‘That bitch was wearing my jewels,” says Tamara Ecclestone. The Formula One heiress is referring to the Romanian escort Maria Mester, who was arrested in January 2020 at Stansted airport wearing a pair of £6,000 earrings that were among items stolen in a £25m jewel heist from Ecclestone’s 57-room Kensington mansion while she, her children and partner Jay Rutland enjoyed a pre-Christmas trip to Lapland.
Sometimes I find millionaire heiresses not entirely relatable. Yes, I would be mortified if someone burgled my home, especially if they took that hat I’m quite attached to and then I saw someone wearing it on the 73 bus. And, true, ever since I lost a library book about Spinoza in Waitrose, I have been eyeing fellow shoppers narrowly.
Who Stole Tamara Ecclestone’s Diamonds? (BBC Three) invites many questions about Britain’s most lucrative burglary spree. How many watches can have sentimental value? Are cufflinks really that much of a thing? How does the firm that supplied round-the-clock security to Ecclestone and Rutland rebrand itself after failing to foil the theft of 450 items in one hour?
This documentary is, at best, the inspired union of Ocean’s Eleven, Only Fools and Horses and The Muppets. It’s a story in which the police catch a break when one of the robbers texts a dick pic to a hotel receptionist. It’s one in which the robbers went large between burglaries, spending £800 at a Japanese restaurant where, one reporter who investigated the case notes through her proverbial lorgnette, that a bowl of edamame beans costs north of £10. It’s a film in which one of the men police suspected of organising the robberies self-describes as the Professor, while reporters describe him as Transylvania’s answer to Del Boy Trotter.
When we meet this man, one Sorin Marcovici, he denies involvement in the burglary. The Professor confides to camera that the text he received from one of the burglars in Italian before the Ecclestone heist reading “cannello de taglio” (blow torch) should have read “agneau de taglio” which means “cut lamb”. He says, straight-faced, that he thought he was being invited to lunch, not to supply burglary tools. I know I’m convinced.
It turns out that the Romanian escort is the Professor’s childhood friend. Police were alerted to Maria Mester shortly after the burglary by a Facebook post showing her wearing a necklace belonging to Ecclestone. Her son, Emile-Bogdan Savastru, was arrested soon after at Heathrow in possession of a Tag Heuer watch and Louis Vuitton bag, similar to those stolen in the raid. If you’ve got it flaunt it, I suppose, even if it’s stuff nicked during a two-week spree, in which not just the home of Ecclestone, but football manager Frank Lampard and the late Leicester City chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha were raided.
Police claimed that mother, son and aforementioned Professor were logistics fixers for the burglars. A jury disagreed: Mester, Savastru, Marcovici and Alexandru Stan were all found not guilty of conspiring to burgle the luxury London homes.
Where are the jewels now? Our story takes us to Neasden, where Mester, a documentary-maker’s dream, defends her innocence in machine-gun Italian, showing the cameraman her wardrobe with its Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. How very different, we are to suppose, is this setup from Ecclestone’s opulent dressing room with its en suite panic room.
Mester tells us that the jewels she wore on Facebook and at Stansted were gifts from a satisfied client. She met the man nearly a decade ago at a Milan club called the Golden Goose, which sounds about right. He became her golden goose, showering her with, if not eggs, then jewels and gifts.
Police believe that this man, Daniel Vukovic (although he has reportedly as many as 19 aliases and surely enjoys the press’s soubriquet for him as the Serbian Arsène Lupin), took part in the burglaries.
But while three men are serving time at Her Majesty’s pleasure and awaiting offers for the inevitable Netflix true-crime series, Vukovic is believed to be living in Belgrade where Serbian authorities have refused to allow him to be extradited to face trial in London. Here, a BBC reporter flies to Belgrade to track the man down, only to find out he is not at home. Long way to go for a spot of failed doorstepping. We never meet Vukovic, but he quite possibly knows where the rest of Ecclestone’s jewels are. Perhaps you’re wearing some of them as you read this. If you are sporting Frank Lampard’s cufflinks, you really need to have a word with yourself.
As for Ecclestone, I hope she can get closure and realise that diamonds aren’t a girl’s best friend, and that even if she never gets her jewels back, she’ll always have Lapland.
