Jenson Button and Wife Gassed & Burgled

How odd. Gas introduced via an air conditioning vent ? So many reasons why this wouldn't have worked as planned ? Has this type of ' attack ' been used before ? Dangerous precedence if true.

£250,000 engagement ring !  You do have to question some peoples thoughts on the value of money.

Must be very difficult to pull off.

A spate of gas attacks on wealthy visitors to the French Riviera has been noted for at least 15 years, including a 2002 attack in Cannes on Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine.

The thieves are said to slip through balconies or open windows and direct the sedative into bedroom air-conditioning units.
The gangs wear masks to avoid succumbing to the gas before ransacking their victim’s home and stealing any valuable property.

Television presenters Trinny and Susannah were burgled after being drugged while they slept during a stay for the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2010, British woman Lisa Smyth reported that she and her son were drugged and robbed at the family home in Valbonne, southern France.

And in the same year Lucy Mclean and her husband Michael woke in their villa on the Cap D'Antibes to find £30,000 of their belongings had gone, including her engagement ring.

Targeted: Patrick Vieira, the former captain of Arsenal Football Club, was also the victim of a gassing burglary at his home near Cannes in 2006

Mrs Mclean, who was 35 at the time, believed the gangs had used nitrous oxide stolen from dentists.

French police have previously blamed the activity on Russian or Romanian gangs, who target the conspicuously wealthy.

Former Arsenal and Manchester City footballer Patrick Vieira was also the victim of a gassing burglary in 2006, shortly before the World Cup.

The ex-France international and his family were knocked unconscious when a gang pumped gas through the air conditioning system of their home near Cannes.

When Vieira, now 39, finally awoke he, his wife Cheryl and her daughter had splitting headaches.

The family then discovered jewellery and other valuables worth thousands of pounds were missing - along with Vieira's £40,000 Mercedes, which the gang used as a getaway car.

'model wife' makes it sound like Button built her with superglue and balsa wood

Moscow theatre hostage crisis 2002

After a two-and-a-half day siege and the execution of two female hostages, Spetsnaz operators from Federal Security Service (FSB) Alpha and Vega Groups, supported by a Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) SOBR unit, pumped an undisclosed chemical agent into the building's ventilation system and raided it.

All 40 of the attackers were killed, with no casualties among Spetsnaz; about 130 hostages died, including nine foreigners, due to adverse reactions to the gas,
All but two of the hostages who died during the siege were killed by the toxic substance pumped into the theater to subdue the militants.
The use of the gas was widely condemned as heavy-handed, but the American and British governments deemed Russia's actions justifiable.
Physicians in Moscow condemned the refusal to disclose the identity of the gas that prevented them from saving more lives.
Some reports said the drug naloxone was successfully used to save some hostages.

Gassed in their beds by Riviera robbers:
Terrifying ordeal of the British tourists falling victim to Mediterranean gang crime wave;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1302917/Gassed-beds-Riviera-robbers-Terrifying-ordeal-British-tourists-falling-victim-Mediterranean-gang-crimewave.html


http://travel.aol.co.uk/2014/07/10/british-tourists-gassed-robbed-camper-van-france-holiday/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11068184/New-spate-of-attacks-by-sleeping-gas-gang-caravanners-warned.html

I thoughts Brits were always totally phished the night before

the villains should have just sent Lewis Hamilton to see Button and his missus for a couple of hours
he could send a glass eye to sleep

I hope it was just gassed and burgled, shudder to think what could have happened to them under those circumstances.

'.........Rumours of burglars using gas have circulated in recent years. But Dr Liam Brennan, vice president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists, was highly sceptical of claims that anaesthetic gas could have been used in the raid. “We find it very difficult to understand how anaesthetic agents could be delivered in the concentrations required to produce that sort of effect,” he told Sky News.

Asked specifically about nitrous oxide, reportedly used in previous thefts, Dr Brennan said: “Nitrous oxide is an anaesthetic agent that we use, but it is a very weak anaesthetic agent and the concentrations required to render somebody unconscious are extremely high. It would simply not be possible to pump enough into to the environment of a house.”

He nitrous oxide was a “non-starter” because a 90% concentration of the gas would be required to inflict oxygen starvation on the victims. “It just would not be possible to get enough nitrous oxide to do that in a house or a room.”

He added that other gases used in anaesthetics, including ethers and chloroforms, would induce “coughing and spluttering” to anyone exposed to the doses required. “Even if they were in natural sleep, it would wake them and they would cough and splutter,” he said.

A source said to be close to the Button inquiry told French agency AFP that burglaries using gas were not known in the area. “The investigation is under way. We’re not ruling out any theory and we will test to see if any drugs were used,” said the anonymous source. “We have not seen this modus operandi in the region and it certainly is not a growing problem.”


St Tropez, in the south of France, is a popular destination for the rich and famous. It is not the first time gas has been mentioned in association with burglaries there, or elsewhere. In 2006, footballer Patrick Vieira, his wife and daughter were victims of a raid on their family home near Cannes. The family had complained of feeling unwell after the burglary and it was later confirmed that gas had been pumped into the air-conditioning system of their house to ensure that they slept while jewellery was stolen.

In 2011, the Guardian reported that police in the billionaires’ retreat of Porto Cervo on Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda believed thieves used gas to sneak into the rented holiday villa of a Milanese pharmaceutical tycoon and steal cash and jewels worth £280,000.

At the villa next door, two holidaymakers awoke feeling “weak and dazed” to discover a watch and €15,000 cash missing. Similar robberies were said to have been reported that summer in France and Spain, and so-called “gassing gangs” were reported to be targeting caravans and camper vans in France.

Following reports of caravans and camper vans allegedly targeted by “gassing gangs” last year, the Royal College of Anaesthetists said it was “a myth”. It would not be possible to render someone unconscious by blowing either chloroform or any other currently used volatile anaesthetic agents into a motor home without its extremely pungent smell being noticed and of sufficient intensity to knock someone out. The smell also “hung around for days” and would be instantly noticed, it said.

“Even the more powerful modern volatile agents would need to be delivered in tanker loads of carrier gas by a large compressor. Potential agents, such as the one used by the Russians in the Moscow siege, are few in number and difficult to obtain. Moreover, these drugs would be too expensive for the average thief to use,” it said.......'

Could always be worse.
Could have been "glassed and buggered".

Very intelligent

If they weren't gassed, what happened....one of his associates did the burglary, maybe used some knock out drugs in the drinks?

The Leopard   
07 Aug 15 09:41 
Must be very difficult to pull off.

Maybe she only had skinny fingers?

I just wish they'd stolen more.