Ocean’s Four: French Connection
A big month for French frivolity: the Louvre gets robbed, then four blokes rock up to Canberra with dreams of luxury. Both heists? Spectacularly, hilariously botched.
So here’s a story that just hit the Australian news yesterday, and honestly, I’m still processing it: four French nationals have been charged with allegedly stealing $10 million worth of luxury goods from a mansion in Canberra back in October this year.
I’ll give you a moment to process that sentence.
Canberra. Not Sydney’s glittering harbour suburbs. Not Melbourne’s leafy Toorak. Canberra - Australia’s purpose-built capital city, population 460,000, famous primarily for politicians, public servants, extensive infrastructure, and very orderly roundabouts. It’s where Australia parks its bureaucrats, where sensible sedan cars outnumber sports cars about a thousand to one, where people genuinely get excited about a new roundabout. Canberra, the most unflashy city in Australia, some call it dull or even boring. If you’d told me someone in Canberra even owned a Hermès bag, I’d have been mildly surprised. A $5.8 million watch? I’d have fallen off my chair and possibly died of shock.
But wait, it gets so much better.
These four gentlemen - Mohamed Sophian Omar Abdelkader, Mohamed Naimi, Antoni Raymond Christian Ch Voisin, and Ilyes Abdelkader - apparently flew from France specifically for this job. They landed on October 7th, hired a Mitsubishi Outlander (Australia’s most aggressively suburban family SUV, the automotive equivalent of khaki cargo shorts), and spent just over a week casing not one but two properties.
On October 12th, they allegedly hit a mansion in Vaucluse, one of Sydney’s ritziest harbourside suburbs, where the median house price makes your eyes water and the harbour views alone cost more than most people’s entire homes. Then on October 15th came the main event: the Canberra job, where they made off with more than 70 items, including Hermès handbags, Rolex watches, jewellery, and - wait for it - a single watch worth $5.8 million.
Detective Acting Inspector Mark Battye told the media: “I wasn’t aware we even had watches worth over $5 million.” ‘Mate’, none of us were! Who has a six-million-dollar watch lying around their Canberra home? What else is casually sitting in Australian suburbs that we don’t know about?
The whole thing has major “Pink Panther meets Kath & Kim“ energy (for the uninitiated, that’s Australia’s beloved suburban sitcom about an aspirational housing estate culture, think… if The Office was set in Melbourne’s outer suburbs). You’ve got professional European thieves allegedly conducting surveillance on multi-million dollar properties in a rented people mover before getting arrested while celebrating at a fast-food restaurant in Wentworthville four days after the Canberra heist.
Wentworthville. A working-class suburb in Sydney’s west that has probably never before featured in an international crime story.
Police tracked the Mitsubishi Outlander travelling in and out of Canberra multiple times before the alleged break-in. They arrested all four men on October 19th, then executed a search warrant at their short-term rental in Wentworthville the next day, recovering some of the loot, including multiple Hermès bags. Some items had already been shipped to France via Australia Post (because of course), but French authorities intercepted them.
The $5.8 million watch? Still missing. Police are still searching for it and other items.
What kills me is the audacity of it all. Who flies 17,000 kilometres to rob houses in Australia’s boring administrative capital? How did they even know about these properties? Did someone lose a bet back in France?
“Pierre, we’re doing the Canberra job.” “Putain, why not Monaco?”
The detective described it as something “akin to a movie” - professional approach, multiple steps to evade detection, millions of dollars in luxury goods. And yet somehow it ends with a Mitsubishi Outlander and Wentworthville.
The four men appeared in ACT Magistrates Court this week after suppression orders on their names were finally lifted (the orders were in place since October to protect the investigation). They’re charged with aggravated burglary and joint commission theft, and they’ll face court again in January.
Their lawyers haven’t commented publicly, probably because what do you even say? “Your Honour, my client simply has impeccable taste in timepieces and got confused about Australian shopping customs.”?
Meanwhile, I’m just sitting here wondering what else is quietly stashed away in Canberra homes. If someone’s casually keeping $10 million in handbags and watches around the house, what’s in the wine cellar? What’s in the garage? Is there a Monet in the laundry?
Australia, you absolute dark horse.
The delicious irony? Just four days after these French nationals allegedly robbed a Canberra mansion, thieves dressed as construction workers stole €88 million in French Crown Jewels from the Louvre in Paris. Four minutes. Broad daylight. Power tools and mopeds.
It’s like some kind of international heist exchange program gone spectacularly wrong. French criminals fly to Australia to steal luxury goods, then someone hits France’s most famous museum days later. October 2025: a big month for French frivolity, apparently. C’est la vie, or c’est le karma? You decide.
The moral of the story? If you’re going to fly halfway around the world to allegedly pull off an audacious heist, maybe spend more than eight days on reconnaissance. Definitely don’t try shipping luxury goods via Australia Post. And probably avoid celebrating your crimes anywhere near a suburb called Wentworthville...and in a fast food chain restaurant.
Bon courage, les gars. You’re going to need it.
Introducing Contributor, Judy MacMahon:
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I guess we will have to wait for inevitable film to know the why's and wherefore's Judy... hilarious though, thanks for sharing!
Really enjoyed your telling of these events. Well done Judy!