Was the £10m Primrose Hill jewelry heist blind luck or an inside job? Thief who raided socialite’s mansion entered by means of a ‘often locked window’, dodged ALL eight workers on obligation and ‘knew precisely the place to go’ in palatial five-floor residence

Did the cat burglar who stole more than £10 million worth of jewellery from a mansion in the London neighbourhood of Primrose Hill just get lucky – or was he acting on ‘inside information’?

It’s a question neighbours, and no doubt Scotland Yard, are now asking in the aftermath of the audacious daytime break-in on Avenue Road, known as Billionaires’ Row.

Socialite Shafira Huang and her property developer husband were out when the masked intruder entered the house through a second-floor window.

But at least eight members of staff, including maids, were on duty at the time. Somehow the thief managed to dodge them all, avoiding entering any occupied room, before escaping with the haul of gems and designer goods in just 19 minutes.

The Huang mansion has five floors and 13 bedrooms, which begs the question: did the perpetrator, who was captured on CCTV creeping though the palatial residence, know exactly where to look? Police, understandably in the circumstances, were unable to confirm or deny this line of inquiry.

The burglary, however, has been the source of speculation among residents. In a road lined with multi-million-pound properties – and once reputed to be the most expensive residential street in the country – one neighbour asked: ‘Why was this house targeted? I fear it could be an inside job.’

Csaba Virag, the couple’s chief of staff and spokesman, was present when the culprit, wearing a dark hoodie, cargo trousers and a baseball cap, struck just after 5pm on December 7. 

He said there was clear evidence of pre-planning – which he believed involved drone surveillance to ‘case’ the mansion – but nothing to suggest an employee was involved.

Staff voluntarily took lie detector tests, it transpires, conducted by a private security firm hired to investigate if the break-in could have been an ‘inside job’.

Time will tell. ‘I cannot disclose the full picture but there were a number of coincidences that were fortunate for the thief and unfortunate for the family,’ Mr Virag said. ‘So many things went in his favour.’

The first coincidence, or stroke of luck, he says, was the fact that the thief got in through a usually locked second-floor bathroom window at the back of the house, possibly using a ladder from a nearby property which was under renovation. 

The second was that the live-in governess was not in her quarters when he clambered into her bathroom because she was in a meeting with Mr Virag in the basement.

The third is revealed on the CCTV footage released by the family which shows the intruder striding across a landing barely seconds before a housekeeper emerged from a lift.

The fourth stroke of luck? The thief tried to leave through a rarely used guest room but he could not open the window from the inside and was forced to exit the same way as he came in, which meant there was a ‘high risk’ of him being seen. He wasn’t, but the suspect appeared to be carrying a cannister of noxious spray in case he was confronted. 

Did the intruder – a white man about 5ft 7in or 5ft 8in tall and in his late 20s to 30s – simply enjoy the luck of the devil or did he have inside intelligence? Both, of course, could be true.

Either way, a much fuller picture of the socialite – and her wealthy husband – at the centre of this still unfolding story can be revealed today.

Shafira Huang – also known as Sishuo Huang or Wan, the westernised version of her surname, which is easier to pronounce for non-Chinese speakers – is believed to be in her 30s and is married to international property developer Vincent Wan.

Even by the standards of this gilded corner of the capital – home at one time or another to celebrities such as Kate Moss, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow and her former husband, Coldplay’s Chris Martin – Mrs Huang leads an impossibly glamorous life.

Locals say she is chauffeured everywhere by a team of drivers in dark suits who regularly ‘come and go’ from the £38 million mansion, which is in her name.

She has become a familiar face at society functions and charity events. Nevertheless, the value of the missing jewellery is eye-watering. The £10.4 million haul included a Graff 10.73-carat diamond ring, two De Beers butterfly diamond rings and a Niloticus Lumiere necklace, along with Hermes handbags worth £150,000 alone and the price of a house in some parts of the country.

Mrs Huang describes herself as an ‘art collector’ and ‘style and art connoisseur’ on Instagram, where she has 13,000 followers, and is a ‘culture ambassador’ for the Halcyon Gallery on New Bond Street, which she promotes online. She recently publicised works by David Hockney, currently being showcased at Halcyon.

The headline on her profile, however, is more personal: ‘Loving & being loved as MRS WAN.’

The couple, who met abroad, both have strong connections to Hong Kong but now spend most of their time in London having purchased their Primrose Hill residence five years ago.

Vincent Wan, 44, is from the Caribbean Island of St Kitts and is ‘self-made’ from substantial investments in Hong Kong, Dubai, Europe and New Zealand, said chief of staff Mr Virag.

