Paul Coulson<\/a>\u2019s townhouse in Knightsbridge was burgled repeatedly in the space of just four days in December last year, with thieves getting away with an estimated \u00a31.25 million (\u20ac1.45m) in cash, jewellery, designer clothes and luxury handbags. <\/p>\nOne of the culprits, Ali Lamnouar, walked away with an estimated \u00a3163,000 (\u20ac188,686) in valuables \u2013 only two years after having burgled the London home of George Iacobescu, the former chairman and chief executive of the Canary Wharf Group, the court heard.<\/p>\n
The 46-year-old, of Gatliff Road in Westminster, was sentenced to five years and two months\u2019 imprisonment at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday.<\/p>\n
His barrister Daniel Higgins told the judge Lamnouar\u2019s offences were opportunistic in nature, and that he gained entry to Coulson\u2019s \u00a38.7 million (\u20ac10.1m) townhouse through an \u201copen window\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe took the opportunity on each occasions and undertook the offence \u2013 there was no significant planning,\u201d Higgins said, adding Lamnouar left the scene of the crime \u201con foot\u201d.<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Roxanne Whittaker-Lewis told the court a housekeeper locked up the Coulson townhouse at around 6pm on December 5 2025. <\/p>\n
When she returned to the property at around 9.30am on December 8, she found a basement window open and the house ransacked. <\/p>\n
Two years prior on October 27 2023, Lamnouar broke into the home of George Iacobescu while he was in his basement watching TV.<\/p>\n
George felt a cold draught in the room and, upon going to the ground floor to investigate, found that \u201call the windows were open and there had been an untidy search and ransacking,\u201d judge Justin Cole, sentencing, told the court.<\/p>\n
Lamnouar stole four luxury watches valued between \u00a35,000 (\u20ac5,787) and \u00a312,000 (\u20ac13,889), as well as cash \u2013 but judge Cole said the exact total value of items stolen then had yet to be determined. <\/p>\n
Judge Cole told Lamnouar his criminal record \u2013 which includes 30 previous convictions for burglary, and a firearms offence for which he received an 11-year prison sentence in 2013 \u2013 was \u201cappalling\u201d, but gave him credit for his guilty pleas.<\/p>\n
Coulson is the founder of the Ardagh Group, a global packaging supplier, and is one of Ireland\u2019s wealthiest people with a fortune valued in 2021 at 2.8 billion dollars(\u20ac2.39bn).<\/p>\n
His house, which is close to the grounds of Buckingham Palace, was broken into repeatedly in December last year, with Lamnouar getting caught on CCTV twice entering the property on December 5 and leaving with large holdalls, a previous hearing was told. <\/p>\n
He was initially accused of being responsible for stealing all of the goods, valued at \u00a31.25 million(\u20ac1.45m), which went missing from Coulson\u2019s home.<\/p>\n
But prosecutors later said they could only be sure he stole possessions such as jewellery, designer handbags and clothes valued at \u00a3163,835 (\u20ac189,652) when they realised the home had been burgled a second time just days later.<\/p>\n
The court previously heard stolen goods were found at his home, including designer coats, dresses and jackets, as well as handbags by Prada, Chanel and YSL, including one valued at \u00a314,000 (\u20ac16,206), a \u00a34,500 Cartier love bracelet (\u20ac5,209), pearl earrings, a \u00a323,500 (\u20ac27,203) necklace, and a ring worth \u00a329,000(\u20ac33,569). \u2013 PA<\/p>\n
[\u00a0Paul Coulson: The high-wire financier who cut his teeth restructuring the Trinity BallOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of several burglars who ransacked an Irish billionaire\u2019s London home gained access to the property by climbing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,99,89646,112,1577],"class_list":["post-427292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-london","tag-paul-coulson","tag-sports","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}