Them influencers are like low-hanging fruit.
They get the dopamine off showing off.
My dick gets hard when I fucking take that shit off them.
They so much want fame,
they just put themselves in danger.
In the world of influencers and celebrity,
followers are a currency,
and posting your wealth online has become part of the job.
But “Insta-bragging” doesn’t just attract brand partnerships
and followers.
It can attract something more sinister.
In recent years, break-ins and thefts at the homes of influencers,
football players, and celebrities
have made the headlines internationally.
Someone broke in my house!
I’ve already called the police. The police are already on their way.
Real Housewives
It was a terrifying night for a star of the hit show.
Alli is the latest in a long line of Premier League stars
whose homes have been targeted by criminals.
And sometimes, it can go horribly wrong.
Pop Smoke was shot and killed during a social media post
that appeared to show Pop Smoke and a friend
with what looks like stacks of money behind them.
Obviously, I must have put my arm up or something,
and he just slit my arm.
I’m speaking to the influencers and celebrities
that are getting robbed
and the criminals who are tracking them down.
Their Instagram will show me where they at
and show me what they’ve got
and show me when they’re out.
And that’s all I need.
[CRIMEWAVE]
[INFLUENCER THIEVES]
Just went to the Balenciaga show makeup free.
Kind of feels good.
In 2016, Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint at Paris Fashion Week.
In the lead-up to the event,
Kim was posting her lavish lifestyle on Snapchat and Instagram.
Getting ready,
about to walk out the door for the Givenchy show.
The robbers stole 7 million pounds’ worth of jewels,
including Kim’s 3.5 million pound engagement ring.
Believe it or not,
the heist was committed by a group of men aged 60 to 72.
The press dubbed them “the grandpa robbers.”
I’m in Paris to meet one of them.
So how did you prepare for the crime?
I went on the internet,
and it’s true, I saw her jewelry, I saw her ring,
I saw that she showed it everywhere,
and we knew this information through social media.
We knew that she was coming for Fashion Week,
so we went there to do some more reconnaissance
So we were sure. We were there from midnight.
This is it. Here it is.
Is this family and are these girls sharing too much?
Like, people now are wondering if that’s to blame
and how these guys knew that she was in their apartment,
probably alone.
So what happened on the night?
So here we got in. We got in through the little door
that was open on the inside.
As soon as we got in, we took control of the concierge.
We overpowered him. We tied him up.
But then we looked for the keys for the bedroom she stayed in.
I stayed downstairs, but my two colleagues went upstairs
with the concierge to go to Ms. Kardashian’s room.
Then they picked up the jewelry. They went downstairs.
Ms. Kardashian’s secretary called for help.
But she called 911 in the United States,
which scared us, which made them lose a lot of time.
And when we got out, there was a bunch of police outside
who didn’t know anything about the robbery.
Are these Kim Kardashian’s robbers?
It’s the first video showing the alleged thieves on bikes and on foot,
heading toward the boutique hotel in Paris
where the heist took place.
How did you get caught?
Because I left my DNA
when I overpowered the guard.
So I took his hands, I tied him up, and by doing so, I left my DNA.
As I already had a record,
it was very easy to trace me.
Did you know how big of a star she was?
So I honestly didn’t really know her.
I knew her husband, Kanye West,
but I didn’t know her.
But I saw one of her shows where she threw her diamond in the pool
in that episode of
I thought, “She’s got a lot of money. This lady doesn’t care at all.”
How do you feel about the incident now?
Do you feel guilty at all about what happened?
Since she was throwing money away,
I was there to collect it, and that was that.
Guilty? No, I don’t care.
I don’t care.
So do you not think that she was traumatized?
No doubt. Yes, of course.
You don’t come out of it unscathed.
We didn’t expect this. Of course, she must have been traumatized.
I don’t doubt it.
He grabbed me and pulled me towards him.
But I wasn’t wearing anything underneath,
so I was like, “OK, this is the time I’m going to get raped.”
You know, like,
“Just prepare yourself.”
So I did.
What would your advice be to celebrities and influencers
who are thinking of posting their belongings on Instagram?
They should be a little less showy towards people who can’t afford it.
For some people, it’s provocative.
The crime itself must have been absolutely traumatic for her,
and no one deserves to be put in that situation.
This was one of the first high-profile cases
of an influencer being targeted,
and it seems to have spurred on a lot of copycat crimes since.
And social media was fundamentally
the weapon that helped to pull this off.
If someone like Yunice, a man who’s almost 70 years old,
can figure out how to rob one of the most famous people in the world,
Kim Kardashian, by using Snapchat,
I don’t think any of us have any hope.
Despite their age, the grandpa robbers set a trend
and inspired criminals around the world
to turn to social media for opportunities.
Back in the UK,
I’m meeting a criminal who tracks his targets on Instagram
and robs them using a taser.
Hiya, are you OK?
So you started with robbing shops.
Did that change when social media came about?
First, man was just robbing little bits and bobs,
but you know, it’s like pot luck.
