Queen Panther, head of the world’s biggest diamond heists, tells all
How does an elite athlete from a respectable background wind up an international jewel thief? Former Pink Panther Olivera Cikovic breaks her silence and talks to Rebecca Banovic
One warm Mediterranean night, three men and a woman pulled up alongside a jewellers. The plan was simple: break in, grab what they could, and escape. A snatch and grab robbery, they’d be gone in under a minute. No one expected such a robbery on Crete – an island of just 600,000 people. Once it was done, the robbers would simply vanish among thousands of tourists.
Leading the thieves that night was Olivera Cirkovic, an elite athlete and former professional basketball player. Her robbery went off without a hitch. But it only took a farcical mistake to turn this unexpected criminal mastermind into a prisoner.
“A routine traffic stop later that night led to my arrest and conviction,” says Olivera, recalling the arrest. “My accomplice forgot the cutting equipment he’d left in the boot,” she added, rolling her eyes.
Following her arrest, the police tied Olivera to a string of other robberies and heists in neighbouring Greece. She was thrown in a Cretan prison, then transferred to a women’s prison in Athens. So, how does an elite athlete from a respectable background wind up commanding international jewellery heists? Particularly a woman, in what is considered a “man’s world”?
“Ask me whatever you want. Nothing is off limits … Apart from crimes I haven’t been officially convicted of,” she adds with a wink.
This is the first time Olivera Cirkovic aka Queen Panther – Pink Panther organiser and mastermind – has spoken to western media. Named so by Interpol, the Pink Panthers are suspected of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of jewellery theft. Law enforcement believes they have been active in Greece, France, Britain, Switzerland, Japan, and the UAE to name just a few. Few women before her have committed anything resembling the heists of the Panthers.
“Many have their fantasies about the Pink Panthers. However, I responsibly claim that I am the only woman who can legitimately talk about this topic,” she asserts.
The Panthers all hail from the former Yugoslavia: Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia. The ethnic divides that ravaged the region are put aside by the Panthers. “There is a lot of misconception as to how we {the Pink Panthers} are organised. We aren’t one huge hierarchical group, but rather we are made up of smaller groups that really work together,” she says. They do not operate as a monolithic organisation, but as vaguely connected cells, each with an area of operation.
An elite basketball player that had an idyllic childhood, Olivera Cirkovic was a formidable star in the former Yugoslavia. She played for top clubs in Serbia, Bosnia, Slovenia, and Greece, where she played for six years. Olivera became involved in the world of organised crime in 1995 after meeting her now ex-husband, also a Panther.
“I found him interesting. I viewed him as a Robin Hood-esque character,” she says.
It was through him that Olivera met other people involved in organised crime. She began by reselling designer clothes stolen by the Panthers. “I made a decent amount of money in sports, but crime infected me. It’s the fastest way to make a fortune. I realised I could earn an entire annual basketball contract in one day.”
I had an intuitive sense when recruiting. For instance, I knew this young man would be best suited to driving a car at high speed for getaways, this one could prise open doors and cut bars
She soon developed a certain camaraderie with her suppliers. “After a while, I stopped seeing them as criminals and instead viewed them as friends.”
Olivera was introduced to one of the many strict honour rules of the group. Nothing may be stolen from any of the members’ home countries. With glamour, class, charisma, and the connections of an elite basketballer, Olivera’s business boomed. “I even had politicians, doctors and famous people coming to my makeshift showroom to buy the stolen goods,” she recounts with animation.
Her Serbian homeland was the perfect place to develop her new career. After the break up of the former Yugoslavia, the country was a criminal’s paradise where moral constraints vanished, as did law enforcement. Organised crime was allowed to thrive and flourish – especially by those in power. With her new clientele established, Olivera gradually moved into gold and jewellery. Before long, she found herself organising the heists at the supply end.
Her Panther “cell” focused on Greece. She had been an athlete there for six years, so could speak the language. As a glamorous and flamboyant woman, she was able to stake out shops to target without raising suspicions.
The Panthers’ heists were planned with a mathematical and military precision. Olivera would compose sketches of the target store, the goods inside, and the surrounding roads, as truly – though perhaps not quite as artistically – as an architect would. A shop would be assessed for weeks to determine if the target was right for them. It was also up to Olivera to recruit and vet crew members. For the boots on the ground, the ideal was a fit young man, with good technical skills and ideally without a criminal record.
“I had an intuitive sense when recruiting. For instance, I knew this young man would be best suited to driving a car at high speed for getaways, this one could prise open doors and cut bars and this one could deactivate alarms.”
