Met on Fabergé egg hunt after items worth £2m poached from Soho pub

Metropolitan Police officers are still trying to recover an unusual pickpocketing haul after a Fabergé egg and watch worth £2m were stolen at a pub in Soho in London.Enzo Conticello stole the treasures from Rosie Dawson, the director of premium brands at the Craft Irish Whiskey Company, in a West End pub in November 2024, alongside some more conventional loot contained in the handbag he swiped, including her laptop and credit cards. Met detectives arrested him in Belfast on 26 January.Conticello, also known as Hakim Boudjenoune, appeared at Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday where he admitted theft and three counts of fraud by false representation. He arrived in court wearing a grey prison tracksuit and did not enter a plea to a charge of concealing criminal property, including the egg and watch.Judge Griffith told him: “It must have been rather a surprise to you when you saw that egg. What you did with it, I don’t know at the moment, but I expect we’re going to find out.”A replica Fabergé egg from the James Bond film Octopussy at an auction in 2022. The eggs are known worldwide as symbols of opulence. Photograph: Niklas Halle’n/AFP/Getty ImagesConticello, who is of no fixed address and admitted to using the credit cards after stealing them, was remanded in custody and will next appear at Southwark Crown Court on 6 March when he is expected to be sentenced.Met police say they are still trying to recover the Fabergé egg and watch, which belong to the Craft Irish Whiskey Company.Fabergé eggs are considered symbols of opulence as high-value, collectible pieces of jewellery made by the House of Fabergé, a Russian company founded in 1842. It still manufactures modern versions of the 19th-century ornaments, such as the 2024 Malaika Egg, which features 4,312 white diamonds, 252 brown diamonds and 308 rubies. Some eggs have extravagant surprises inside.The first eggs, gemstone-encrusted versions of traditional Easter eggs, were created by Peter Carl Fabergé, the son of the company’s founder, Gustav. Peter Carl designed 50 imperial Easter eggs for Russia’s ruling Romanov dynasty between 1885 and 1916.The Craft Irish Whiskey Company collaborated with Fabergé in 2021 to create a seven-piece whiskey collection, which included a 30-year-old bottle of Irish whiskey, a bespoke Fabergé Celtic egg and an 18-carat rose gold watch. The company created the collection to celebrate the “seven wonders of Ireland”. The eggs are set with a pavé diamond Celtic knot, a symbol of Irish heritage, and have an uncut Zambian emerald inside.A 112-year-old “winter egg”, one of 43 surviving jewelled eggs made for the Russian royals before they were deposed by revolutionaries in 1917, sold at auction for a record-breaking £22.9m in December. The rare diamond-encrusted piece is made from finely carved rock crystal and features intricate engravings and more than 4,500 diamonds.