You could rob a man and he ain’t got nothing on him.
So all of that hassle,
you might get lockup for fuck all.
So man wanted an easier way to kind of know what people have got.
So when the social media lit, it was like fucking-- a gold mine.
They’re just that gassed up.
It must be the dopamine or something.
They say you get dopamine from when you get the likes and that.
When I heard that, I started cracking up.
I’m saying, “Yo, this is like a drug addiction.”
You get me? Man ain’t dumb, you know.
Man know about science and all of that.
They so much want fame, they just put themselves in danger.
People are trying to be up with the Kardashians and shit.
So can you give us an example
of someone you’re looking at at the moment?
Sometimes I go on girls’ pages, you know, the pretty girls and that.
I’d obviously get one of my fake accounts and follow them.
I find a few tasty blue ticks that I like
when I look at the pictures, you get me?
-Look. -She’s got a lot of diamonds on.
Obviously, they got money.
Is that a Rolex?
Yeah, that’s one. That’s a bad boy ting.
And you flick through their story,
and you see them flashing champagne at the parties, bottles.
You know they’ve got money they’ll be spending in the club.
How easy would it be to find the location of her house?
Well, from a car reg,
you can get the location of the house.
But same time,
if I go into their live pin, sometimes their address is in there.
God, I didn’t know that!
Yeah, check out your Instagram options.
-Shit. -Gives out location.
This is rich folks’ nightmare, man.
You follow them for a long time then?
Yeah, yeah. Sometimes it’s a couple of days, and you get a hit.
We’re, “Ah, they’re at that club that we know.”
Boom, fly down there, grab a quick watch.
But if it’s taking a bit longer,
we have to find out what club they’re at,
fling a tracker under their car.
Yeah, there’s plenty of ways to skin a cat, man.
If you do find someone in a club, how do you mug them?
Probably a taser or something.
Man, he get tased quickly in his car—zzz.
They got obviously disposable cash
where they’re fucking showing off like that, innit.
So you almost feel like the influencers deserve it then?
Yeah, rob from the rich and give back to us, man,
because we need it.
They’re asking for it, innit.
Understand in this life, we know from where we come from
not to be out there slipping and sliding, you get me?
So what would your advice be to an influencer
that wants to flaunt what they’ve got on their Instagram page?
I say, “Go get more Rolexes, man.
I like the Oyster one.”
I’ll send them a comment too.
I’ll say, “Yeah, that’s dope, man, fire, fire, fire.
Have you got the box?”
Shit.
It has made me think about what I post online.
Should I be conscious of stuff like reg plates,
and should I maybe not ever do a live?
Social media is the perfect surveillance tool for thieves,
and it’s being used across the globe.
A group of criminals who took social media robberies to new heights
were Milan’s “acrobat thieves,”
who use social media to track the city’s rich and famous
and scale their buildings to break in.
I’m in Milan to meet one of their victims,
Italian influencer Eleonora Incardona.
Oh, beautiful!
-You look really nice. -Thank you.
You have a lot of followers.
Yes, 500,000.
I have the blue flag on my profile.
Is that how you make all of your money?
I am an influencer,
but I have another business too, The Private Watch Club.
-You can look. -Nice.
Yeah, this is my favorite watch.
-Cheers! -Cheers!
Cheers, girls!
And get party started!
Sorry to bum the vibe out,
but can you tell me about what happened with the theft?
-I speak in Italian, OK? -Yes.
It was December.
I was with a friend.
She noticed the door was already open
and said, "Ele, thieves came in, thieves came in!”
Everything was upside down.
What did they take from your flat?
The total value, more or less, it was about 50,000 euros.
This is the story. This is my friend.
This is Oliver and me.
And as you can see, there is someone behind us.
And in fact, one of the thieves was following me.
Does that make you feel scared,
that he was behind you the whole time?
Yes. In that moment, I thought he was just someone passing by.
When this happened, I was at Tiffany,
and they were looking at what I was doing in that moment
to understand how much time they had to stay in and to commit the crime.
They called them the “acrobat thieves.”
They literally climbed over the balcony.
And this is your flat?
-Yes. -This flat.
This video, it became viral.
One climbs up, and the other one is looking out.
But there were three in total, right?
Yes.
I could not sleep for many days— insomnia.
As soon as I heard a noise, I would get up,
plus I had these people attacking me constantly
that did not understand that despite being Eleonora,
OK, with half a million followers,
but the majority was against me and told me I almost deserved it.
But I am a human being.
OK, we’re late. We should get ready.
Yeah, we are running late. Sorry to bring the mood down.
I’ll carry on with my champagne.
Ready for a party?
So we’re going to an influencer fashion party.
Not really sure what that is,
but I’ll be interested to see
how the robbery has changed what they post on social media...
or whether it’s changed it at all.
Regardless of the incident,
social media remained integral to the girls’ night.
Tir, we’re ready to go to the event.
Ciao!
Ready to go.
Whilst Eleonora was working the room,
I spoke to some other influencers at the event
to see if the news of the acrobat thieves
has changed how they behave online.
