PARIS (Reuters) - Italian police have arrested a member of the "Pink Panthers" international gang of suspected jewel thieves, Interpol said Friday.
The Pink Panthers have been blamed for a string of audacious heists around the world over the last 10 years, and Interpol estimates their robberies have netted goods worth more than 250 million euros ($317.6 million).
Interpol, based in the French city of Lyon, said in a statement that 39-year old Radovan Jelusic, a Montenegrin national, had been arrested in Rome and was in possession of a forged Croatian passport at the time.
Jelusic is suspected of involvement in the 2007 armed robbery of a jewelry store in Tokyo, and his arrest comes less two weeks after two other Pink Panther members were arrested in Montenegro, Interpol added.
Interpol says there may be up to 200 Pink Panther members, many of whom are Serbian nationals with military experience.
The gang was given its nickname by British police after their first heist in London's exclusive Mayfair district in 2003. The names refers to the world's largest diamond which a debonair gentleman robber attempts to steal in the 1963 film "The Pink Panther."
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Jon Boyle)
