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Tamara Ecclestone has offered a reward of up to £6m for information that might lead to the recovery of her “most precious” belongings, which were stolen in Britain’s biggest ever burglary.
On Sunday (24 July), the daughter of ex-Formula 1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone wrote on Instagram that she was “going Mel Gibson style from the movie Ransom” in an attempt to get some of her items back, having “waited long enough” to do so by conventional means.
The 38-year-old was on holiday in Lapland with her husband, art gallery owner Jay Rutland, their daughter and their dog, when their Palace Green home was raided on 13 December, 2019. During a trial last year, Ecclestone testified that she was left “scared” and “obsessing over security” after her Kensington mansion was ransacked of £25m worth of cash, jewellery and gems.
While three men – Italian nationals Jugoslav Jovanovic, Alessandro Maltese and Alessandro Donati – were jailed in November 2021, Ms Ecclestone said none of her family’s stolen possessions other than a single pair of earrings worth £6,000 have been recovered.
On Sunday (24 July), she said the episode “still traumatises my family and I to this day”.
Posting on her Instagram Stories, Ecclestone continued: “The thought of those disgusting people, rummaging through every room in my house, invading my home, touching my belongings and stealing some of the things most precious to me, means I will never be able to lay my head to rest in that house again with the same sense of security that I once had.”
She also told her followers that her daughter “still asks if the burglars are coming back and won’t sleep alone”.
Ecclestone said: “Whilst I have accepted that I will never likely see my stolen belongings again, I will happily put up a reward of 25 per cent of the value of anything that the police are able to recover resulting from information provided by a source.”
According to Ecclestone, the prize for information could amount to up to £6m “for anyone that can help me get back what is rightfully mine”.
She said she was also offering a £250,000 reward to anyone who can “deliver Daniel Vukovic to the police in London”.
Vukovic, believed to be a Serbian national, was named in court as a suspected fourth member of the gang. During the 2021 trial, the Isleworth Crown Court heard he had fled to the Serbian capital Belgrade and remains there, after the UK failed to extradite him to face trial.
She added: “This man thinks he can ride off into the sunset with all the spoils from robbing my family and I. Not so fast…”
The Metropolitan Police said their enquiries are continuing and that detectives from their specialist crime department are seeking this man.
Police said the gang responsible is believed to have carried out similar crimes against high-profile victims across Europe and had planned to commit further raids on the rich and famous in the UK.
Victims of the other raids included former Chelsea FC midfielder Frank Lampard and his television presenter wife Christine, and the late Leicester City FC owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.
Ms Ecclestone’s reward offer follows a BBC documentary which aired in recent days entitled Who Stole Tamara Ecclestone’s Diamonds?
Read The Independent’s full review of the documentary here.