On the day he checked in at Heathrow Airport, plainclothes officers followed him out of the terminal, where he sat down to have a cigarette. As Savastru sat, the detectives waited for him to unlock his mobile phone – this would allow them to read his search history, contacts and bank details. As soon as he did, they made their move and arrested him, successfully physically grabbing his unlocked phone. She was carrying a Louis Vuitton bag belonging to Jay Rutland and a Tag Heuer watch belonging to Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha. He later told a jury he was under the impression the items had been left to him as a gift. He had no idea they had been stolen. After hearing of her son’s arrest, Mester flew back to the UK the next day from Milan. She was promptly arrested at Stansted Airport wearing a set of earrings that resembled Tamara Ecclestone’s. It was not possible to be sure that they were the exact same earrings, but the designer who made them said that only three pairs were ever made and one was sold to Tamara. Mester’s Facebook photos showed her wearing a necklace similar to a rare necklace that Jay Rutland bought for his wife in Los Angeles. He told the court the jewelery was a gift and denied knowing it had been stolen. Savastru and Mester were charged and while in custody, police continued to learn more about the thieves’ time in London. The day after the raid on Mr Srivaddhanaprabha’s home, Jovanovic made a reservation for five people at a sushi restaurant near Harrods. The bill for the meal was £760. They were also photographed on a spending spree at Harrods. On December 17, four days after Ecclestone’s home was burgled, Savastru opened a Harrods Rewards account and spent £580 on Christian Dior cosmetics. His mother paid more than £1,000 for Louis Vuitton and Loro Piana menswear, £810 for Hermes products and £635 for designer shoes. Jovanovic and Vukovic were also pictured in Harrods – it turned out they had been turned away from buying £8,000 worth of goods because they only wanted to pay in cash. It also emerged that Savastru had used his bank card to pay for an Airbnb in Chelsea, which Jovanovic, Vukovic, Maltese and Donati stayed in for a few days after Ecclestone’s raid before fleeing the country. Savastru had also booked most of the flights in his Starling Bank account. In November 2020, Marcovici, Stan, Savastru and Mester went on trial at Isleworth Crown Court charged with conspiracy to commit burglary. Mester’s defense was that she was an international escort and met Vukovic as a customer in a bar in Milan years earlier. In December 2019, she says, he asked her to accompany him to London and paid her thousands of euros. Mester said she had no idea Vukovich or the men he was with were committing high-level burglaries. The jewelry found on her by police when she was arrested, she said, were gifts Vukovich had given her for her services and for her birthday. She denied knowing that the jewelry had been stolen. “For me Vukovic was like a golden goose like all the other generous customers,” he told the BBC. “I saw nothing wrong with that fool!” She also said Vukovic had given her money to spend while in London. After being acquitted, she said: “I am 100% innocent of these thefts.” She said the police never proved her or her son’s guilt. “They brought to court only what they wanted.” Savastru’s son told jurors during the trial that he had met two of the alleged burglars in December 2019 but had no knowledge of their alleged criminal dealings. He declined to be interviewed by the BBC. Stan told the court he was asked by a friend to help some Italians who were new to London and needed help with a car and move. He had met them for a coffee and they exchanged numbers. Later, on December 1, he received a call asking for his address. On the night the Lampards were burgled, Jovanovic and Vukovic had arrived at his home – although he insisted he did not know what they had done. One of them snapped and told Stan that they didn’t want their wives to see them fighting, so he gave them some clothes and booked them an Uber back to St Mary Cray. “Everything, all the evidence against me shows that I could not have been involved. I couldn’t,” Stan told the BBC. Marcovici, a childhood friend of Maria Mester, insisted he was an innocent man caught up in something he had no idea about. He had agreed to her request to drive Vukovich’s friends to west London. But he says he was told the men were going to a construction site to get some tools. He says he mistook a text she sent him in Italian telling him to bring a cutting or blow torch – cannello da taglio – with the Romanian agnello da taglio, or “lamb cut”, and that he had interpreted it as a reference to a barbecue. . He stopped leading the men into a dispute over pay. “I was charged with conspiracy to burglarize high profile people from the UK. People from high society. I’m innocent and so are the police [knew] I was innocent from the beginning.” None of the four were said to have been present inside the homes they burgled, but the prosecution’s case was that each allegedly helped the gang in some way. However, in January 2021 the four were found not guilty of conspiracy to commit burglary. But that wasn’t the end of the story. Out of the blue, Stan – who had lived in Harrow – contacted the BBC to share his story. He told reporters that he is now homeless and has lost everything. During the 2021 “Beast from the East” winter storms he had ended up staying inside Marcovici’s car. “I lost everything, my house, my job,” he said. “My whole life turned upside down.” Police took Mester and her son Savastru to court on other matters. Mester was convicted of refusing to let police access her phone, while Savastru was convicted on an unrelated charge of possessing counterfeit banknotes. And finally, the detectives were able to bring back three of the burglars who had fled abroad. Donati and Maltese were arrested in Milan and later extradited in autumn 2020. Jovanovic was arrested on the Italian coast of Santa Marinella – just outside Rome in October 2020. He fought hard against his extradition but was later extradited to the UK in April 2021. All three pleaded guilty to conspiracy to burglary and were jailed in November 2021 under heavy police escort from Belmarsh. Police in Italy told the BBC the gang lived in a northern Milan Roma encampment.
