On the night of Saturday, May 4, 40,000 pounds worth of valuables were stolen from the Monte Carlo Casino after a British visitor accidentally left her designer handbag at the casino bar. The bag, valued at 20,000 pounds, contained another 20,000 pounds in luxury items, including a wallet, Chanel brooch, gold earrings, sunglasses, AirPods, and the owner’s passport. While the bag and passport were soon found, the other high-value items had disappeared.
Thanks to surveillance footage, casino staff identified a woman responsible for the theft, who was later arrested upon her return to the casino days later. During her questioning, the suspect, a woman in her fifties, admitted to taking the items, explaining that she was a gambling addict and had resorted to stealing out of desperation. She claimed her financial troubles began after she was abandoned by a former partner, an elderly Monaco resident she had met years earlier. Following their separation, she returned to gambling and occasionally used the casino to find clients, as she had returned to sex work.
Casino employees reportedly recognised the woman from past visits, and one acquaintance of hers even helped retrieve some of the stolen items from her home in Menton. However, not all the items were returned, and authorities raised questions about the exact contents of the bag since the victim could not verify each item.
Although the accused had no prior convictions in Monaco, she had previously been convicted in France for check fraud, theft, and driving under the influence. Acknowledging the theft as an opportunistic act, the deputy prosecutor noted the ease with which she took the bag and decided on a sentence of three months’ suspended imprisonment, along with a one-year ban from entering Monaco.