Smooth teamwork and group cohesion was always necessary.
“I am an athlete after all, so I disciplined my team, and imposed a sports-like mentality in all of them,” she insisted. It was a description that kept emerging: the Panthers are like a football team. Cultural and personal differences are laid aside for the good of the team, the team is divided into sections, with each member supporting its section, each section supporting the whole.
And what of her conscious in her criminal life? Olivera insists she and her teams always operated within a well-defined code of honour while carrying out a heist.
This ‘noble thief’ line is one the Pink Panthers like to promote, and until last year no one had been seriously injured in a Pink Panther robbery
“I am not justifying myself, but within the heists, I still imposed a moral code of conduct: preferably at night when no staff are present, loot without weapons where possible, use minimal force, no hurting people and no stealing from the poor – exclusively designer and jewellery stores, which had the insurance to protect them.”
I press her on the use of weapons, even if “minimal”.
“There was no violence in the actions I planned. If there was, it was very little. If we did use weapons, they were fake. We always anticipated arrest and we knew a fake weapon would reduce our sentences,” Olivera insists.
She made sure to avoid recruiting violent thugs, instead treasuring the engineering skills needed for proficient breaking and entering – once even having an electrical engineering student as part of her team. This “noble thief” line is one the Pink Panthers like to promote. She admittedly has a point: until last year no one had been seriously injured in a Pink Panther robbery.
She proceeds to recount another night-time heist, where she and her team stole what they thought were silk carpets. Turns out they were the wrong sort of carpets. So the carpets were quietly returned to the shop the following night. And what about prison life? Olivera recalls, without nostalgia, her time in a Greek prison. “When my son saw it for the first time he called it Alcatraz.”
The plan was to knock out whoever opened the door. Enough so they did not scream, but not so they were seriously hurt
Olivera recounted many wild prison anecdotes during the course of the interview: one alleging she shared a cell with a woman who killed her husband and his mistress; subsequently serving them in a pie to his parents. The husband murderer was a cell bully Olivera often fought. Inmates who had committed particularly heinous crimes, such as the husband murderer, were held in contempt by other prisoners.
Among the wild anecdotes, her message was clear: prison inmates develop very comprehensive systems of informal rules and hierarchical order that the formal prison system could not provide or maintain.
While imprisoned, Olivera discovered a talent for drawing and painting. This caught the attention of her fellow inmates, which caught the attention of the wardens, which caught the attention of the entire prison – including senior guards and commanders.
“I like being busy. Drawing and painting allowed me to unleash the sorrows of everyday prison life. It was the only thing that could save and help me.”
The wardens began providing Olivera with art supplies to paint and decorate the cold, grey dreary prison walls. “I just wanted to make the gloom go away.”
She painted rivers with blue skies, mountain landscapes, even Disney characters; a world far from prison. Enjoying her work, inmates began requesting to be placed in the painted cells. Consequently, prison wardens became sympathetic towards her as the paintings brought the prison rare positive publicity. Local media were coming in to film Olivera decorating the walls.
“I even painted the prison director’s office,” she laughs. “They asked me to.”
Olivera’s artistic talents earned her a degree of freedom to move around the prison, paint, and have art supplies brought in. “The prison staff got used to me walking around quite freely. I was painting the halls near the main doors, freedom on the other side. The wardens began losing that sense I was a prisoner.
“Using the prison phone, I called my friend (a fellow Panther) to pretend to deliver oil paints. I explained the situation, layout and how a guard would accompany me to the main doors to pick up the art supplies.”
The plan was laid meticulously. Fortunately for Olivera, the prison either wasn’t monitoring the calls, or couldn’t understand Serbian.
On the day of the operation, two colleagues arrived at the prison on two motorcycles. “The plan was to knock out whoever opened the door. Enough so they did not scream, but not so they were seriously hurt.”
On the day of the escape, Olivera’s friend, quite simply, walked up to the main doors of the prison and rang the bell.
“Yasas! (Hello in Greek)” the guard said, upon answering the door. With Olivera standing behind the guard, she nodded at her friend – a signal to go ahead. With one swift punch, the guard was out like a light.
“{My accomplice} didn’t want to do it, he kept saying how guilty he felt afterwards. But he had to in order to get me get out.”
Olivera and her friend walked coolly towards the waiting motorbikes. “None of the police officers outside batted an eyelid because my friend and I walked so slowly and calmly to the motorbikes. They assumed we were civilians, because there are a lot of civilians that come in and out.”