In 2015, his boss founded residential and commercial property development firm Wilshire Group in Auckland with his wife as co-director. Wilshire’s housing projects included 700 new homes in the city’s Mount Wellington suburb and a £10 million commercial redevelopment of a historic, eight-storey building in the city’s central business district.

Mrs Huang is no longer a director of Wilshire Group but Companies House documents in the UK reveal she was made a board member of four further property firms in 2019.

Behind those dry corporate documents, as you will already have guessed, is a life most people only read about in glossy magazines. A recent photograph of the couple on social media shows them sitting together on a private jet with designer luggage piled next to Mrs Huang.

Another picture, posted shortly after they landed, captures the snow-covered view from their accommodation, which suggests they might have been on a skiing holiday. Mrs Huang herself has attended Paris Fashion Week, posed on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival and has been pictured lounging on yachts when she is not travelling in private jets.

Often, she is in the company of the rich and powerful: next to Francois Curiel, the chairman of Christie’s in Europe, at an exhibition in Paris; with Philippe Delhotal, creative director of Hermes’ watch division, at another event; and Demna Gvasalia, the creative director of Balenciaga, after the Spanish luxury fashion house’s couture show in June.

Only a week ago, Mrs Huang posted a video of herself with Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, at a fine-dining event organised by a mutual friend.

‘During this festive season of joy and celebration, there is nothing more meaningful than sharing laughter and warmth with people who radiate positivity,’ she wrote.

‘My heartfelt gratitude goes to the darling Patricia [the mutual friend] for bringing close friends together with such an intimate and heart-warming Christmas gathering. The kindness and warmth of Duchess of York Sarah were profoundly comforting… and each lovely friend here definitely added to the beautiful spirit of unity.’

(Incidentally, neither Mrs Huang nor husband Vincent are believed to be related to Dara Huang, the former fiancée of Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, now married to Princess Beatrice, the eldest daughter of Sarah Ferguson.)

Shafira Huang is rarely seen in public without an array of almost priceless gems gracing her form.

‘Shafira is extremely glamorous,’ said someone who lives in the same road. ‘I never really spoke to her but knew of her. She showed off her wealth both on social media and in real life.’

Some of the stolen pieces, including a diamond-encrusted bracelet in the shape of her name and a glittering watch she wore during that meeting with Philippe Delhotal, had previously been posted on Instagram. She captioned the picture with the Hermes supremo: ‘I’m glad that my styling… has won Philippe Delhotal’s favour.’

Did flaunting her wealth online like this make her a target?

‘From a security point of view, it’s one of the worst things you can do,’ said Chris Marinello, founder of Art Recovery International. ‘Don’t say you are in Ibiza right now with all your watches or diamonds on display. Do it after you get back.

‘Insurance companies are starting to take notice because they are having to pay out vast sums to claimants who have advertised themselves to criminals. It’s like leaving the keys in your front door or leaving your Ferrari unlocked. It’s reaching the point where insurers might refuse to pay out.’

Since the burglary, Shafira Huang’s Instagram account has been switched to a private setting.

Football stars and their WAGs were warned ahead of Euro 2024 not to show off their jewellery online after a series of high-profile raids on the homes of Premier League players. England stars Jack Grealish and Raheem Sterling were among the victims.

But Csaba Virag believes the Huangs were targeted because of the neighbourhood they live in. There was a burglary at a property in the same street the day before, we have been told, and two weeks earlier a thief is said to have targeted another house in the vicinity.

Most of the haul from the Huang mansion was taken from a dressing island in one room on the first floor. CCTV images show a shadowy figure stuffing handfuls of jewellery into a backpack. They were custom-made and are easily identifiable, police said.

They would not say if they believed the valuables could already be out of the country and for sale on the international black market. The family has offered a reward of up to £500,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the thief and 10 per cent of the value of any recovered items. The Katherine Wang bangle bearing the owner’s first name also had sentimental significance, Mr Virag explained.

Although the actual burglary was carried out by a ‘lone wolf’, he said, the burglar would need a wider network to sell the jewellery. ‘I hope there is not a

single jewellery shop in the country that would touch them,’ Mr Virag added. ‘That is the aim of the publicity.’

The truth, though, is that stolen jewellery is often cut up and sold for the value of the stones.

But the most intriguing fact in all this is that it took just 19 minutes to steal £10.4 million worth of precious gems in a house with 13 bedrooms and eight people inside.

Additional reporting: Isaac Crowson