Conmen posing as Drogba's friends haul ufffd70k worth of jewellery

A lawsuit has revealed that thieves who posed as friends of Didier Drogba stole 70,000 pounds of ornaments from a jewellery store.

According to the lawsuit filed in Southwark Crown Court, the director of Paris jeweller Mathon was so convinced by the conmen that he got on to the high speed railway service Eurostar to hand over 13 items of jewellery worth 38,500 pounds.

Part of the haul was given to a stripper, after the dealers were tricked into handing over valuables before the cheques had cleared.

A diamond encrusted watch, three bracelets and a necklace worth a total of 29,100 pounds were given as gifts to woo the north London dancer.

Prosecutor Samantha Cohen said that in August of last year, a person had telephoned a German jewellery company called Bunz, saying that they were representatives of Drogba.

Four items were dispatched on the strength of a fax purporting to come from Barclays Bank to an address in south east London, care of someone called Strilling Moss.

It turned out that the fax was a fake and the items had disappeared by then.

Since the first Drogba scam had worked so well, the thieves decided to give it another go on October 22 at Mathon in Paris.

The conmen said that the football star want them urgently, so the director of Mathon in Paris got on the Eurostar and went to St Pancras to hand over the items.

u00a0The person who met him accepted the items and handed over a cheque, but it turned out to be fake again.

Police tracked down the stripper and her husband who got caught trying to sell one of the watches