High profile luxury crimes such as the mugging of Jensen Button has London's super-elite reeling

In one sense, the rise of luxury crime in London feels inevitable. As the capital has reoriented itself around consumption and disparities in wealth have grown ever wider, the word luxury has become a kind of civic keyword — a mood, a lifestyle, a marketing prefix for everything from dogs to doughnuts, handbags to housing developments.

Now it has spawned a new category of fear. Not just crime — luxury crime. The kind that happens in Mayfair or Knightsbridge. The kind that knows the resale value of a Richard Mille watch (£120,000+) or Birkin handbag (as much as £250,000). The kind that inspires “lawless London” headlines and breathless social media commentary that “nobody’s safe” — and certainly no one who can afford a Richard Mille watch.

Earlier this year, the former Formula 1 driver Jenson Button and his wife Brittny became high-profile victims of the luxury crimewave when their suitcase containing £250,000 of valuables was snatched within moments of their arrival at St Pancras from Paris.

“I was kind of shocked,” said Brittny, who had the “a” stolen from her name in the same incident. “How unsecure everything felt. Just so many people, so chaotic. My husband and I really have no interest in going back to the UK.”

It’s the latest in a string of thefts apparently targeted at high-net worth individuals. Recently, Hong Kong socialite Shafira Huang’s Primrose Hill mansion was burgled, with thieves making off with £150,000 worth of Hermès Crocodile Kelly handbags, £15,000 in cash and £10.4 million of bespoke jewellery.

The following month, owners of the Sellier luxury goods store in Knightsbridge shared footage of masked men ransacking their premises with the comment: “London has turned into something crazy.”

It’s not hard to find the sentiment echoed among high-net worth individuals. “There are incidents happening every day,” says one who declines to be named. “A friend of mine had 15 watches stolen while they were at home. Another friend had their Range Rover snatched with the kids in the back. You don’t see people wearing watches anymore because they’re afraid of them getting snatched. People aren’t going shopping because they’re afraid of smash and grabs. It’s pervasive. People don’t feel safe.”

He stresses that he is not making a comparison with, say, Monaco and Geneva but with “major cities” like New York. When I say that London is, statistically, far safer than New York, he counters. “It doesn’t feel like that. The anecdotal evidence points that way. You may be shot in New York — but you’re not going to get mugged for your watch or phone.”

The statistics tell a slightly more complicated story. You are about four times more likely to be murdered in New York and seven times more likely in LA, where the Buttons appear to have fled. It is not just in comparison with America that London fares well: the most recent Office for National Statistics data shows that London has a lower rate of violent crime than the average across the country.

London does, however, have an overall higher crime rate, with burglaries and robberies significantly increasing in recent years (34,465 robbery offences were recorded in 2023/24, an increase of around 10,000 from the previous year). The Metropolitan Police, meanwhile, revealed that thefts of luxury items (watches, handbags, jewellery) rose by 22 per cent between 2022 and 2024, with 9,433 incidents recorded within a 12-month period.

Nevertheless, the idea that the Met is simply letting this happen doesn’t quite hold up. Watch thefts fell by eight per cent over the same period, which may be due to the Met’s undercover operations against “Rolex rippers”, which resulted in 21 convictions last year.

Still, perception matters. Brian Duffy, CEO of Watches of Switzerland, recently noted on a luxury industry podcast that media coverage of street muggings is growing at a far greater rate than actual street muggings. The resale value of high-end watches has meanwhile been declining from a 2022 peak and while the reasons for this are complicated (pandemic supply issue corrections, inflation, global economic slowdown, etc) the idea that these items are flashing “rob me!” signs seems to be pervasive.

And yet paranoia presents another business opportunity. Sean Hoey, who runs the IBV International Vaults on Park Lane — which claims to be the most secure storage facility in Europe — says he’s been inundated with requests to store luxury items in recent months.