And just like that, on the back of her friend’s motorbike, she was gone; the first woman to escape a Greek prison. "When I got to the safe house, I saw the breaking news that I had escaped. It was surreal to see my face all over the news,” she recalls.
Her escape from Korydallos unleashed a media frenzy across Greece, with the Justice Minister having to appear on television. In the prison, her escape led to celebrations. “I had support from the other prisoners because it gave them hope that they too could escape, apparently they were waving their uniforms in the air.”
In the days following the prison break, Olivera escaped on foot to Serbia via the mountains of Macedonia. “There was young a Macedonian man waiting for me a few kilometres from the Macedonia-Greek border. He was a trusted friend and local villager from the border zone. He knew all the illegal turns. He had found an illegal path for me to Serbia,” she says.
The terrain was of course going to be tricky. “I felt more like a mountaineer than a felon,” she laughs. “Because of my previous sporting injuries, I bandaged my wrists and ankles prior to setting out. Who could believe that after bandaging my wrists before championships, I would do the same many years later as a fugitive?”
It was over 250km to Serbia – mountains all the way. She had a scout map, some money, and pre-arranged meetings with contacts to charge her phone and to take additional supplies. The home border was still going to be tricky. But as the days went by, and edging closer to Serbia, an unlikely accomplice in the form of a Macedonian cabbie helped her overcome this final obstacle.
He, quite simply, drove her along unofficial roads and into Serbia where another friend was waiting. Once in Serbia, she would not be deported. Serbia does not have an extradition agreement with Greece.
“Nothing mattered to me anymore. I overcame the obstacles.”
Finally in Serbia and after years of separation, she was reunited with her son, Nikolas, now 24. I noticed earlier on in our interview, whenever she would mention him her voice would waver and she would divert. He is clearly a sore spot. Did she feel guilty? After all, he was just a kid that had both parents in prison.
She turns to look at him and paused. “My son learned to live with two incompatible worlds: one that respects social norms, and the other, a socially unacceptable world.”
People need to be careful how they interpret the memoir. I need to make it clear I do not want to be a role model for anyone; in fact the opposite. I want my memoir to serve as anti-crime
“He has learnt never to judge or condemn anyone. During the many years we spent in prison, he learned never to ask his friends about their parents and their professions, in case the question was returned.” She motions to move on with the questioning. During the course of the interviews, Nikolas was always present, quiet and gracious.
However, just a few months after her prison break, Olivera returned to Athens for another heist that was already planned. Her time in prison clouded her judgement. And instead of reflecting on her life of crime, she threw herself into it again. Greece was a poor choice, but it was really the only choice based on her language skills. She was pushing her luck and it finally ran out on 29 November 2012. Police raided Olivera’s rented safe house and found her with 30kg of gold.
“It was half past nine. And boom! The front door of my apartment just burst open and flew off the hinges. Special Forces officers stormed in. I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t move and stayed still. They searched the apartment and saw I was alone. That is when the show started. They started tearing up my curtains and furniture and picked up all the goods,” she recalls.
Was she scared? “No I just looked them straight in the face. They thought I was on drugs because I was so calm,” she tells me laughing. She was arrested and convicted with a prison sentence of 32 years; charged with 116 aggravated thefts and three armed robberies with the value of the looted goods worth more than $500 million. Back in prison again, she was deprived of her art supplies. So, instead, to replace the void painting left behind, she started reading and writing.
“I started to keep a diary of my time inside.” Later, her diary served as the first draft of her memoir, Me: Pink Panther.
“People need to be careful how they interpret the memoir. I need to make it clear I do not want to be a role model for anyone, in fact the opposite. I want my memoir to serve as anti-crime. I want to dissuade people from getting involved in the first place, it ruined my life. Do not become a criminal.”
In 2017, to the surprise of many, Olivera’s sentence was reduced by an astonishing 27 years on the basis of good behaviour and she was released. So, what next for Queen Panther? Her message is clear: walls and locks don’t cure; they inflame and strangle. “I want to fight for prison reform. No psychiatrist or academic can do that – only those that have been through the prison system can provide solutions.”
She continues to tell rather earnestly, how she felt radicalised in prison. The experience hardened her and the most likely way for an inmate to wage their radicalisation is after he or she has been released. Are these just honeyed words and ideas that won’t come to fruition?
“No,” she says, “I really want to go back and mentor in the place I was a prisoner and possibly work with NGOs.”
Does she feel a tickle in the back of her mind? Would she be tempted to return to the world of organised crime? "No,” she says bluntly. “I am done. It will just be a story for the grandchildren now. ‘That time grandma escaped from prison’.”