Thief Saunters Out With $50 Million In Jewel Heist

In a jewel heist worthy of Hollywood, a single thief walked into the high-end Carlton hotel along the French Riviera Sunday morning...and walked out with $50 million worth of jewels.

Details of exactly how the heist occurred are thin (we're imagining Tom Cruise, high-kicks, and maybe a musical number) but it's reported that the hotel was housing jewels from the Leviev diamond house as part of a temporary exhibition. The thief walked into the exhibit on Sunday morning with a gun and a bandanna covering his face, and got away with his glittering haul in minutes.

The Carlton InterContinental Hotel in Cannes is frequented by the wealthy, and is self-described on its website as "a genuine legend." Ironically, the famed 1955 film To Catch A Thief , about a jewel robber hunting for loot along the French Riviera, was set in the Carlton.

Cannes is swiftly becoming notorious for jewel robberies: In May, several million dollars' worth of diamonds was stolen in two separate heists. The French Riviera is notorious for its high-end clientele, which makes it a juicy target for thieves.

Investigators aren't sure if it's a coincidence that a member of the infamous "Pink Panther" jewel-thieving tribe has just escaped from a Switzerland prison. The Pink Panthers, a loosely interconnected organization with hundreds of members, have stolen around $400 million dollars' worth of jewels in less than 15 years. (Said thief broke out by jumping into a vehicle that rammed through a gate in the exercise area. Somewhere out there, a screenwriter is desperately trying to scribble all this down for a 2015 release.)