“I’ve been in the safety deposit business for over 20 years and it’s always been jewellery, gold and documents,” he tells me. “But when guys come in now, it tends to be watches they’re storing more than anything else.”

Another growing area is handbags. “There are a lot of females storing handbags at the moment — I’m talking about your Hermès Birkins, your expensive Chanel bags, that sort of thing. That’s quite a new thing,” he says.

Still, Hoey is sceptical of the idea that London has become some kind of lawless dystopia. If anything, he argues, the opposite is true. “You’ve got to have your wits about you in London. You wouldn’t want to go flashing a Rolex around. But people from abroad do still consider London to be a safe haven. We have a lot of Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern clients and they feel that if they leave their items in London, they’re safe.”

Indeed, while street crime — especially when captured on social media — is unsettling, as Hoey points out, most ultra high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) are not catching the Tube or strolling down Oxford Street.

The people most at risk of street crime in London remain those who have always been at risk — delivery riders, late-shift workers, teenagers in deprived boroughs.

The victims of luxury crime often have excellent insurance, and the platforms to ensure their trauma is heard, echoed and, in some cases, monetised. Some may even recoup their losses in Instagram engagement.

A far more significant threat for UHNWIs comes in the form of targeted burglaries, says Natalie Sherborn, white-collar defence and investigations partner at Withers. “These groups specifically target UHNWI luxury homes in exclusive residential areas of London, often employing tactics such as surveillance, tracking and highly coordinated break-ins, using advanced techniques to bypass security systems.”

“Although robberies and burglaries can be more shocking,” she adds, “the impact of cybercrime shouldn’t be underestimated, which can be devastating with wide-ranging consequences that can be more difficult to detect and control.” Then there are the crimes that blur the line between the two worlds.

France has witnessed a wave of truly terrifying kidnappings in recent months, apparently targeted at the families of cryptocurrency entrepreneurs. According to The New York Times, in two instances the kidnappers cut off victims’ fingers in order to extract ransoms, others have been doused in petrol and threatened with drills.

“Everyone is thinking about who is next,” said Owen Simonin, a French crypto influencer who stepped up his own security after being threatened at gunpoint.

It was also in France that Kim Kardashian was kidnapped and held at gunpoint by thieves who stole £7.5 million worth of jewellery during Paris Fashion Week 2016. The trial of the gang has recently concluded in Paris with eight men found guilty. “The crime was the most terrifying experience of my life, leaving a lasting impact on me and my family,” Kardashian said in a statement after the verdicts.

“While I’ll never forget what happened, I believe in the power of growth and accountability and pray for healing for all.”

It is one of many instances where social media presence has alerted criminals both to a victim’s wealth and their whereabouts. Angela Sharma, a barrister at Church Court Chambers, mentions a Premier League footballer she knows whose home was targeted while he was playing away. “He had a sophisticated surveillance system with CCTV all over the house — except in one room, the bathroom. That’s where the burglars entered. You have to ask: how did they know this was the one vulnerable room? What kind of data do they have? We just don’t know.”

All of which has created a pervasive mood of paranoia, she says. “I have a client who has Jean-Michel Basquiats and Andy Warhols worth a significant amount of money in their house,” Sharma says. “They are so petrified they don’t leave the property.

“They’re so worried that something will happen to the art that they feel they have to be at home constantly. They have CCTV. But they don’t even trust their staff to be alone in the house, as they could all be conspiring.”

It does make you wonder: what is the point of owning such things if you can’t actually enjoy them? “Well, they do want to sell them,” she says. “They don’t invite friends over. They don’t trust the auction houses to store them because that incurs costs. So they’re waiting until the market improves. And until then, they’re sat at home. It’s an extreme example of what people are feeling in this particular circle. Look at the Kardashian robbery in Paris. It is psychologically very damaging.”

The high-net worth individual echoes the point. “It’s a slippery slope,” he says. “When people start losing confidence in a city — when they can’t wear things they value — that’s when a city loses its soul.”