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Brexiteer Sir Jim Ratcliffe says he feels unsafe in London and has decided to stop flaunting his luxury watches as a result of a rise in crime.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, the billionaire Manchester United owner said the capital is “not safe” any more, and criticised authorities over the lack of prison space.
Ratcliffe backed the UK’s split with the European Union, but moved from Hampshire to Monaco in 2020 in a move that is estimated will save him £4 billion in tax.
He also announced that his automotive company, Ineos, will build its new Grenadier cars in France after previously promising to build them in Wales in 2020.
Speaking to the Times, Ratcliffe said: “I can’t wear a watch in London, and I just need to be a bit wary, a bit careful.”
He recounted a murder over a Rolex picked up on Ineos’s CCTV cameras at the group’s headquarters in Knightsbridge.
“He died in a pool of blood because somebody tried to take his Rolex and he resisted. About a year ago we had three guys in hoodies, with machetes, right outside the office, opposite Harrods.”
The Ineos CEO lamented police officers for failing to adequately deter criminals.
“We don’t have enough prison space. I mean, this didn’t just happen. We’ve been talking about the prisons being overcrowded for ten years.”
More than 6,800 watches were reported stolen last year, an increase from more than 6,000 in 2022. Since 2018, some 43,000 watches have been stolen in the capital through burglaries, robberies, and thefts.
The wealthy boroughs of Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea routinely rank among the highest for robberies.
Robbers often target people wearing Patek Phillipe and Rolexes, which sell for a high value on the second-hand market, by offering prospective victims drugs or access to sex workers outside night clubs before luring them to an alleyway to carry out a robbery.
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