Maybe a brand say, “Hi, I would like to send you a gift.
Can you please give me your address?”
And if I want the gift or if I want to do a collaboration,
I need to trust that it is a collaboration
and not somebody that just wants to know where I live.
Sometimes we do the unboxing stuff.
My friends told me, “Ari, delete this
because you can clearly read where you live.”
I mean, that’s not safe! Anybody can see your stories.
You have to take a little attention, I guess.
There’s a lot of people
that say maybe that the influencers almost deserve it
because they’ve been flaunting their wealth online.
How much do you agree with that?
You know, it's your business.
If it’s your business to show you are in an expensive hotel,
if it’s your business to show you buy expensive clothes,
how the hell can you stop doing it
if you are making money from it, you know?
The influencers are clearly aware of the potential dangers
of posting online,
but what can they do?
For most of them, it’s their main source of income.
I have certainly changed the use of social media.
I never publish a story made at the moment.
That is, I’m here now,
and I’ve made some content that I’ll publish,
maybe in an hour, two hours when I leave
so that criminals can’t wait in front and maybe follow me.
What advice would you give to other influencers
having been through it yourself?
Definitely to be very careful,
use it with your head, with knowledge,
but don’t show anything personal.
It was quite harrowing to hear Eleonora’s story.
I mean, I don’t believe that any influencer—or anyone—
should have their whole flat ransacked
with all of their belongings in it.
She did say that she had learned from it, though.
I am kind of interested to see if she hasn't posted anything
because I saw her filming a lot throughout the night.
So let’s have a little look.
She posted two hours ago, 58 minutes ago, 48 minutes ago.
There’s a lot of stuff that was at the party, showing where she is.
I guess old habits die hard.
Eleonora was extremely lucky that she wasn’t in the flat
when the thieves targeted her.
But it isn’t just glamorous girls like Eleonora.
Anyone with a decent following
and a habit for flashing their cash is at risk.
Kez The Guru isn’t your typical influencer.
He’s involved in the murky world of forex trading.
Kez uses Instagram to promote his success,
but this enticed the wrong kind of attention.
Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Tir.
In his house, he has everything from machetes to guard dogs
and even a toy sword.
You’ve got a sword up there.
-Oh, I’ve got a knife there. -Oh, OK.
Dog, good alarm system,
machetes, knives.
Machetes?
So would you call yourself an influencer?
Well, yeah. I’d say you could give me that label.
I had a fairly big following.
I started doing quite well for myself, just posting it.
That was just me documenting my success and my achievements.
At the time, what sort of things were you posting?
2019, I was quite young.
Watches, clothes, holidays.
So I was into my fast cars, and that’s the car that I had.
Bright blue as well, that’s very inconspicuous.
Yeah, yeah, so I stand out, don’t I?
So tell me what happened.
I was in bed, and I heard, like, tapping.
I obviously thought the dogs have obviously escaped the bed
and they’ve gone upstairs.
I went up the stairs to them unprepared.
They’ve got machetes. They say, “Where’s your watches?
Where’s your drugs?”
I’m an influencer, do you know what I mean?
So obviously, they’ve been been chasing me round my house,
stab, stab, stab, stab, stab.
They were chasing you round your house, stabbing you?
Yeah. Yeah, just, like, asking for different stuff.
But he was just poking me, like.
One of them went into my little girl’s room.
The other guy, which I have a tiny bit of respect for him
because he went, “Nah, get out the room.”
Then he punched me.
It’s like something out of a film.
So I’m just, like, dodging it,
and then obviously I must have put my arm up or something,
and he just slit my arm.
See, that looks quite big.
Did you not lose a lot of blood from that?
Yeah, yeah, I lost quite a bit.
At the time, I don’t really remember much.
After that, I found the knife,
and that’s how he got caught.
A lot of reaction to these influencers getting robbed online
was that they almost deserved it
because they were flaunting their wealth online.
It does put you more at risk, I believe. Of course it does.
But, you know,
it doesn’t give anybody the right to do anything.
Social media has allowed criminals
to achieve a brand-new level of sophistication.
And they have the convenient moral argument
that robbing influencers isn’t a shameful crime
because they are, in fact, asking for it.
Look at this. They left my charm.
But they stole my chain!
Of course, no one deserves to have their home ransacked.
No one deserves to be hurt, or worse.
In this new world, we all need to be more wary of what we post online,
especially if you’re a celebrity with a lot of diamonds.
They’re in a bubble, you get me?
And I love to burst that fucking bubble.
Thinking they’re untouchable.
Showing off bare Rolex and Cartiers and that.
Man just roll in on you,
give you a slap in the face, and take that off you.
Put that on your fucking live.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: THE FINANCIAL CONDUCT AUTHORITY]
[HAS ISSUED A WARNING THAT KEZ THE GURU MAY BE PROVIDING]
[FINANCIAL SERVICES OR PRODUCTS WITHOUT THEIR AUTHORIZATION.]