’s more than £100,000 in wasted rent money.’
CCTV shows the security guard looking at the damage two hours after the first robbery before going back outside in his car. One hour later the second robbery took place
The shelf inside the cage was left ransacked after the thieves stole hundreds of priceless bags
The police investigation seemed to be making little progress, but by the end of March Ms Paice had found a promising lead herself – a £100,000 Hermes bag being touted on a WhatsApp group by a seller based in Hatton Garden, London’s diamond district.
She sent the information to the Metropolitan Police, but said all she was told was that officers were ‘still investigating’.
‘My own enquiries tell me that bag is in China now. It’s gone – along with the only lead into who did this,’ she said.
A Met Police spokesman said detectives thoroughly investigated this line of enquiry but insufficient evidence was found to make any arrests.
The thieves who broke into Ms Paice’s showroom in February were able to circumvent a series of expensively installed security measures fitted after a £490,000 heist in 2022.
After this raid, Ms Paice installed the cage with a steel frame secured by two locks where all stock would be kept overnight.
But when the thieves smashed into the building in February the Master Blaster alarm failed to sound, meaning there was no automatic report sent to police, and it took just minutes for the men to cut into the cage.
Insurance policies only covered 90 per cent of the stolen goods and because the majority of the stolen bags weren’t owned by Ms Paice but various consigners – each of whom was legally entitled to the full value of their stock – she had to pay them immediately out of her own pocket.
Thieves smashed through the door of the building in February, but the Master Blaster alarm failed to sound, meaning there was no automatic report sent to police
Pictured: Damaged to the door at the luxury handbag showroom where the £1.9m raid took place
Pictured is Ms Paice’s showroom before it was raided with a shelf holding some of the bags which were stolen
Handbag dealer Jessica Paice in her now empty showroom in Cavendish Square
Ms Paice, who founded the business in 2015, said: ‘I had to empty my pockets. Everything I’d made and saved, put aside for a house deposit, for my future.
‘Everything I had was in the business, I’ve never owned my own home.
‘Over these two robberies I’m probably personally down £550,000.’
Argyll and City Security have declined to comment.
