Drag Star La Voix Unknowingly Aided in £40 Million Diamond heist
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A celebrated drag performer’s past as a makeup artist took an unexpected turn when she unwittingly assisted in disguising the perpetrators of one of the united Kingdom’s largest jewelry robberies. La Voix, the stage persona of chris Dennis, a fan favourite from RuPaul’s Drag Race U.K. and currently competing on Strictly Come Dancing, first revealed her involvement in the crime during a 2021 appearance on the Little Did You Know podcast, with the story gaining renewed attention following recent coverage by the Daily Mail. On August 6, 2009, two armed men stormed Graff Diamonds’ flagship store in London’s West End, making off with approximately £40 million (equivalent to $73 million at the time) in rings, bracelets, necklaces, and watches.
A Routine Job Turned Criminal Enterprise
At the time of the robbery,Dennis,45,was a 29-year-old freelance makeup artist working at Charles Fox of Covent Garden,a well-known supplier for the film and theater industries. She recounted to podcast host David McGillivray that she was booked to apply aging makeup to two men, purportedly for a music video. “I was told it was for a music video,” Dennis explained. She noted that the clients were “a bit standoffish and a bit rude,” but otherwise, the job appeared unremarkable.
Dennis and an assisting colleague applied latex and makeup, meticulously adjusting the prosthetics to the men’s specifications – thay even requested adjustments, finding the initial application too realistic. The men paid £450 (approximately $810 at the time) in cash for the four-hour service and departed in a taxi. Dennis stated she “thought nothing of it” until she saw the front page of a newspaper the following morning.
Recognition and Police involvement
The newspaper featured a CCTV image of the same two men, now identified as suspects in the Graff Diamonds robbery.Dennis and the Charles Fox studio instantly contacted law enforcement, alerting both the London metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard. She was later interviewed by plain-clothed officers and provided investigators with makeup brushes, gowns, rubber masks, and the cash payment for DNA analysis. Dennis later testified in court after the men and three accomplices were apprehended and convicted in 2010.
While understandably “frightening” at the time, Dennis later learned that the police were able to quickly locate the suspects at their homes. “So, they’re not the brightest bulbs in the box,” Dennis joked, highlighting the ultimately clumsy nature of the criminals’ operation.
A Pattern of Disguise
The arrest of the Graff Diamonds robbers was aided by a series of missteps, according to The Guardian. The thieves inadvertently left a cellphone, shotgun, and four cartridges in a taxi while attempting to switch vehicles during their escape. The fate of the stolen jewels remains largely unknown, though reports from 2010 suggest they were likely broken down and resold on international markets.
This wasn’t the first time Charles Fox studio had been linked to a major heist. In February 2006, the studio supplied materials used to disguise thieves involved in the £53 million (approximately $105 million at the time) Securitas cash depot robbery in Tonbridge, Kent. In that instance, as with the Graff Diamonds case, a makeup artist was unknowingly complicit in aiding the criminals.
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Dennis has not publicly commented on the resurfacing of the story, but appears focused on her current success on Strictly Come Dancing. In a recent post on her Instagram account, La Voix expressed her joy, stating she is having the “time of my life” on the show.
https://www.instagram.com/lavoixofficial/
The incident serves as a striking example of how seemingly ordinary services can be exploited for criminal purposes, and underscores the frequently enough-unforeseen connections between seemingly disparate worlds.
