[imagesource:here]

It seems that just as quickly as diamonds get found, so too do they get stolen.

Except, nobody saw this jewellery thief zoom away on his e-scooter with €3 million (around R52 million) worth of gems in Paris’ Champs-Elysées area on Tuesday.

The reason being that most potential eyewitnesses were distracted by the presence of martial arts movie star Jean-Claude van Damme, who was at a nearby optician.

This latest heist saw (via security footage, because as mentioned, very few real eyes were on him) a grey-haired man entering a boutique jeweller, Chaumet, with a handgun.

He was then seen rushing out moments later with a stash of stolen gems in a white bag, where he quickly got on a green e-scooter parked nearby and made his escape.

The Telegraph has more:

Staff told police the lone man had pretended to be a customer and asked to see various expensive items before threatening staff with a weapon.

No one was injured in the robbery.

You might have assumed that the alleged suspect is the person on the bike pictured above, but that is actually van Damme in his latest movie, The Last Mercenary.

He was in Paris to launch the movie, which also involves an e-scooter chase in almost the same spot that the robbery took place.

While the Belgian actor has “never played a jewellery thief”, according to his agent, Patrick Goavec, “the irony is [The Last Mercenary] does include a chase on an e-scooter in central Paris.”

This is what the real jewellery thief looked like making an escape on his e-scooter :

Image: AFP

“Mind-boggling, daring, unprecedented and regrettable” is how the mayor of Paris’s 8th arrondissement,  Jeanne d’Hauteserre, described the circumstances.

In spite of there being no eyewitnesses, police have since mobilised effectively to bring the suspects down:

By Wednesday afternoon police had arrested two suspects in Moselle, eastern France, and retrieved a “significant part” of the haul, which they were carrying, according to judicial sources.

The suspects, born in 1967 and 1977, were intercepted on board a coach at a motorway lay-by in Longeville-Lès-Saint-Avold.

An investigation into the armed robbery is underway, too.

[source:thetelegraph]