Normally I don’t post news articles about Kim Kardashian. Because… let’s face it, who cares? But also let’s face it, this one is darned interesting:

Armed jewelry thieves target Kardashian West in Paris

The interesting bits:

1. Up to five assailants dressed as ops invaded the residence where Kim was staying.
2. They tied her up at gunpoint and made off with $10 *million* in jewelry (it’s not clear if it was all *her* jewelry)
3. They *apparently* didn’t rough her up or abuse her beyond tying her up, robbing her and presumably terrorizing her. While that’s all clearly bad enough, you’d generally tend to think that people of this low of a moral character, if they had a world-known “sex symbol” in their hands, they’d, ah, “take liberties.” And no indications are given that they did so (though that bit of info might be redacted for obvious reasons).

All this seems to indicate it was a pretty professional operation. Not just the scoring $10 million, which is admittedly a good haul, but the fact that they did the job without killing or raping anybody. This *tends* to indicate that they had a timetable and had the smarts and self control to keep to it. And they had the smarts to realize that robbing a celebrity is bad, but killing one would bring down the wrath of the entire French police system. “This is the ring that Kim Kardashian was wearing when she was murdered” might well drive up the black market value of the thing, but it would also substantially reduce the number of fences who’d be willing to touch it.

There is another little detail in the story worth mentioning: Kanye West, husband of Kim, was giving a performance of what some people believed to be music when this happened. He was informed of the event… and promptly ended the exhibition of organized noise-making, citing a “family emergency.” What followed is unknown, but presumably a phone conversation. This is surprisingly praiseworthy for someone as wrapped up in himself as Kanye West. If it turns out that he promptly hopped one of his jets and made his way to Kim at best speed… then good on him.

The AP article points out that Kim has a habit of flashing her bling on social media while also announcing her travel plans. Maaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyybe she might want to rethink that policy in the future.

The AP article also points of that, gee whiz, this sort of thing might not play so well for tourists contemplating heading to Paris. The article gives no descriptions of the robbers, but if they turn out to be “migrants…” well, that’ll be interesting. Personally I doubt that, though… as I said, this seemed like a professional job, and “professional” and “leave the helpless woman alive and intact” don’t seem like the MO of a band of such criminals.

ON THE OTHER HAND…

When I posted this earlier today I forgot, somehow, to add in a sufficiency of cynicism. A famous “sexy lady” gets dramatically robbed but not killed or otherwise misused. This does sound odd… especially given how publicity-hungry this particular person is. Was this a real robbery? Was it an insurance scam? Was this a way to just get her name in the press again? Probably unlikely, but it’s never unwise to consider all possibilities, especially when the possibilities include celebrities acting badly. The fact that she is already back in the US, having taken off out of France really fast, long before the French police could have captured the thieves, never mind done a line-up, is perhaps understandable. Who’d really want to stick around? But then, it’s also a bit odd. You’d think the French fuzz would have wanted to question her a while longer or some such.