Petra Group Chairman Vinod Shekar Attacked & Robbed In UK, Thief Claims It’s Imitation Watch
Two suspects attacked Vinod and stole his Richard Mille watch.
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Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s close friend, billionaire Malaysian businessman, Datuk Dr Vinod Sekhar, 57, was attacked and robbed outside his daughter’s London apartment recently.
Sekhar and his wife, Winny Yeap, drove home after watching Hamilton at West End. He was about to step out his car when he was jumped by two men on e-bikes last Saturday night.
He said the men smothered him and hit him a few times on the chest and thighs. They tore his watch, a luxury Richard Mille watch, from his wrist during the altercation.
The Petra group chairman and chief executive officer said he tried to hold on but couldn’t due to his health and post-transplant medication.
He added his wife reacted like a ‘’lioness,’’ fearlessly shouting and hitting the thieves with her bag until they ran away on the electric Lime bikes.
Sekhar sustained bruises and minor bleeding, adding that the blood thinners made him appear worse.
He praised the London Metropoitan Police for arriving within minutes and for being efficient, calm, and kind.
An officer told him that he was lucky he didn’t hold onto the timepiece because he might have been stabbed.
After this horrible experience, he reminded travellers not to flaunt their belongings while travelling. He said not to assume the streets are as safe as they look.
Sekhar also reflected how grateful he is for Malaysia, saying it remains one of the safest and most welcoming countries in the world.
The court case
According to the Daily Mail, the suspect Djamel Benadda, 34, appeared in court a few days ago to plead guilty to the robbery on 27 September.
Benadda admitted robbing Sekhar but claimed the watch was an imitation and was not worth RM2.1 million (£400,000).
He also pleaded guilty to two counts of money laundering and one of theft relating to a wallet he snatched from another man, Luman You, on 13 November 2024 at Battersea.
Daily Mail wrote that more than 5,000 watches worth more than £300,000 were snatched in the capital between January 2022 and July 2025. Only 59 were found, equivalent to one in 88.
Increasing crime in Kuala London
While London once seemed relatively safe, there have been reportedly more crimes lately. Locals and travellers have been targets of phone grabs on the streets.
According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales 2024, it’s estimated about 78,000 people had phones or bags snatched from them on the street as of March 2024. It’s equivalent to 200 snatch thefts a day and a 153% increase from March 2023.
The rise in phone snatches also allegedly boosted the use of phone straps in the city as a layer of security, especially among women (aside from having no pockets in women’s clothing most of the time).
Celebrities were not off the hook as well. Not too long ago, Bridgerton star Genevieve Chenneour was attacked twice this year.
Chenneour, who played Clara Livingston in Bridgerton, was attacked just minutes before she was due to walk into an audition. She was walking round the corner at Oxford Circus when a man hit her and pushed her against a wall.
The other incident was a phone theft incident earlier this year when she was at a cafe with her ex-boyfriend.
Chenneour and her ex-boyfriend tried preventing the man from fleeing but the situation escalated when another suspect entered the cafe. The men threatened to stab her. She was left with a concussion and said she doesn’t feel safe living in west London anymore as a single woman.
While the phone thief was caught, the second suspect is still at large and it frightens her that there’s someone out there who might still harm her.
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