I never am sure what kind of news from here gets heard around the world, and what doesn't. With the shootings at Virginia Tech last week, though, I'm pretty sure this gem got shuffled out of your news cycle.
So last Sunday night (a week and a half ago) thieves stole 50 million dirhams ($13.5 million) worth of diamonds out of a jewelery store in the Wafi City Mall.
During operating hours.
In under two minutes.
The best part? They literally drove their stolen cars into the mall all Blues Brothers-esque.
Because, as we all know, parking in Dubai is a real pain.
To the fear of Dubai citizens everywhere, and this was the biggest headline of them all, the crooks had guns. Seriously. That was the big news story. Guns just aren't that popular here in Dubai, so when people, especially bad guys, have them it's big ol' news.
Anyway, the cars were found burned some miles away, and other than that details are really sketchy. Oh, yeah, every day for the past week the headlines have been "Arrests Imminent". It's so sad, you just know that the police are sitting around scratching their heads, completely lost. "Arrests Imminent" my eye.
On Monday the Chief of police (who I picture a little like Chief Wiggum on the Simpsons) said that sixty armed plainclothes policemen have been deployed in shopping malls to thwart robbers. Talk about your overkill. Apparently these sixty officers have been training for eight months. Yeah right.
I guess it's just too bad they didn't train for seven and a half months. Then some poor store in Wafi would still have $14 million in diamonds left ...
Here are a pretty crummy twenty-seven seconds of the getaway:
