The Rolex robberies – when your watch makes you a target for crime

Time+Tide

Wearing a Rolex will invariably attract attention. Bragging rights aside, owning a Rolex comes with a host of benefits: they can make a great impression with your in-laws, they are built to last for a very long time, they hold their value better than most luxury commodities and, of course, they tell the time unusually well.  Alas where there are pros, cons are often around the corner and this proved to be the case quite literally for three unsuspecting Rolex owners in the UK. Such is Rolex’s reputation and street value, they attract cons; a flash of a Rolex, however unintentional, will alert beady-eyed criminals. It’s one thing to assume that owning an expensive watch involves getting contents insurance and a half-decent safe. But enrolling in a self-defence course, really?

Sadly, the dark side of the world does exist. We’ve heard about celebrities’ mansions being targeted for robberies and ultra expensive watches attracting criminal attention. But attacks in broad daylight? Hit and runs by gangs with the sole intention of stealing someone’s watch? That’s some dark shithousery, but these things are happening – in the sleepy Norfolk town of Hingham of all places, a two and half hour drive from Central London.

Hingham Fish Bar, the market town’s local chip shop, is hardly a hot-bed for criminal activity. But in March 2019 it became tainted by a shocking attack that will send shudders through the watch fraternity all around the world. A lady in her fifties decided to stop by on her way home from work to get some chips. But unbeknown to her, she’d been tailed by a gang of men all the way from London, where she’d just attended a work meeting. Why were they following her? Police believe these predators were targeting lone motorists specifically for their expensive watches. This lady ticked the boxes and they saw an opportunity to separate her from her valuable possessions.

That it turned into a 250-mile round trip for them probably wasn’t the plan. But as soon as their victim stepped out of her car, she was callously targeted by the gang who attacked her from behind, tearing off her Rolex and her rings. The robbers also took the woman’s bag and Mercedes car in the raid that left her with severe bruising.

Weeks later two of the gang tailed a man from a restaurant to his Essex home. When he spotted the gang, the man tried to run, but they drove their car into him, bashed him over the head repeatedly with a baton and forced him to hand over his £25,000 watch.

Later that night the same pair robbed another man of his £20,000 Rolex after battering him with a metal baseball bat. Once again, the paid had tailed him from East London to his Worcestershire home 125 miles away.

Police duly noticed that all three attacks were linked to a common theme: the theft of expensive watches.

This all came to light this month after the three men responsible for these crimes were convicted after fingerprints were found on fake number plates fitted to a stolen car. They were sentenced to 37 years in prison between them butnone of the stolen watches have been recovered.

After the court case at Norwich Crown Court, the victim from Hingham told the Eastern Daily Press: “For victims like me we have a life sentence. You watch people being grabbed from behind in the dark on TV. It’s entertaining and it may make you jump, but that is it. When it happens in reality together with what else happened, it is indescribable.”

So to our fellow watch lovers, we finish with some solemn advice. Be careful out there, wear your watch with caution and stay vigilant. Even when you’re buying fish and chips.