Would you dare to wear a Rolex?

00:00 04:30

Max Jeffery has narrated this article for you to listen to.

‘London has become a jungle, right? Anyone with anything nice risks having it taken.’ Bobby, the manager of one of Hatton Garden’s watch shops, does business in a windowless room as far from the street as possible, watched over by a thickset guard and a couple security cameras. ‘I’m a paranoid person,’ he says, and he’s right to be. While the level of general theft in London is going down, more and more luxury watches are stolen every year – tens of millions of pounds’ worth.

There’s no sophistication to stealing a watch. Gangs smash into shops with machetes or rip them from wearers’ wrists. Last week, Oliver White, a watch broker in south-west London, had £3 million worth of watches stolen. Two men convinced him to show them some of the shop’s stock, before one got him in a chokehold as the other filled a backpack. The pair escaped and Oliver killed himself a day later.

Bobby is understandably jumpy. The customers who do business with him – often rappers and footballers – are led to the hidden room to do deals. Bobby has more than 100 watches for sale, including a diamond-encrusted and solid gold Audemars Piguet (price on application) and a rose-gold Rolex Daytona with a rainbow ring of gems set in the bezel (£45,000).

It’s obvious why muggers and burglars have turned their attention to watches. They only need to know a few models to make a lot of money. A Rolex GMT has, for instance, a fat metal case and a bezel in one of two colourways: red and blue or blue and black. A Richard Mille (around £200,000 new) has a big hexagonal watch-face and doesn’t have a dial.