124 VANITY FAIR SEPTEMBER 2019
had been promising the West he was embark-
ing on a program of social liberalization.
Al-Hathloul would later resurface in a
Saudi prison. According to accounts provid-
ed by human rights organizations, she was
subjected to torture and sexual harassment.
And during her periodic visits with fam-
ily members, she identified one of the men
who was involved in her interrogation: Saud
al-Qahtani. The Saudi government, despite
multiple accounts to the contrary, denies it
has tortured its detainees. (Around the time
of al-Hathloul’s disappearance, her husband,
Fahad al-Butairi—one of the Arab world’s
most popular comedians—went missing in
Jordan. Repeated attempts to contact him
for his version of events were unsuccessful.)
Some of al-Hathloul’s fellow women
activists have been put on trial. Saudi pros-
ecutors have charged them with colluding
with “foreign agents”—human rights work-
ers, diplomats, the Western press, and Yahya
Assiri. Their alleged crimes: conspiring to
undermine the stability and security of the
kingdom. As evidence, the Saudis have been
purportedly using electronic communica-
tions seized through cyberattacks on dis-
sidents and activists, some of whom were
interviewed for this article.THE AFTERMATHThe perpetrators of these crimes may nev-
er be brought to justice. While several mem-
bers of the team that killed Jamal Khashoggi
have reportedly been brought before Saudi
judges, the proceedings have taken place
behind closed doors. Al-Qahtani has been
reprimanded: implicated in the Khashoggi
murder, the torture of women activists and
detainees at the Ritz-Carlton, the disap-
pearance of Saudi royals, and the planning
of cyber-assaults on dissidents. But despite
these charges, as yet unproven—and sanctions
placed on him by the U.S. Treasury Depart-
ment for his involvement in the Khashoggi
operation—al-Qahtani is still believed bysome Saudi experts to be a free man with
considerable influence behind the scenes.
For his part, Assiri, the Air Force officer
turned online dissident, has no regrets about
leaving his homeland. After moving to Lon-
don, Assiri—who had been in frequent touch
with Khashoggi in the last months of his life—
did the unthinkable. In 2013, he revealed him-
self online as Abu Fares. Lately, he has become
one of Saudi Arabia’s most respected and
influential human rights defenders, having
started a small organization called ALQST. He
maintains a network of activists and research-
ers inside the kingdom who secretly investi-
gate evidence of torture, human rights abuses,
and information about disappeared citizens.
Assiri’s fate, he admits, was sealed the day
he was confronted by his commanding offi-
cer. Had he not lied convincingly, he might be
languishing in a Saudi prison like his friend
Waleed Abu al-Khair, an activist he first met
in a chat room 13 years ago. Today, Waleed’s
picture hangs in Assiri’s office and serves as
a chilling token of the perils that come with
being one of Saudi Arabia’s hunted.about freely
and could have easily alerted authorities.
Djennad hadn’t been present for the first
burglary—but he had locked up the previ-
ous evening.
Djennad and his girlfriend had recently
spent splashy weekends in the French resort
town of Deauville, with him paying for every-
thing in cash. And his social media account
showed that he was friends with a shopkeep-
er who happened to be selling the exact same
model of the Max & Enjoy purse forgotten at
Harry Winston. That store was in Enghien-
les-Bains, which is where police went next.
The gambling town of Enghien-les-
Bains, 10 miles north of Paris, has a horse
track and the only casino in the greater Paris
region, “a shining lakeshore beacon offer-
ing France’s widest selection of games.”
Those with little means but big dreams
tend to congregate at a shady interzone bar-
tabac called La Divette, where Le Parisien is
often lying around.
La Divette sells cigars and sharp knives.
Most customers come here to use the video
lottery terminals or bet on horse races and
sporting events. “Don’t throw your ticket
scratchings or cigarette butts on the floor,”
instructs a messily handwritten sign on the
wall. The floor is, nevertheless, covered
in ticket stubs and scraps. A multicultural,
overwhelmingly male clientele drinks beer
or brandy, even early in the morning. Behind
the bar, a garishly made-up waitress in leath-
er pants chews gum with open disdain.
It was in this den of gamblers, police soon
discovered, that the Harry Winston capers
were devised. In the lead-up to the first rob-
bery, Djennad went regularly to a nearby
gym in Enghien. He’d brag in the locker
room about his job working among models
and celebrities—and about security lapses
he’d noticed. A friend named Patrick Chini-
ah listened intently and reacted unexpect-
edly. His sister was married to a gangster, he
said, someone capable of pulling off the job.
Djennad thought he was kidding, trying
to make himself seem important. “Patrick
worked in construction, he didn’t fit the
bill,” Djennad said. “When he brought it
up again, I didn’t pay any attention.” Then,
in September 2007, Patrick took him to La
Divette to meet his 43-year-old brother-in-
law Douadi Yahiaoui, known as Doudou,
meaning “stuffed toy” or “safety blanket.”
A broad-shouldered boilermaker, Dou-
dou had spent 16 years in jail for drug traf-
ficking and robbery, among other offenses,
during which time he’d befriended Farid
Allou. Doudou was mentally sharp, but his
lust for plunder went so far that officials con-
sidered him someone for whom imprison-
ment had lost any rehabilitating potential.Doudou drove a Jaguar and owned several
run-down hotel bars in the seedier reaches
of Noisy-le-Sec, the suburb that Allou had
been coming from when he was arrested
for running red lights. After the meeting at
La Divette, Doudou filled in his partner in
crime, telling him how easy it would be to
break into Harry Winston.
“That’s it?” Allou said. “Bakeries in the
banlieues have better security than that.”
Their inside man, Djennad, tried to
back out. “Don’t disappoint me,” Doudou
warned him, adding that he could send
guys around to speak sense into him. In talks
peppered with argot, Doudou went on about
their shared Algerian heritage, about their
parents who had slaved away for nothing.
They solidified the plan over whiskey
and cigars in Doudou’s living room, testified
Djennad, who felt as if he’d found an older
brother. “He assured me that it would be an
easy hit, without violence, that the jewelry
would be reimbursed by their insurance
company,” Djennad recalled. “After a few
glasses, I let my guard down completely.”“The 222nd call we got was convinc-
ing enough to be the second one we took
seriously,” said Shaw, explaining how the
reward dangled after the December rob-
bery soon yielded another lead. “The caller
claimed to know the criminals and where
they were. And they were from the banli-
eues, from Le Parisien’s readership circle.”
The informant provided the names Farid
Allou and Doudou Yahiaoui. Their phones
were immediately wiretapped, with micro-
phones covertly placed inside Doudou’sParis Heist
Saudi Disappeared