An Algerian migrant who spent months stalking the streets of Mayfair in search of wealthy victims wearing high-value watches has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison after stealing more than £100,000 worth of luxury timepieces from three separate victims in the space of just two months.
Abdulkarim Ienbuzir, 25, of Liverpool, was described by the sentencing judge as a “systematic predator” who knew exactly what he was looking for and loitered in some of London’s most affluent areas waiting to strike. “You found them, and you swooped,” Judge Mark Cole told him at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday.
The court heard that Ienbuzir carried out three robberies between July and September last year, each following a similar pattern — approaching a victim alongside one or more accomplices before making a sudden grab for the wrist. His first target, Finbar Breslin, was walking along Berkeley Street in Mayfair on 17 July when Ienbuzir and an associate closed in on either side of him. Without warning, the defendant seized his wrist and ripped off a £5,000 Cartier watch.
A second robbery took place on 1 August, when Ienbuzir snatched an £18,000 Hublot from Matthew Payton, also in Mayfair. The most brazen attack came on 18 September outside the Ritz Hotel, where Thomas Pope was relieved of a £85,000 Patek Philippe in what prosecutor Henna Baig described as another lightning-fast wrist grab carried out with an accomplice. Ienbuzir was identified and linked to all three offences through CCTV footage.
The human cost of the crimes was articulated most vividly through the words of Matthew Payton, who told police he “could not help but think of the worst-case scenario” during the attack — a detail the judge said exemplified the shock and fear the defendant had inflicted on his victims.
Ienbuzir had attempted to present himself as a man innocently in London to check on his asylum application who had fallen into bad company. The judge dismissed that account with barely concealed contempt, pointing out that Ienbuzir was in fact an immigration absconder who had told “provable lies” to police. He had little mitigation to offer beyond his guilty plea at the earliest opportunity, which the judge said had reduced his sentence from what would otherwise have been six years.
Ienbuzir, who remained expressionless throughout proceedings and required an Arabic interpreter, has three previous convictions for five offences, including theft in 2023 and 2024. He was sentenced to four and a half years on each count, to run concurrently.
