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A Mille Watch

From Rodeo Drive to the rape capital of the world.


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STOCKHOLM (Rixstep) — Is it truth or is it fiction? Who cares.

Today, Sweden's Big Sister media SVT reported on a strange robbery in downtown Stockholm.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/turist-ranades-klocka-vard-2-5-miljoner

A 'tourist' was robbed of a wristwatch valued at $250,000.

A couple from the US, on holiday in Stockholm, were asked by two strange men if they'd take a photo of them with their smartphone, and when they returned the phone, they were robbed of their watch.



This happened on Sunday at 4:30 PM. The couple had just completed a guided tour of the city and been dropped off at their hotel, the Grand on Blasieholmen.

'When the couple were to return the phone, one of the strangers grabbed the man's arm and ripped off the watch', says Daniel Horner of the Stockholm police. 'At the same time, the other stranger blocked the view for the wife so she couldn't see what was going on.'

'But how do you know the watch really exists?'

'Because he brought along both his purchase receipt and the accompanying certificate.'

Big Sister speculates...

'It's going to be difficult to sell that watch in Sweden! We'd suspect it will be sold abroad! We don't have very many watches like that in this country!'

'These watch robberies are on the rise too - 78 reported in 2018, and already 84 in 2019!'

'Exclusive watches are currency in the world of crime. It's easier to move a watch from country to country than it is to move an attaché full of money', says Horner.

How do the robbers find their victims?

'Oh well earlier on people were robbed when they were selling stuff. Now the criminals stalk victims on social media or in a pub or restaurant, and then attack them in their homes.'

A Watch Short

'The couple returned to the US a watch short', concluded Big Sister. 'The police have of course opened a preliminary investigation, but there's not much hope of recovering the watch or finding the robbers.'

Indeed. But several questions beg to be asked.

• How could someone who has a watch valued at a quarter million US dollars be so dumb as to boast about this on Facebook? And worse still: reveal so much about his identity that the perps could find him? And did they really state that they were going to Stockholm and where they were going to stay?

• And if he's cautious enough to bring along his purchase receipt and the certificate, is he really so dumb that he wears this watch in public in a city that today is notorious for its high crime rate?

• Or perhaps this watch was a gift from a relative who was smarter - by an order of magnitude?

• Or is this just another scam or one of Big Sister's infamous fake news shaggy dog stories?


There's a photo montage accompanying the flash from Big Sister. Seen above.

The photo is rather accurate. The hotel is Stockholm's finest. Henry Kissinger stays there when he's consulting with Carl Bildt about bombing some country with an ethnic minority. Clint Eastwood stays there. Members of staff at this site have stayed there. The bar has a nice front-row of the royal castle, and the food is pricey and good (but the atmosphere's too fartsy).

(Bruce Springsteen does not stay at the Grand - the Boss stays in the home of Tomas and Marie Ledin and they stay at the SAS Royal Viking hotel. Sorry. But Mick Jagger stays there!)



The super-spectacular Vinterträdgåden was used for scenes with Lee Marvin in the thriller Gorky Park.



The lift at the back of the hotel is good for a laugh - the Finnish ambassador once found himself without a dinner table and so had the kitchen set up his party of ten in there.

The story goes that they'd hit the 'floor up / floor down' buttons when they stood for the toasts. The barber used to be very good too - and they pay taxes there, so there's no risk your money ends up with the drug lords in the posh suburb of Danderyd, as the prime minister warned the nation last week.

https://www.grandhotel.se/en/conference-and-events/venues/vintertradgarden

The hotel is kiddie-corner from Kungsan, the famous location for #WeAreSTHLM where every summer preteen girls are sent by their parents to be raped by the 40-year-old unaccompanied children from Iraq Afghanistan. (It's kind of a thing in Sweden. A ritual. No worries.)

Bill Murray was busted for drink driving a golf cart nearby. At least one international tennis star stayed there and vowed afterward never to return. A$AP Rocky stayed there with his entourage.

Kungsan used to be the place to go for import and export of precious metals.

The hotel is also a bomb's throw away from the parliament (Riksdagen) where scientists recently found traces of anti-matter, a new type tentatively being called 'anti-intelligence'. ('That place is an intelligence black hole, you can feel it suck-suck-sucking at you as you approach, we're going to have to investigate that further', one of the visiting CERN scientists commented to Reuters in July.)

A Mille Watch

A Mille watch. For a quarter million, it's a steal. They also have a Rafael Nadal model. Pop over to their store on Rodeo Drive. You can still get one for a cool million.



Just make sure you hold onto the certificate and receipt if you're traveling to Sweden.

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