A brazen daytime jewelry theft victim is lucky to be alive after violent robbers made off with his $500,000 Richard Mille watch.
Jewelry dealer Shay Belhassen was meeting with a client at the high-end Beverly Hills restaurant Il Pastaio on Thursday afternoon. During the lunch, three armed men grabbed him from behind and swiped the half-a-million-dollar watch.
“One of them was choking me from the back with a gun to my head, while the other one was grabbing my arm, and the third one was yanking the watch off my hand,” Belhassen explained to The Post in a phone interview. The timepiece that the robbers made off with was an RM 11-03 rose gold Flyback Chronograph.
Belhassen says he “took a chance and grabbed the gun” before wrestling the thieves to the ground. He says that while the robbers were trying to pull the trigger, four shots were fired. One of them hit a woman seated at a nearby table in the restaurant with her boyfriend. However, Belhassen was not shot, but he did sustain bruising from the fight.
He says that he believes one of the thieves was shot during the struggle on the ground because eyewitnesses reportedly saw one of the men holding their stomachs as they ran from the scene.
Belhassen is offering a $50,000 reward for the return of the rare watch.
Beverly Hills police believe Belhassen was targeted for the timepiece, though the investigation is ongoing.
